Hannah Turns 13

 Hannah's birthday was a 3-part celebration.  We took advantage of a nice, relaxing family day at home on Labor Day to start the celebration.  She got to open a few of her presents, and we all went to Coldstone for ice cream. 

working on a craft kit from Nana

Her actual birthday was a school day, and I was gone at suite retreat (with her blessing). She had a full day: the first meeting of Fellowship of Christian Athletes before school, school, cross country practice, and soccer practice.  They managed to squeeze in a few presents before bed.

I asked Scott to put these giant balloons outside her bedroom door before she got up in the morning.

Lastly, on Friday she had three friends spend the night.  I took them to get their nails done and grab some dinner.  On a whim, we then went to a thrift store.  The girls had a blast! (There are quite a few silly pictures from the thrift store, but I don't think the girls would appreciate me posting them on the internet.)

Hannah chose a blizzard cake from Dairy Queen, then made her own decoration with the tracing method we've used on quite a few cakes.

Sports Photos

I took almost none of these pictures.  

These are from that first invitational - some nice group shots and a couple that highlight how crazy muddy they were!

This was the starting line at one of Micah's invitationals.

Much different than the starting line of a dual meet!

Hannah got to compete with one of her Cornerstone friends at an invitational.

This was last week's race.  It was 85 degrees and humid, and the course was very hilly!

Then this week's race was in the 60's and raining.

Hannah got first place overall!!  The other team only had three girls running, so it wasn't the toughest competition. But it was still an exciting accomplishment!

Look at how big #77 and #99 are!

This was "youth night" at one of the high school games.  Matthew has green sleeves, #23.

The next high school football game was Hannah's turn to be down on the field.  The middle school band played with the high school marching band.

Lastly, not sports, but I had my annual Suite Retreat.  This year we went to the finger lakes in New York. I love these ladies!

The Sports Report

 (Written 8/31/23)

All fall sports are in full swing.  

Matthew has had two football games so far - one win and one loss.  His team this year is smaller in stature (I can't believe how huge some fourth grade boys are!!), so they have to compensate by the style of plays they do.  It's a work in progress.  Matthew usually plays the whole game, both offense and defense.  What we've heard from is coaches is that he works hard and listens well to instructions, so we're happy with that.

Matthew is number 23.

Hannah's soccer team has already had four games, which is half their season.  They have seven new players this season!  The up side is that they have the luxury of subs at every game.  The down side is that half the team is still learning how to play the game.  All of their games have been close, but no wins yet.  

I'm so excited that one of the new girls has a mom who is a photographer!

Scott is helping to coach Hannah's team this season.  He's one of three assistant coaches, so he doesn't have a lot of input, but he tries to speak up when he can.  Hannah has really appreciated having him.

Hannah had an amazing start to her middle school cross country career! She finished first for her team and 29th overall out of 180 girls.  Even though the course was a muddy mess, her time for two miles was under fifteen minutes.  She even got a medal for being in the top thirty! When I found her after the finish, she had a huge smile. 

Here's her finish - she's in a yellow top and navy shorts.

Her efforts earned her "athlete of the week" for her team and a couple of mentions on twitter. 

I don't know if she's actually interested in sports medicine.  She just couldn't think of what to put.

It also deserves mentioning that three of those events were back-to-back.  She had a soccer game Friday night (where she played the entire 70 minutes), cross country invitational Saturday night, then another soccer game Sunday afternoon (again did not get subbed out). She's a beast!

Her second meet was a dual meet at home.  Hannah led the race for the first mile, but couldn't quite hold on to it (maybe partially due to some pain in her foot). She still finished a very impressive second for her team and fourth overall.

Micah's first two meets of the season were the same as Hannah's.  Micah loved the Riverside night race last year. Even though the course was muddy (they had to reroute a big chunk of it due to standing water!), the boys were still able to run a great race.  Micah was sixth for his team (he stayed with the fourth and fifth place boys until the last half mile), and the team took first out of 37 teams!

a few of his friends who came to cheer

For the dual meet, the high schoolers did not go all out; their focus is on the weekend invitationals. Micah ran an "easy" 19:17 for the 5K, finishing 5th for his team.

Micah and Hannah will have another meet together this Saturday.  Then for the next several weeks the middle school will mostly have dual meets while the high school exclusively does invitationals.