I Love a Parade...

I love a parade...Especially when my kids are marching in it!

Soon after school started, the 2 middle school bands combine with the high school marching band for the "Band Festival". During halftime, all 3 bands combine for the music. It is a neat event for the kids to participate in!

Will is in the yellow shirt with the white bandana.

A few weeks later, three of the kids participated in the Homecoming Parade. We are blessed in the fact that the parade goes right by our house! Unfortunately, it was very hot!

In contrast to the very hot Homecoming parade, the Halloween parade was windy and cold!

Maddie brought her volleyball to pass time! Her & Alex hit it around for quite a while before the parade started.

Unfortunately, this is one of the better pictures I got of Will (Cub's jersey)! He was right in the middle!

We are done with Marching Band and parades until next Summer/Fall. Alex is excited to participate at the high school too. She decided to take this year off from extra stuff and focus on adjusting to High School. Should be a fun Fall 2019!

Quick Trip to Iowa City

After Maddie watched the movie, The Miracle Season, we knew that we needed to make a special trip to Iowa City to visit some areas that were mentioned in the movie.

We took advantage of a day off for school conferences. The day started cold and overcast but we enjoyed our time in Iowa City - stopping at the "Live Like Line" bench in memory of Caroline "Line" Found. We walked through the library (any idea which kid asked to do that??), drove around the areas mentioned in the movie/book and made a stop at West High School where Caroline attended school.

Next stop - Hurts Donuts! Yum!! We then grabbed lunch and did some Goodwill shopping.

We left Iowa City/Coralville and headed north to Lake MacBride State Park. The sun was now shining and the day had turned beautiful! We stopped at one of the lakeside docks and took some pictures while enjoying the peaceful day and amazing Fall colors.

As we continued around the lake/park, we found this swing overlooking the lake. I pulled over and we ate our donuts here!

We were quickly losing sun and needed to be to the Quad Cities by dinner time. It was a fun day spent together. Just wished we would've had a bit more time to explore the park.

A few days later, we got a call from Matt. His trip home from Oregon was changed last minute and he needed me to pick him up in Cedar Rapids that night, at 11:00. I loaded up the kids and drove the 90 minutes to pick him up. We decided to stop in Iowa City for some more donuts...because they are open 25/8! It will be a fun memory - running in and getting donuts at midnight on a school night.

Hodge Podge from Late Summer / Early Fall 2018

We quickly adjusted to our school/fall schedule. Cross Country & Volleyball practices, school clubs, youth group, football games, etc. It seems to go from nothing to everything in one week!

One evening on the way home from a Trail Life meeting in Geneseo, Will & Matt stopped to rescue this owl. "Casey Boxer" was lying on the side of the road. They stopped at a gas station to get a box to transport the owl home. Their plan was to find a local rehab rescue group to help Casey get better. Unfortunately, there isn't much in our area so Will & Matt took a trip to Hoo Haven the next evening. They met up with our friend Toni and the founders of Hoo Haven.  We knew that Casey was in great, loving hands.

It's been a few weeks and Casey is doing better. He won't ever leave Hoo due to his bad eye. He will be loved by many people and visitors for years to come. Many thanks to Toni and Hoo Haven!

Kaitee had a milestone in September - she got her braces off!! Look at that radiant, beautiful smile!

We had fun winterizing the yard and garage. I had Will climb up on the garage to clean out the gutters. The girls quickly climbed up behind him and had some fun while up there!

Will received his Trail Life Standard at the awards night in October. They followed the awards with a pumpkin carving contest.

I've been busy too - garage sale/local swaps, work, taxiing the kids, keeping up with the house. As we rearranged the basement (and sorted their Lego sets...another huge project we undertook!!), I realized that I wanted to add some canvas and art to the empty wall (used to have a bookcase there). I came across a great deal for the canvas pictures and ended up completing the wall. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!

Will braved the very cold, wet weather mid October for a camping trip to Morrison with his Trail Life Troop. He had a blast and said that the cold wasn't as bad as he thought it would be.

As Fall is in full swing right now, we start looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas. Hard to imagine!

Maddie Found Her Sport - Volleyball!

Volleyball is offered as a 7th & 8th grade sport at Wilson. Maddie fell in love with the game during her 6th grade year and inundated herself with everything volleyball. She watched volleyball YouTube videos, asked numerous questions (many discussions with the 7th grade coach), bought a volleyball and a serving tool. Matt took Maddie to the park (with volleyball net) multiple times. She attended two volleyball camps over the summer - all of this culminating in the 7th grade tryouts at the beginning of school year. There were 38 girls who tried out. They had 2 days of tryouts with the team announcement on the 3rd day. Maddie texted with the wonderful news - I MADE THE TEAM!!!! We were so proud of her dedication - even more so when we found out that most of the girls on the team had played in leagues before (I didn't even know there was such a thing in Moline!).

First game - we didn't have a clue what to expect! We quickly found out it is a fast acting, fun sport to watch.

They played in a tournament in Sterling one Saturday and ended up getting better as the season went on. They ended the season 10-4. Maddie learned a few positions as the season went on too. Serving, back row and setter became her favorites.  My favorite moment of the season was against Seton. Wilson was down 21-5 when we got the serve back. Maddie served 19 straight serves then served the 20th too long. While most of the 20 serves weren't aces, the team played well together and won the ball back so Maddie could continue to serve. We ended up winning the game and the match. Amazing!!!

Here is Maddie serving Match point. Their final game is always held at Wharton Field House (high school basketball, volleyball, etc is held at this location). The last game is between the two city rivals and is "Fight for Cancer Awareness" night. It was a fun night and Wilson won a nail biter! What a fun season!

During the Volleyball Awards Night, Maddie was given the "Hustle / 110%" award. Coach mentioned that Maddie loved to run suicides and she never had a good way to punish her! She picked her for the team because of her aggressive attitude - because coach gave her a shot, Maddie stepped it up and has become a very good, all around player.
Now we start Winter ball. Woot Woot!