4th of July

Summer has been in full swing.  We've actually spent time at the pool this year.   4th of July we hung out at home for 3 full days with 0 sports.  

Zoe wrapped up her final tournament - brutal.  Her first game she had to be there at 7am, over an hour a way.  Since they lost they didn't play again until almost 6pm. Long day, but we ended on a fun note, girl trip in Loveland at a hotel with some other teammates for the night.  

Zoe starts softball back up in August.  D's still playing baseball for a couple more weeks. Kellan continues football practice (soon to be 4 day a week practices) and is subbing in for a baseball team, his baseball season starts back up in August as well.  Somehow we ended up with 3 kids in 4 sports for the fall - not sure how that happened.  

The kids remain patient with their old mom practicing taking pictures of them.  Lots below.

On a bittersweet note...I decided to go back to work for Starz.  I am going to miss all the new people I was lucky to meet as well as my "old" friends from Starz.  As tough as it was to decide to leave Starz in the first place, it was as difficult to leave Charter.  I'm excited to start my next chapter there.  I took the week off and start on 7/28 (I had to take 7/27 off for D's birthday).  My goal for my time off is to update my LinkedIn profile from 2007 and potentially add a picture.  Granted it's already Friday...

Post to come..."Cousin Summer" with visits from their new cousin Jackson, Camila, Frank and the WA Kabischs...and their other new cousin Hobson!

4th - they couldn't wait until it got dark...

 

 

Earlier in the day...

Helmet hair

 

2.5 months later...2014/15 school completion, baseball/softball, Papa and G-ma Lawna visit, Omaha

A lot can happen in a couple of months.  Presently it's 4th of July weekend and the first weekend we haven't had anything going on.  I'll save 4th pictures until the next post which will most likely be 2.5 months from now.  As I am writing this Debi is in labor and we are all REALLY excited for another member of the family!!!  There are lots of pictures of the kids. After my dad died I was excited to have his camera and take up some photography.  I totally screwed the thing up and couldn't take a single picture.  I was heartbroken.  It's been so long I didn't remember it was screwed up and decided to resurrect it.  It works totally fine?!?! Hence my excitement to make the kids pose for some shots (most of them taken this weekend and a few below, a lot still with the old camera and horrible iPhone).

Let's see, Jim finally got Lasik.  No complications and now that it's pool season happy to not deal with contacts or the daily fight they brought.  I got shingles.  Yep.  I've never gotten myself to the doctor faster.  I compared it to a really bad sunscreen then someone taking a knife and scraping and stabbing me intermittently.  Good times.  For 24 hours I thought it would be one of those moments when I turned my life/stress levels around.  Not so much unfortunately for me or the rest of us...

Shingles, doesn't give the pain justice

D E X T E R

Dexter remains my sweet boy.  I've been absorbed with work and didn't realize until a month ago D could read as well as he can.  Horrible.  No concerns from his teacher to move him onto 1st grade next year.  I still can't imagine him going full time.  We were so lucky he was in a class of 13 and had a great teacher.  I'm guessing we will not be so fortunate next year with class size.  He finished the year with the Kindergarten circus.  He was a magician. In June he finally got to start baseball.  I never forget what a good support he is when it means going to his brother and sister's practices and games for months on end.  Such a good sport and will entertain himself for hours.  He couldn't have been more excited for it to finally be his turn.  Go ThunderHawks! (combination of the Thunder, one of Kellan's old teams and Hawks for the Seahawks).  There were only numbers 1-10 to choose from for his uniform, which meant he couldn't be number 11 like Kellan.  He came up with his own number this year - 9.  He remains Kellan's shadow.  Kellan is still pretty good about letting him hang, even when his friends are around. We dread the day that may change.

Between the elephant and lion

With his teacher Ms. Clinton

With his buddy Tanner

Last day of Kindergarten :(

I can't remember who thought of it, but D became the Furies' Mascot.

K E L L A N

Kellan survived his first year of middle school.  He placed in accelerated math, of all things, for next year.  He's now 5'3 and closing in on my height. He loves to tell us he's now a tween.  The Warriors Elite Baseball Furies had a tough season.  A losing season.  Kellan probably had one of his best seasons, he pitched well, but kids are starting to hit him.  He hit great.  Kellan is going to play his first year of tackle football - God help me. We wanted him to play at his age level, but he's actually going to play up so he can play with a couple of his friends.  One of the friend's is the head coach.  More to come on this front in August when they have their first game...

Summer haircut, the shortest he's ever gone

Old camera

Dad's camera, I can use a class.  Braces coming - Dec 8, 2015 

Z O E

Zoe finished off the year at the top of her class.  She moves onto the fourth grade in fifth grade curriculum.  By May almost all of her softball tournaments had been rained or snowed out.  She doesn't play in a league, tournaments only.  The team had been practicing 3x per week since January so it was a long time coming without a game.  To date it turns out all of her tournaments (only 3!), were over an hour a way at the same location.  All 9 am games which meant leaving the house at 6:45.  With Jim coaching Kellan and D it was typically me and G-ma (and D) who went to her games.  Zoe is feeling the challenge of playing competitively.  She is the starting first base-woman, but really wants to pitch.  We had her in pitching lessons most of the season.  She does great...when there's not a batter in the box.  We hope she sticks with it, because she throws hard, we hope the accuracy comes soon.  Her first tournament they did OK.  All the girls play up and are the younger/smaller ones out there.  The second tournament they lost both games on Sat., but barely.  They came back Sunday and one all three games (mercied the other teams) and won the lower bracket.  The third tourney they won all three games on Sat. against one team they had previously lost to, but lost their first game on Sunday.  They still have one tournament left in July...

Zoe found herself a Seahawk's color helmet.  She stands out, just a little bit.

With Richard Sherman's # 25

Champs.  Zoe top right, end.

At the game above, a terrible storm rolled in.  We were in tornado country.  This is where G-ma Chloe decided to seek shelter...

I'm not sure why it's taken me all of these years to get a cart for all the baseball ^&^% I carry around.  This was an early morning at one of Zoe's games.  As soon as I got all the stuff out of the car Dexter asks me where his shoes are.  D'Oh, so this came in handy until I could go and buy him a new pair.

Over Memorial Day we went to Elitch Garden's.  EG is an amusement/water park in Denver. I had never gone before.  Jim got the kids season tickets (same price as one day admission basically).  I spent the day with D at the kiddie part.  He's about as fond of the scary rides as I am.  Now Jim gets to hear constantly about going. 

Papa Jim and G-Ma Lawna came out to accompany us to Omaha for Kellan's baseball tournament.  We rented a van so the kids could watch movies on a TV.  We weren't quite sure how they would deal with an eight hour car ride...the TV helped.  Lawna and I spent our entire drive out there working.  I learned a ton about property management ;)

We arrived on a Wed. night and left that same Sunday.  The weather was great, no 100 degrees temps, more like 70-80's.  Unfortunately the first 48 hours were all pouring rain. The first games were supposed to be 9 am and noon and ended up being only one game at 8:15 PM!  The boys spent all day in the pool.  I won't mention the final score.  We lost one boy to an injury (off the field) 20+ stitches in his lip and a trip to the ER.  That pretty much defined the rest of the weekend...

One of our rare family photos.

The hotel water park which paid dividends over and over...They must have climbed the stairs 100+ times. 

I went to take this picture of the slides and it wasn't until afterward I noticed D in the picture.  He was sooo sad because he wasn't tall enough for the big slide. He was just standing there watching the other kids...

Pitching off a mound for the first time.

At the Slump Busters Ceremony.  The burning of the bats.

At the College World Series Opening Ceremonies

They didn't win a game, but had a great experience.  OK, may have been better had they won at least one game.  

Random Note.  It didn't snow on my birthday, but it did snow in May