Eighth Grade Graduation

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     May 8th  Alec graduated from eighth grade. Gigi and Deaux made the trip up the day before, so they could be here bright and early for the 830am ceremony.

    Alec appears to be patiently waiting.  He said the practice for this ceremony took all day on Thursday and that it was extremely boring.  Sure he felt the same way about the actual ceremony, too!

    Alec, along with 20 other kids, received the Presidential Award for Academics.  A nice certificate and a lapel or tie pin.

     By 10am, Alec was done with middle school!  We took him home, dropped him in the driveway and the rest of us were off to Jenna's award ceremony!  Never a dull moment here!

One of the Few Things I Have Been Forbidden To Buy

       The things daughters can talk their Dads into buying....There are very few things Shawn has ever asked me not to buy.  A trampoline was at the very top of that very short list.  Jenna has been asking for about 3 years now.  She asks and asks.  Then goes on to something else.  But the question always comes back.  This year it was "buy a trampoline for the lake.  That will be more safe Dad"!  So i researched that and after seeing the price ($800 range), I knew we were getting a land trampoline.  Jenna finally wore post deployment Daddy down and he agreed to a round, smaller one, with a safety net.  And thanks to Walmart and $9.95, UPS delivered it right to the front door in 2 days!

   I didn't dare start trying to put the thing together without Shawn.  The first night we did get it put up, without the safety net, before it started to rain.  Hence no pictures of jumping the first time!  Jenna patiently handed Shawn springs and screws for about 2 hours.  The second evening the safety net was put up.

    And you can see what the other kids did....

 

  or didn't do........

A Late Easter Post

    These pics got mixed in with some others, so I missed posting about spring break/Easter.  Since Jenna was traveling with my friend Amy to Savannah, we had her Easter basket delivered early.  Thanks Easter bunny!  She is the last of the kids that is interested in the surprise goodies in the Easter basket.  Alec and Alyssa just want the chocolate and money.

    Jenna's basket had a new movie to watch on the trip to Savannah, along with a notebook and pens and pencils.

   Now, a little about the trip to Savannah.  Shawn was deployed over spring break and I really didn't know what I was going to do to entertain the kids.  Alec and Alyssa want to stay home and veg, Jenna wants to go places and have play dates.  But my wonderful friend Amy was driving to see her family in Jacksonville and offered to meet Gigi just off I95 and give her Jenna and pick her up a week later! So, Jenna got to go off on her own adventure and see Ella and Joey.

 And now a few pictures of the torture these pets endure.  This is Lucky.  She showed up on the deck one morning in September.  She was less than 2 pounds and guessed to be about 6 weeks old.  I will do a post about us finding her soon, but just wanted to show everyone what our pets put up with!

Eighth Grade Dance

Yes, its been 3 weeks since I have posted.  The month of May is always busy and this year is no exception! Alec and Alyssa have had end of grade tests for a week.  Jenna's school spent 2 weeks getting everyone done.  We attended the informational football meeting at the high school and Alec signed up to play.  While I was hoping for some sort of try out and that he would get cut, that is not how it is.  Just show up, practice and you can play.  No, I am not looking forward to seeing him get all beat up out there on the football field.....

And WOW! One week from today I will have a high school student!  Scary!  But first lets finish this week!  Friday night the eighth graders had their very own dance.  This was different from the other dances since sixth and seventh had their own dance from 3p-5p.  The eighth graders went back to the school from 7p-9p.  And let me define the word dance as it is used here.  Dance means stay after school, in your normal clothes, and play various games in the gym and hang out with your friends.  There is a very small dance area and music.  But I am told no one dances. Really you just eat and play games and listen to music. So anyway, Alec did get "dressed" up in a button down shirt and nice loafers instead of tennis shoes with holes.  I wish I had someone stand next to him, as you really cant tell he is just shy of 6 feet tall....yep, taller than Shawn now!

Alyssa Turns 12!

For Alyssa's 12th birthday, all she wanted was a cheese cake from the Cheesecake Factory.  A plain one.  So I drove to Raliegh and got her one!  Of course, I ate some too, and it was worth the drive!

Her gifts from Mom and Dad included the fox shirt she is wearing, some other clothes she needed and  a new Pokemon game for her DSi.  Why no picture of the game?  Its not released til June 18th. Will update then!

 

Because ONE Soccer Team Wasn't Enough.....

So, in seventh grade, kids are eligible to try out for school sports.  Alyssa has had her sights set on playing for school since sixth grade.  Girl's school soccer is played in the spring and it has been a LLLONNG wait for the season to arrive!  Twenty one girls tried out, eighteen made the team.  Alyssa was lucky enough to be selected!  But then the reality set in.

School games are played Tuesday and Thursdays until 530.  Meaning she missed most of the rest of her recreation league practices. Coach Brittany was totally fine with this thankfully!  But Alyssa realized she really missed the girls she played with on that team!  Practice everyday after school means packing an extra bag of soccer gear, along with the large back pack full of school books.  Far away games mean getting home at 7pm to start homework.

School soccer is different than rec league soccer in many ways.  Let's start with field size.  School team plays on the football field and rec league plays on a field about 2/3 that size.  About half the school team plays travel ball.  Talk about aggressive....and they use EVERY legal part of their bodies to make contact with that ball!  We even saw one girl on another team get knocked out by heading a kicked ball.  It was kicked from the goalie box to about the 50 yard line.  These girls are FAST too.  Kaylee, who used to play rec league with us and everyone thought she looked like a road runner when she ran.  Well, she looks like she is standing still sometimes in these games, yet she is running full speed.  Amazing.  Don't get me wrong.  Kaylee runs at lightning speed.  School soccer girls are NOT afraid of the ball, at all.  Sometimes they head the ball back and forth so many times that I think we are at a volleyball game.  They do these ballet looking kicks, think split in mid air, and they actually make contact with the ball AND make it go where they want it!  One girl on our team can do a corner kick and make that ball curve in at the last moment and go into the goal!

Though the school team is not filled with her friends or even people that Alyssa really likes, she has learned a lot of skills and needless to say her endurance has improved drastically.  She has played well and hopes to play next year, when her friends from the rec league will also be on her school team (they are all in 6th grade since rec league is divided by age, not grade).

It's also very hard to get pictures at school games.  The first hinderance is the size of the field.  Then factor in the speed at which these girls run and the fact that the bleachers are level with the playing field.  We did get to play one game at the high school, so I had real bleachers to sit in and take pictures from!  So, all these games are from the New Century vs Crane's Creek Middle School game.  New Century won 8-0.

If you are having a problem spotting Alyssa, look for the black cleats with yellowish green stripes and blue laces or number 21 in purple.

 Alyssa, Kia McKibben and Kaylee Herman warming up.

A Trip Down Memory Lane

These are under the date April 2009 in my computer.  I  think that is correct and that this is the end of the year party for the U8 team.

 This is Maggie Chavis.

 Maggie, I don't know who, Alyssa, Jocelyn Wiggins and I don't know who.

Jocelyn at the table smiling and Alyssa, making sure I saw her trophy.  Really wish i could see her face!