Double Gold!

This has been a great season for Karissa with cheer! She really loves this sport and it shows! She never missed a practice, except when we were on vacation, and loved practicing her routines at home. This was her first year on Varsity. They had a huge squad, 26 girls (more than the football team!), which made it even more fun, especially since last year the JV squad was so small. A bunch will leave next year as they move unto high school, but hopefully it will still be great. With traditions like different themes for practices (pink out, wear your favorite jersey, black out, crazy socks), writing notes to each girl on the squad to read at competition, and the stuffed animal exchange (that actually happens with each squad), its made these girls become closer and really have fun at practice. It helped for when they had some extra practices to prepare for competition or weird times to accommodate different school field trips, volleyball tryouts, and to rearrange the cheer and dance because of injuries 3 days before competition!

Though we lost all of the football games by many points, those cheerleaders always had fun cheering. The ironic thing is, they had their first play off game on Saturday, which everyone gets to play at, no matter how many losses, and our team actually won! But, the cheerleaders had a long practice beforehand to prepare for competition the next day and finalize the changes due to the few injuries, so they decided not to cheer at the game after all (also, it was raining). So, we get to go to the next round of play offs! 

At competition, the girls performed so well! Round 1 was the cheer and Round 2 the dance/stunt portion. Rochester took first place in Jr. Freshman, Freshman, and JV and our Steelers took 2nd for all those, but our Varsity took first and Rochester took second in both rounds! Which meant we also got the "best overall" trophy for Varsity. I was so proud of them all and glad their hard work paid off! 

One more game this weekend, unless by some miracle we win again. Let's go Steelers!!

Right before they took the mat. Karissa is on the left in the second row, but in front.

Here's the cheer and dance videos. Karissa is on the left for the cheer and on the right for the dance. The far right for the stunts.

Waiting for the results with their stuffed animals from the exchange in the middle and their special gifts bags full of the notes from each other.

After we heard we had won gold!

Carrying back the trophy for the overall best!

Happy girls!

Karissa and Olivia

Fabulous coaches- Kelcie and Kali.

Tough Stuff

Erik is a tough boy, if you didn't know that already! A couple of weeks ago, while I was dropping off and picking up from piano and dance on that particular Tuesday, he noticed Luke (the cat) had gotten outside, somehow. He ran out, chased him, and grabbed him. On the way in, Luke got mad and bit and scratched Erik on the forehead, but Erik continued to hold him and bring him inside while Luke struggled to get free. Once in, he was bleeding a lot, enough that Victoria called me and told me what had happened and that there was a lot of blood (head wounds...). I was home in a few minutes to drop Karissa off and pick Victoria up to take her to dance. I didn't even go inside. Karissa cared for the wound and cleaned it and put a band aid on for him. That was that. By the time I got home from dropping off Victoria at dance and picking up Austin from piano, it was pretty much forgotten. He just had a regular band aid on his forehead and everything looked normal.

Two days later, his eye right below where he had been attacked started to look a little swollen and red. (Let me just say how glad I am that Erik wasn't scratched in the eye to begin with!) When it was the same the following day, Jason and I decided we should take him to the doctor. I sent a picture to my sister, who's a nurse, to confirm. That night we noticed puss coming out. At the doctor the next day, they said said he could have Cat Scratch disease, which I had never heard of! They prescribed him antibiotics, even though the culture wasn't back yet, though we weren't sure the culture would come back positive because all the puss was pretty dry after Jason cleaned it out very well the night before.

Taken right before I called my sister.

Taken right before the doctor came in. His cheek was starting to look swollen and you can see some of the dried puss.

Who would have though our cat could do this! Luke even went to the vet that week for his yearly and I knew he didn't have any diseases himself.

Sure enough, the antibiotics, cleared him up. When the doctor called, they couldn't confirm it was Cat Scratch Disease, but to keep taking the antibiotics.

In the meantime, Erik kept picking up Luke when he was naughty, and tossing him aside. He never complained once! He's one tough boy!

Celebrating 15 Years

Victoria turned 15 on Friday. She had a birthday party with some friends the Friday before because it was Homecoming at her school on her birthday. She and her friends weren't sure whether or not they would attend the game (because Salem's football team is awful!), so to be on the safe side, they partied the week before. I wasn't as sold on the idea of doing the party the week before. I kinda wanted to do all birthday stuff on her birthday, but it worked out great in the end.

She wanted to have one of her traditional parties of having a taco bar and going to the pool. So, that's what we did! I made tacos, rice, guacamole, and all the toppings. Chips, grapes, carrots, donuts, and apple cider in addition for those hungry girls! Before we went to the pool, she opened presents and had cake and ice cream. It turned out that Austin and Erik went to their school for Miller movie night and Karissa had cheer practice, so after dinner, it was just Victoria and her friends, which she enjoyed! One girl left before swimming, so I took the other 5 to the pool for open swim.

Karissa had already left for practice by this point, but here's the rest of the dinner group.

Goof offs!

Mallory is Victoria's new BFF and also in our ward!

Sabrina is an old friend and her mom is Karissa's art teacher!

Emma

Sarah

Rayven

Right now at the Summit, they are hiring new life guards. Victoria realized as we arrived that she could get a job there next year! She's the oldest of her friends, some having just turned 14 over the summer, so they thought that was pretty cool. What I thought was cool was that while they were enjoying the water slide, lazy river and jumping in the water, I could to my swim workout that I couldn't do earlier that day since I was prepping for the party. It's nice when they get older! Especially when they started flirting with the life guards! I enjoyed observing that! It turns out, one of them is a Sophmore at the PARK and the other a Senior. I realized that this might be the last time she has a party there, since they might become too much of a distraction for those poor life guards!

After we returned, they hung out til everyone went home. It was a pretty easy party.

It turned out that on her birthday it was raining and her friends and she decided not to go to the game. They lost 56-0, or something horrible like that, so it was just as well. After Victoria and I picked up Karissa from school, we went to a new cute candy/ice cream shop. Ice cream and smoothies are 1/2 right now because it's new. They even had Mochi, which the girls were excited about, so we tried some of that too- yum!!

Karissa took these lovely birthday pics.

Ice cream!!

Since I didn't know what Victoria's plans were and if she would change her mind last minute, I let Karissa make plans with her friend Olivia to go to a play with her family that evening. After Jason and the boys came home, we ate a quick meal of Victoria's favorite: salmon, potatoes, and broccoli and the cake that Karissa made for her. She opened presents and then Karissa went off with the McClains. Victoria and I decided to go shopping for new orchestra clothes for her. At the high school level, they're more strict with what they have to wear. That was the last of her birthday presents and we enjoyed that time shopping at Kohl's and then Ulta for some face masks to prepare her for the next day's event: the Homecoming Dance!

She's so full of hot air that she blew out all 15 in one breath!!

She went with her friends and they got ready together at Emma's house and had pizza there. Amaya's mom took them home, so I had it easy.

Sarah, Emma, Amaya, Victoria

Victoria's living up life now with her friends, driving, attending high school, playing in the orchestra, and dancing. Practice for competition starts in a couple weeks, and then she'll be dancing 5 days a week. I enjoy having this spirited, fun, and free daughter and watching her grow into this amazing young woman!

Happy Birthday, Victoria!

Driver's Training- Check!

Victoria has her driver's permit- ahhhhhh!

Here in the Motor City, and surrounding areas, kids can start driver's training at 14 years and 9 months. Being the planner that I am, I signed her up at the end of last school year to take the three week class at the beginning of August. It was as soon as she could do it, while still being over the summer so we wouldn't have another thing to do once school and dance started. You can't miss a single day of the three hour class, so it worked out that not much was going on for her then. I had signed her up for the class held at Salem High, her school, so she could get to know the building.

 After the class, she had to go on 6 drives with an instructor from All Star, the company we went with. That was trickier because she signed up for drives and some weren't good times for us because we went on vacation that last week of summer, so we had to work around that, and other random things. She finally finished her last drive last week, after one was rescheduled. We went to the Secretary of State on Thursday and got her permit! It's a good thing we started the process so early, since she got her permit a week and a day before she turns 15. Lucky girl! Now, she has to drive 50 hours, 10 at night, with Jason or I, or anyone else who is licensed and over 21 that we approve of. It's very different for me to have her driving every time we go somewhere. She does a pretty good job, I just have to get used to it!

Her first drive with All Star.

BTW, Jason traded the van in two weeks ago for a black Ford Fusion. It's a 2015 and is nice and sleek. The van was having just too many problems and we finally paid off Cinnamon. We named our new car Pepper, though Victoria calls it Peppa. Guess who gets to have it in 2 or 3 years???