Soccer and Swimming

Victoria had wanted to do soccer this year, but decided at the end of the dance season that she wasn't ready to give it up yet. I had signed her up for a soccer clinic months ago, so she went and enjoyed the week of soccer to learn more skills.

Victoria is in the black and white tank top.

The boys got to take swimming lessons. Our usual teacher who teaches at his grandma's house, ended up having conflicts this summer, so we couldn't have our usual private lessons for all the kids at a very good price. Instead, I went with the school district a little closer to Detroit, making it a little less expensive. I signed them up for the same group because it worked for their ages. I figured the girls would get that whole week of swimming in California that would help them in their swimming progress.

The boys enjoyed it and did really well. I was worried about how Erik would be with me watching. He seemed like he was going to do well for the first lesson during the first two minutes, but then he wouldn't get in the water, so another teacher brought us to the other end of the pool and she played water games with him on the steps to get him comfortable. He was ok, but after two lessons she told me to just wear my suit and get in with them. That's when it was really good! He got his own private lessons and I got to be in the water too!

Austin and Erik are at the end, you can't miss Erik's glowing white skin. This was during those first two minutes when I thought Erik was going to stay with the group. Unfortunately, this is the only pic I got because I was in the water the rest of the time!

Meanwhile, they had evaluated the other 6 kids, including Austin, and divided them into two groups. He did a great job and I'm so glad I signed them up for swimming there!

Cheerleading

My friend has been trying to convince me of signing up my girls for the local cheer leading squad for years. Her boys have always played on the football team and now her girls are cheering. It's the Plymouth Canton Steelers for kids ages 7-14. I always dragged my feet about getting involved in it for two reasons. First, it's very busy during football season, then it's done the rest of the year, so not very consistent in terms of busyness for the entire school year. Also, back when I was younger, there were no cheerleaders at age 7. You tried out in middle school or high school after hopefully having some experience in dance or gymnastics to make you a better cheerleader. I figured if my girls wanted to do it later on, after having some experience in other areas, they could decided then. 

Karissa stopped taking dance lessons a couple years ago. She stopped taking gymnastics a couple of years ago as well. They just weren't her thing, neither was soccer or anything else she's tried. Her BFF Olivia was a Steelers cheerleader last year and loved it. She is also in TAG with Karissa, so when Karissa said she wanted to try it this year, I decided to sign her up. It will be a busy few months at the start of school, but Olivia survived, hopefully Karissa will too! 

The season started at the very first day of August. Practice has been M-Th from 5:30-7:30 pm. When school starts next week it goes down to T-Th, same time. There is a game just about every Saturday until November. Luckily, she absolutely loves it! It is helpful that we carpool with Olivia, but she really does enjoy it and has been catching on pretty well. Most of the girls on her squad (the freshmen), did it last year and some even a year or two before that on the jr. freshman squad. They work them hard, as all cheer leading coaches do, trust me, I know! They run laps, do burpees, star bursts, not to mention all the kicks and jumps they need to do. 

After the second week of practice they had a showcase for the parents. She did awesome! Besides seeing cheerleaders at football games the past 20 years, I haven't really watched cheer leading since I was one myself. I forgot how much I enjoyed it! I must have had a smile pasted on my face when I watched her because my mouth hurt from smiling afterwards!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gws8-WnV2Kg

(Sorry, I couldn't get the video to post directly to here. She's in the front on the left.She goes up into the shoulder sit on the left. Don't you love how the older girls just throw her up there? This was after only 7 practices! Not bad, huh?!)

 The first game was away last Saturday, It was hot and humid, but she said she had a lot of fun. I'm so excited she has found this new talent!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKmOvCskVNE
(Halftime cheer. She's in the back on the right/middle. She goes up into the stunt on the right side.)

Before the showcase

First game!

She's in the back on the left.

Luke

I had to mourn Yoda for a while and wanted to wait until summer vacations were over before I thought about getting a new cat. Last week, I realized we ought to start looking into getting one soon so we could enjoy it before school starts. First place I checked was right in our ward through the incidentals email we have for such requests. It turned out that a newly baptized lady in our ward had adopted a kitten at the end of July. Her other cats didn't like the little guy and weren't being very nice to him:(. She said we could have him!! She had named him Arnold, but the kids wanted to rename him, of course. In tradition with the Star Wars theme, we named him Luke. Sometimes the kids say it's Luke Skywalker and sometimes they call him Lukey. It doesn't matter what they call him, though, they love him and so do Jason and I!

He's 11 weeks now and litter trained. He's very playful, so the kids feel like they've got a dog the way he chases after balls and plays with his toys with them. We're still working on table training and I'm sure we'll have some scratching training at some point, but so far he doesn't scratch his claws on the carpet or furniture. What he does do is climb up us as if we were trees, particularly me when I'm preparing food. He likes to climb up my leg and back and then perch himself onto my shoulder. It kind of hurts when he's climbing, but he's just so darn cute!! He loves canned food, but does well with dry too. He would desperately like to go outside when we're out there, so we'll have to work on training him to stay in the yard when he gets older. I brought him out yesterday for a few minutes in Yoda's harness, but it was way too big for him. I need to wait til he's a little older before I can bring him outside comfortably.

The best part about him is that the kids are no longer bored with that end-of-summer boredom. They're learning how to take care of him and enjoying playing with him. It's especially good when Erik wakes up while I'm still working out in the morning. He now has someone to play with while the others are still in bed! Also, he loves to cuddle up right next to Jason or I at night and sleeps very well at night. We keep our door shut for now at night with the litter box in our bathroom so he can be confined to a smaller space while we're all asleep. Karissa keeps her door open now, just in case Luke wants to go in when she's still asleep.

Victoria took this photo.

Sunshine!

Shoulder perch.

Karissa took this photo, though I realized she's not in any of these, but she probably holds him more than Austin and Victoria do.

He's not really strangling him here, even though it looks like it. They were having some cuddle time while watching my workout. 

Golden Campground

We booked a campsite 6 months ago so we could visit with Logan's family (remember the boy I used to watch?) at Lake Michigan. Hyuibin, his mom, moved with them to Grand Rapids, just 30 minutes from the beach. In order to get a camp site at any of the good campsites by the beach, you have to book about 6 months in advance. Of course, it turned out to be the worst weather for the beach the whole summer.

We drove right into the storm that finally hit our home in Canton. It rained the entire night on Friday, hard. There were some thunderstorms too. On Saturday it rained off and on in the morning and we got some drizzles while we were at the beach, but it wasn't too bad then. Just cloudy, windy, and not as hot as it had been, so I was kind of cold. The stormy weather made for more waves for this time of year, too. Yes, Lake Michigan has waves. I know in the winter they get pretty big, but I didn't expect them to be as big as they were in August. The kids thought it was the best ride ever!

We brought a good friend of Victoria's with us on the trip, Brynn. Her brother is Logan's older brother, Jaden's, best friend. Hyuibin and Brynn's mom Michelle are good friends too. When Logan wasn't at my house he was at Michelle's. Michelle couldn't take off work over the weekend, but ended going up to Hyuibin's Sunday night. When we left Sunday morning to make it back for church, we left Brynn there to be with her mom when she arrived. It made it a fun reunion to have a representative from the Riley family with us visiting with Logan's family.

We turned our full-size bed into a table, finally. It was too wet to eat outside for breakfast.

Cold water, but fun times!

Frisbee was hard in the wind.

Sand castles.

Austin liked riding the waves in.

So did Erik.

Burying Brynn.

Jason is waving from the water.

It's hard to see our group with the other people around.

Jaden and Hyuibin.

Cold kids. Austin is in the hoodie.

Back at the campsite. Karissa, Victoria, Jaden, Brynn, Erik, Logan, Austin.

Jason, AJ, Valerie, Jaden, Hyuibin

We made dutch oven pizza- so good!

We decided we need to make it a yearly tradition to go to Lake Michigan over the summer. The weather didn't ruin it for us!

Time Away

I was asked, for the third year in a row, to go to Young Woman's Camp (aka Girl's Camp) this summer. It's for ages 12-18, so Victoria barely missed it herself, but since she babysits now, I figured it would be a good chance to go to make it easier for the people helping with my kids while I was away for 3 1/2 days. The first two days some friends picked them up around 10, wore them out with whatever fun activities they involved them in with their own kids, and brought them home around 3. My friend, Gayla, whose kids are all grown up now, hung out with them at home afterwards while they took full advantage of their screen time. I'm sure they would have been fine without Gayla coming over, but they love her and she loves them, so I know they enjoyed their time with her until Jason got home from work. It turns out, my mom and Jim were able to leave their mission a few days earlier than originally planned and managed the drive from Philadelphia in one long day, so they got to be with the kids the other day and a half before I returned. It ended up working perfectly since Austin came down with a fever Wednesday night and was able to rest at home with Grandma and Grandpa the next day. He started feeling better just in time for Friday when they rode their bikes to the movie theater and watched the dollar movie as the beginning of celebrating Grandpa Jim's birthday.

In the meantime, I got to be a counselor for the first year girls at camp. They were all just barely older than Victoria, a couple of them her friends. The theme was "The Anchor of my Soul". All the workshops and hymns had to do with water and how Jesus Christ is our hope and anchor. I really enjoyed the messages, being with the young teenagers, and the food prepared for me and not having to convince anyone to eat! I was in charge of certifying the girls in cooking over a campfire and hiking. Each age group had a "mascot" and a color related to the ocean. We were the dolphins and our color was turquoise. I was impressed by how the girls worked hard to earn their certifications and to clean up their messes. They didn't complain on the 3 mile hike and all got along, for the most part.

 I took very good notes for Victoria's first experience at the campsite next summer. Such as, send her with bedding, not a sleeping bag (too hot!) Also, a box fan would be nice. We were in cabins and they got pretty warm at night. Bug spray (obviously) and allergy medicine will make her life much easier! I hope I get to go again next year!

Fourteen girls in my group from the Stake and the three in the back are the Youth Leaders. There were two other Adult Leaders besides me.

After we got our nice white anchor shirts, they did a color "run" and "tie-dyed" the shirts. It was more like a run-ten-feet-into-a-bunch-of-color-dust, rather than an actual run, so I opted to take pictures and keep my shirt white.

Learning to build a fire.

It's burning!

I showed them how to make orange cinnamon rolls. Put a cinnamon roll in a hollowed out orange and wrap it in foil and put it in the fire. Delish!

The hike

Our evening devotional the first night.

The last night we had a "Desserted Island" party. Lots of desserts were served. This was coconut sorbet in a coconut shell- to die for!

Grandpa's birthday celebration with pie after I returned. 

Grandpa's favorite thing: work on projects! He helped redo our deck.

He also made a ramp for the boys to shoot their cars down.

 I got to sleep in my bed one night, then we had to take advantage of Grandma and Grandpa being here again and go celebrate our 17th wedding anniversary. It was planned very last minute, allowing time to be dedicated to the deck on Saturday. We enjoyed a nice dinner at Carrabba's and stayed at the Marriott to enjoy swimming and the hot tub there. The next day was our anniversary and Sunday, so we enjoyed the breakfast at the hotel and then came back, but it was nice to relax together alone!

Pool selfie!

Marriott breakfast

Erik doesn't like these group shots, remember?

But he does like these more personal ones... (our friend Bethany is pictured here)

He even let Bethany paint his toes!

And fingers...

 I finally got Grandpa away from the work at our house and took everyone to Belle Isle, while Jason went back to work.

Detroit in the distance.

The Detroit river isn't too bad!

 I enjoyed my time away, but it's good to be back with my family again. I love them!