Busy weekend

The weekend started with our MS youth group participating in a 30 hr Famine. If you are not familiar with that the kids get pledges to go 30 hours without eating and the monies raised get sent to World Vision to help feed hungry kids. We plan a lot of fun activities to keep the kids busy while they aren't eating. The picture below is of broom ball at a local ice rink that we went to Friday night.


On Saturday we split the kids up and went through the local neighborhoods on a can/food drive for a local organization named Love INC. That cares for people right here in our community.

Mark called Saturday afternoon to let me know he had shot a deer. He had been up north hunting from Friday until Sunday morning. Yeah for success!

Sunday after church we celebrated Kaylyn's birthday with my family.


My parents requested a picture of Emily to go with the other school pictures of their grand kids so my sister had asked me if I could take one for them. So after a lot of pictures like the one below from an unwilling Emily...


We did finally get one that I believe is frame worthy.

After the birthday party we had hurry off to a soccer game for Anna. She played great! The game ended in a 1-1 tie. She is #39.


Funny story... Mark was sleep deprived from hunting and I was from the 30 hour famine so we were both really tired Sunday. Anna has to be to the soccer field 30 minutes early. When we got there we got a parking spot right in front of the field. We decided to just wait in the car. Well we both FELL ASLEEP in the car and woke up with the game 10 minutes into it. Opps!

Tough and Pretty!

I can't believe it is another Senior Year in our house. My oldest daughter will be saying goodbye to HS and hello to college. I have had so much fun watching her grow and mature. She is one determined young lady and when she sets her sights on something she gives it all she's got.


She had a soccer game Saturday. Oh boy was it hot but that didn't keep her from giving it her all. Here she is getting ready to give the soccer ball a header.


Here she is helping to defend the goal from a corner kick.


Here she is... okay here she pretty much just looks confused but then again so does the referee.


And here she is all prettied up ready to head off to her last Homecoming dance. Doesn't she clean up well?

Yes, you might get slammed against the wall!

Anna is on an indoor soccer team right now. I see it as a mix between hockey and soccer. It gets very intense but it is really fun to watch.

What sports do you enjoy watching?

Life is busy

I have so much to blog about and so little time to do it.

Zack's track is keeping us busy you can also keep up to date with that at his blog Zack's Journey.

Anna had an excellent soccer game last night and scored 3 goals which she tells me is called a "hat trick". We weren't able to be at her game because we were at an awards dinner at school for her and Zack were she got an award for being a scholar athlete. She also got pulled up to varsity for a game on Monday night. She has been a very busy girl also.

Kaylyn will have her last track meet tonight if the weather allows. She is throwing 29' 9" and pole vaulting 5'9". Her goal for the year is 30' and 6' so hopefully tonight won't be canceled and she will have a great night.

Libby has not had hives since Saturday so we are hopeful that we have seen the last of them for this bout of them. Once she has been hive free for 2 weeks we will start weening her off her medicine again. Hopefully we can get her off them for a month and tested before another episode of hives. Maybe I should enforce a rule of no eating new food for awhile. Not a bad thought...

I got a new camera out of necessity for a Mother's Day/Birthday/Anniversary gift. Mine died right after Zack's regional meet. It was already having some issues so it was only a matter of time before we would have to replace it but with Prom and State track meets coming up there was no waiting.

So here are some random pictures from me playing with my new toy and then I had to include one Prom picture. When exactly did he grow up?

Zack and Tricia

Zack

Anna

Kaylyn

Libby
(Little explanation... my new camera has a feature that it can detect when someone smiles and then snaps the picture on it's own so I told Libby to smile and I guess she thought it had to be a really exaggerated smile. LOL!)

Last but not least here is a picture that is getting a lot of feedback of Zack and his friend Stephen taken before Prom. They are in track and choir together. Funny picture! Mark took it with his camera. Thank goodness because I missed it wile trying to figure out the new camera. There is a bit of a learning curve with it. Wink!

Monday Sports Recap

Since my life revolves around sports right now I figured I might as well save all the sports related posts for one day of the week and I pick Monday. So here is some of what happened since last week Monday.

Monday-
Anna had a home soccer game. It was horrible weather. In fact every other school sport was cancelled due to the weather but not soccer. Libby and I watched the first half and then at half time I could tell Anna was freezing so I gave her my headband and gloves but that meant I had to watch the rest of the game from the parking lot. It wasn't a terrible view but it was hard to see who was who from that distance. They tied 1-1.

Wednesday-
Anna had a home soccer game and Kaylyn had an away track meet. Kaylyn's track meet was close to Mark's work so he went to watch her and Libby and I watched Anna's game. What a difference in weather from Monday! It felt wonderful to be outside Wednesday. Anna's team won their game and Anna made a goal. I got a picture of it too but it is kinda hard to tell what is going on in the picture.


Kaylyn placed first in pole vault at 5'0". She wasn't sure where she placed in shot put but had a toss of 27' (I think-since she doesn't want to do shot she isn't good about remembering her distance. Coach makes her do shot because she can usually take first in it.)

Thursday-
Zack had a home track meet. It was an amazing day for him! He broke our area record that had been set in 1968. Go here to read more about it. There is also a neat write up about it here.

That is one happy coach!

Friday-

Anna had an away soccer game. The weather was GORGEOUS. The other team didn't have enough JV players to field a team so they had to forfiet (we get the win) but instead of going home without playing they put together a scrimmage using some of their varsity players. Anna scored 2 goals. They won 3-0.

Saturday-
Zack had an away track meet. Again he had an amazing day. It was a relay which means you combine the marks of 2 throwers and use that combined distance. Him and his teammate CJ broke 2 of the meet's records (one set in 1966) for both shot and discus. You can read about it here. There was a 30 minute lightening delay part way through the meet and then the entire meet ended early because of severe weather so not all of the races got to be completed. Bummer.

Here is Zack and CJ after breaking the shot put record. Along with their teammate Anna trying to get in on the picture. LOL!

Now I have to go catch up on laundry. It seems to get put to the back burner around here when life gets busy. I here a lot of "Mom, did my uniform get washed?" and the reply is usually, "Yes dear, it is in one of the laundry baskets of unfolded clean clothes you will just have to look." But at least it is clean right?

Sports are officially in full gear here.

We are in our busiest season as far as kids go and Mark at work too because it is spring and he works in a greenhouse which means he is back to working Saturdays. Zack and Kaylyn are both in track and Anna is in soccer. Here are some highlights from last week.

Kaylyn took 2nd in shot put at her track meet on Wednesday. Here she is with Zack looking on. The HS track team works the MS track meets.

Then she went over to pole vault and took first. Way to go Kaylyn! An excellent day.

Anna had a home game against Hamilton Friday. She is #10. They lost this game 0-1 but they won their game earlier in the week 3-0 and Anna scored 2 of the goals. Great job Anna! In the picture it might appear that her socks don't match but actually she is a captain and is wearing a captain's band on her leg.

Zack had a huge week this week in shot put. He re-broke his personal record (which is also the school record) 4 times this week. His biggest throw was Saturday with a toss of 64' 7.5". We are waiting for the listings to be updated but it looks like this will put him 6th in the nation and 1st in the Midwest (OH, IN, MI, IL, WI). To see video of Zack's throw you can check out his blog.

He also took first in the discus with a throw of 174'.

Kaylyn also had a track meet on Saturday but I couldn't be there because I was at Zack's. She took 5th in shot put with a toss of 26'. That was great because the track meet was with a lot of school in bigger districts than what we are in.

We will be back at the soccer fields tonight and hopefully the rain will have stopped by then.

Smiles!

Soccer

Anna had a soccer tournament Saturday. It was so cold. We watched her first game from the Suburban because Libby had just taken a shower and her head was still wet. The girls played great and took 2nd place.

Way to go girls!

Sports in review

Nothing to blog about so I will give an update on this week in sports so far....

Monday

Kaylyn
Shot Put 19'?" (she couldn't remember)
Pole Vault 5'6"

Tuesday

Anna
Soccer (Us) 3- (Them) 2
Anna scored 1 goal

Zack
Shot Put 61'8.75" (new record)
Discus 169'7" (new record)

Gearing up for the Spring sport schedule.

Life is going to get crazy now..

Anna starts soccer practice today.

Kaylyn starts track practice today.

Zack has his first track meet at GVSU for HS today.

Poor Libby is going to get toted around a lot here in the next couple months. Hopefully she will be a good sport about it. She loves to be outside so as soon as it warms up a bit I am certain she won't mind.

I am concerned about how they are going to hold all these practices today WITH SNOW ON THE GROUND! My kids feet are going to freeze.

Zack's meet is indoors so at least he won't have to worry about being cold. Unfortunately though that means he will only get to throw the shot put today and not the discus. The discus can't be thrown inside most building because it goes to far, you need more room.

Here is a little bit of interesting sibling information for y'all. Zack and Kaylyn get at each other more than any of my kids. We can't even get through a dinner without one of them getting annoyed with the other. Yet Kaylyn wants to throw Shot Put and Discus and Zack has been encouraging her to do it. Isn't that great how God is working at giving them a common interest. I love that!

Smiles!