First Race!

 Saturday was an exciting night! Matthew had his first football game. His team struggled and had several injuries; it was not a great start to the season. Matthew's buddy Christian had a great game...too bad he's on the opposing team. 

As soon as Matthew high-fived the other team, we grabbed his stuff and bee-lined for the car to try to make it to the cross-country meet. We managed to find a parking space and get to a spot to see Hannah starting her third mile and then finishing in the stadium.

Last Saturday the team did a two mile time trial. Hannah performed so well that she earned the honor of running in the varsity race!

This meet's varsity girls (minus Ally Hay, who sadly rolled her ankle).

Hannah absolutely crushed it with a time of 22:05!! She finished 5th for her team and 80th overall (out of 314 runners).  In her post-race write-up, Coach Loveless said, "Freshman Hannah Gurley took advantage of Marina’s leadership and ran a spectacular first HS race ever - wow, she was amazing! She was our all-important 5th runner and dang, she is good!!"

Immediately after Hannah's race was the varsity boys race. In general, Micah does not usually have a super fast start. Instead, he excels at steadily passing people and working his way up throughout the race. Not this time! I was standing by the track, which is in the first half mile of the race, and was shocked to see Micah flying along just behind the leaders! He finished his first mile in 5:11! 

Micah had set an ambitious goal for himself (17:10, I think?), because he really wanted to have one race in his cross country career under 17 minutes. He's going to have to come up with another goal for the rest of the season, because he finished in 16:53!! That's 48 seconds faster than his previous PR!! It is known to be a "fast course", and the weather conditions were fantastic, but even with those advantages cutting that much time off is incredibly rare!

 Coach Loveless said "Senior captain Micah Gurley had an unbelievable race with a HUGE LIFETIME PR, breaking 17 minutes for the first time and simply looked amazing. His race was such a highlight of the meet and we loved seeing his hard work, leadership, and dedication pay off."  The boys finished with an impressive 2nd place, just 2 points out of 1st place in a field of 41 teams. Micah was 19th overall, earning a medal for his top 20 finish. 

Video of Micah's finish

New Beginnings

 Hannah was the first to return to school on Wednesday. She is a freshman at Tallmadge High School.

Micah started on Thursday, but he only has one class at the high school this semester. His three Akron University classes start next week.

Matthew had an overnight retreat last week, then his first day of real school is today. He is going to CVCA for sixth grade. CVCA is a 25-30 minute drive for us, but thankfully we can just drive him to the Tallmadge bus garage (right across the street from Cornerstone) for him to take the bus the rest of the way there. It might take him a little while to get used to the early mornings and longer commute. 

The Saturday before school starts is "Circle Fest" - a town party with food trucks and fireworks. A bunch of Hannah's friends spent the night together and came to church in the morning. 

Seniors have the opportunity to pay for a reserved parking space. Micah and Ally got spaces next to each other. They painted them green (like their cars) and added flowers and bees (like their matching key chains). I think they underestimated the amount of time and paint it would take, but the end result is adorable!

And, of course, the fall sports are underway! With Hannah in high school, our fall schedule is actually much simpler than it has been in previous years. We've gone from having four teams to basically two! While they're technically separate teams, the boys and girls in cross country do everything together. It's so lovely to have Hannah and Micah in one place, with Micah as their chauffeur. 

They do an event at the high school called "Meet the Teams". They have some games or activities for the younger kids to do out on the field, then each team gets to run through the tunnel and have their seniors and captains announced. 

cross country seniors

Captain Micah leading out his team

girls team

Cross country had their team picture day. The wonderful Coach Loveless takes tons of extra pictures of the kids and sends them to us, including sibling pictures!

Captains

freshmen girls

Matthew also had team pictures, but I won't get those back for a while. His team had a scrimmage Saturday morning. 

helping a teammate

We squeezed in a little more summer fun:

Matthew and I went to the movie, too, but we sat separately. 

Matthew completed his tour of summer birthday parties with two different parties at Top Golf. 

We went to a Cleveland Guardians game as a family. Cleveland lost, but Hannah's ridiculous commentary kept us entertained the whole time. 

"Mom. Stop."

We also got to celebrate Gramme's birthday. We all had pizza and cookies together at Gramme's apartment. Micah had a golf lesson and work, so he had to leave early. The rest of us did a fun bike ride on the towpath and rode the train back. 

a stop at Szalay's for drinks

Hannah flagging down the train

We watched K for a couple of hours. She just keeps getting cuter!

Last Week

 Micah and Hannah went to cross country camp last week. It is not Micah's favorite, but it seems to have been "fine". Hannah said the food was "disgusting", and the water tastes weird. But I think she enjoyed time with her friends and getting to know the older girls. She even did seven(!) miles for their long run!

Eighteen girls went to camp (and there are two more freshmen who are planning to run)! Micah said it's the largest team they've ever had.

They did a "paint your teammate" craft. 

glow run

While they were gone, we finally had Matthew's birthday party. He had injured his knee right before his actual birthday, so we delayed the party to make sure he would be able to run around. We took a group of his school friends to play paintball. 

Last week was also the first week of football practice. They do four nights a week for the first few weeks until school starts. 

The knee injury also caused us to postpone Matthew's try-a-thon biking for school. Gramme, Matthew, and I did 16 miles on Friday (with a stop for a snack, of course).

Sunday was Matthew's last week in the elementary hallway at church. He had the same Sunday school teachers all five years! Scott and I have known Bryan and Michelle for over twenty years; they are wonderful. They are incredibly faithful and have taught the kids well. They are also really good at having fun. Candy, prizes, silly games, and parties have been a regular part of the past five years. Not only does Matthew want to go to church, he's also built up a solid group of friends in his grade. 

This was probably first grade. Matthew went through a phase where he wore that shirt to church every Sunday. 

We ended up watching K on Sunday.

She is not a fan of sleep, but I finally got her to nap for an hour!

This week is filled with doctor and dentist and orientation and hair cut and school supplies...because school starts next week!