The End of Cross-Country

Our second oldest has enjoyed being on the cross-country team this year.

It has been a great experience for him.

 He has had a lot of fun.

 He has learned how to work hard,

 how to pace himself,

and how to reach for his goals.  

 We have enjoyed watching him.  It was especially fun to go as a family to cheer for him at his district meet.

 He had a great meet and his team finished second in the district.

His race time from his first meet to his last meet improved by 2 minutes!  We are so proud of him!

Fun Run

Our elementary school puts on a fun run every year emphasizing fitness.

The kids were excited to run in it.  Our youngest ran a whole mile...but went out very fast.  He sprinted the first quarter mile. 

 Our third-grader started out a little more conservatively and ran very wisely finishing 4th overall.

 Our first-grader was glad when it was done!

 Our daughter ran with the upper grades.  They ran 1.5 miles.

 She also ran very wisely and kept a very steady pace.  She was the first girl finisher...

and won a $10 gift certificate to Subway.  Way to go!

Building a Deer Rifle

Our second oldest worked hard this summer and earned some money. 

He spent some of that money on his very own deer rifle.

He bought a .243 Winchester and detached the barrel, but kept the action and the stock.

 He then attached a .260 Remington barrel to make a brand new rifle.

 His shooting coach is the one with all the machinery.  It took many hours of late nights, grinding, aligning, etc...

 but finally the old action and new barrel were ready to be bedded.

 It had to set for 48 hours and then...

 he finally got to shoot it!  It shoots very well and is a great accurate gun.

Now he is ready for the deer hunt!!

Soccer, 25 years later

This fall I had the privilege of playing on a women's city-league soccer team.

 It was a lot of fun!  It has been about 25 years since I last played soccer and I was a bit rusty, but it was still a really fun experience.

 My husband's sister-in-law plays soccer regularly.  She's the one who asked me to come play.  I'm so glad I did.

 We weren't a great team, but we weren't a bad team either.  We played every Saturday for about 10 weeks and then participated in a tournament.

 The kids had fun watching and especially liked halftime because they could go play on the field.

 We lost our first tournament game, but then won our next two games to compete in the final.  We finished second in our division.

Here's our team (except two).  We are holding up our goalie...she was a great goalie with lots of saves.  Fun times!