College Football

On Saturday we were blessed by friends and had 4 tickets to the Oregon State Beavers football game against UCLA. Unfortunately, OSU lost. However, we had a really fun time and the kids got to enjoy a whole new experience. Our seats were awesome too.... between the 45 and 50 yard line (see picture for our view). It was a great day for a football game.


The weather turned on us for Sunday and we got quite wet at Kristin's soccer game. Kristin played well and didn't complain about the sideways rain. Kellen hid under a blanket for most of the game to try to stay dry. :) Kristin's team won 4-0.

US Soccer

Last night I got to take Kristin to the US v Canada women's soccer game in Portland! Kristin really enjoyed watching the World Cup this summer, so when we heard the US team was coming to Portland to play a friendly against Canada we got tickets. She had a blast and so did I. The energy there was crazy and US won 3-0! Kristin even has a new Wambach shirt. :)

Before the game yesterday, Kellen and I ran some errands. He has been asking to be Spiderman for Halloween this year, so we ended up finding him a costume yesterday. He likes Spiderman a lot these days, all based from reading a book about Peter Parker becoming Spiderman. :) Kellen also starts Lunch Bunch next Monday at preschool where he stays for an extra hour and has lunch with friends. This meant he needed a lunch box. Of course he wanted a Spiderman lunch box. We got super lucky and got the last one at Fred Meyer yesterday. Kellen told me yesterday that he wants to be Peter Parker when he grows up. :)

Molars

Kellen is getting his 6 year old molars already! One of them has broken through and two others are close. He's been on and off not wanting to eat over the last two weeks or so and we finally figured out why over the weekend. He's been a trooper through it all though. Getting to go to his new preschool has been a great distraction I think.

Kristin is doing the running club at lunch recess again on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Tuesday of this week, she came home with 7 tick marks on her hand, meaning she ran 7 laps. The track is 1/4 mile long. 1.75 miles during recess, wow. Sounds like she ran the first mile in 10 minutes. Go Kristin!

Left Foot

I may have jumped the gun when I said it would be harder to get wetter than we did yesterday... if it wasn't wetter today then it sure was close.

So here is a bit of nomenclature for you. PDA soccer is short for Player Development Academy within Kristin's soccer club. For players 10 and under, the club has a recreation side and a PDA side. The PDA side is sometimes referred to as the competetive side for kids 10 and under. Starting in 5th grade, the competetive side is called 'Classic' soccer. The difference being that anyone can join PDA. At the Classic level there are tryouts. And much more travel to various tournaments around the Pacific Northwest. Currently, Kristin's PDA team has two squads for the league they play in. A 'Navy' team and a 'White' team (the two colors of the club). Kristin is on the Navy team. Kristin's rec team plays on Saturdays and her PDA team plays on Sundays. Both through October.

Kristin's PDA team had a game today. It ended up being pretty lopsided in favor of Kristin's team. Kristin got in on the action and had two goals and one was even with her left foot. She was pretty proud of that.

Kellen was a trooper for the game. It helped that one of the other girls' little brother was there for him to play with. There were some big night crawlers that came to the surface with all the rain and they had fun picking them up and creating general havoc with them.

Back to Soccer in the Rain

Wow did we get wet at Kristin's rec league soccer game this morning. No pictures due to the weather, but much better results for the girls this week. Since her rec team doesn't have enough players on the roster to have any subs during the game, we recruited a couple of Kristin's friends from her competitive team to join us. Yep, we brought in some ringers. Kristin's team won 3-2 and included goals from Kristin and the two guest players. But all of the girls had a lot more fun since the score wasn't lopsided and they even won. Kristin started the game in the striker position and her first rush resulted in her knocking the wind out of the goalie with her shot. Her second rush ended in a goal. After that, the other team had her marked up pretty well. Later on, she played the ball with a header off a throw-in by the other team. That was pretty cool to see.

Tommorow she has her league game for her competitive team. Even if it rains I think we'll stay drier than today!

Kellen and I did a lot of playing today with his little people characters. He likes to play with the farm set and the garage set.

Field Trip to the Garden

Here are some pictures from Kellen's first preschool field trip to the garden. They even had someone bring in a furry friend (bunny) in a cage that the kids got to feed. Kellen really enjoyed that! Kellen also had fun picking some vegetables and flowers. Then the class got to go across the street to play at the park and have snack. What fun!

Field Trip Tomorrow

Kellen gets to go on his first field trip for preschool tomorrow. He is excited to go... now. At first he didn't want to go (to the garden), but when we said there was dirt there he got excited. He is just not a big fan of most vegetables, so the garden does not sound fun. I think the kids are going to have lots of fun! The preschool has a garden plot at a community garden in town. We drove by earlier this week and the sunflowers are very, very tall! The kids get to pick and pull some vegetables and flowers.

School is going well for Kristin. She has somehow managed to have no homework yet. I get to go in for my volunteer time on Friday to get homework folders ready... so it is coming. Kristin lost tooth number 9 last night, a couple hours after our visit (checkup) to the dentist. She has two other loose teeth too! Kellen even has two loose teeth! The Tooth Fairy is going to be visiting a lot.

The weather cooled off today and we even had some of Oregon's fine mist this morning. It is nice to have some cooler weather and have the air conditioning off.

Shiner

Kristin got a shiner today at softball practice. During warmups even. She was playing catch with her friend Lively. Lively has a lively arm. A little too much mustard for Kristin.

Here's Kellen showing off his new preschool T-shirt. He sure does love it so far.

Busy Weekend Ahead

Another busy weekend in store for us. Kristin has a rec soccer game in the morning, a scrimmage for her competitive team in the afternoon, and softball practice on Sunday. And to think Kellen will likely start soccer next spring and continue with T-ball... life is accelerating again! We do enjoy it though - lots of things to do as a family.

Kellen had his second day of preschool today. He absolutely loves it. He got a school T-shirt today to wear on future field trips. He was so excited about it that he put it on after class and wore it the rest of the day.

Kristin had soccer practice tonight, or 'training', as the soccer, er football, folks seem to call it. I ended up having to work late so I met the family at practice. Kellen was pretty tired so after a few minutes he and I came home to get in and out of the bath before Kristin's practice was over... Kellen has discovered a video series called 'Mighty Machines' that is about various big trucks, construction equipment, trains, etc... He loves that too. We are borrowing one from the library right now and he wanted to put it on after bathtime.

Here are a few photos from when the Blairs visited.

Kellen Starts Preschool

Today was Kellen's first day of preschool at Wee Wisdom! He did great at drop off with no tears or fit. He was the first one in his class to get up and go to the teacher when the red group (name tags are red) was called. Go Kellen! Sounds like the class had a great first day. There are 12 kids in Kellen's class and it appears there are 7 or 8 boys in the group.

First Day of 3rd Grade

Wow! Kristin started 3rd grade today. It is 8:40am and class started about 5 minutes ago. :) She was super excited this morning and got ready fast.

Summer Wrap-Up

This last week has been busy. The kids finished swim lessons on Friday with the fun day with slides, playing games, etc. They were all smiles. Neither of them passed their level, however Kristin is really close. Just a little more work on swimming across the pool without stopping and working more on side breathing instead of popping up with "alligator eyes." She did great though and had a lot of fun with her two teachers. Kellen needs to get more confident and be able to swim some on his own before he moves up to the next level. This is a big step for each kid. More time in the pool and he will get there.

On Thursday, the kids and I had a picnic lunch with Aaron at the park near his office. Afterwards I took the kids to Oaks Park for the second time this summer. A good way to spend a day in the last week of summer. The first picture is of the kids 2nd run on the kid roller coaster. They got to sit in the front for the first time and they were so excited! Thursday evening was Ice Cream Social night at Kristin's school. She got to take her school supplies in and see her new classroom. She is pretty excited to start school on Tuesday. Of course, the ice cream part was a hit too!