Fall Sports & Getting Ready for Winter

 You know that saying, the early bird gets the worm?  Well sometimes it's true.  And sometimes you do a bunch of work and then you have to redo it because if you would have waited, you would have had all the info and it would have been better, or more clear or whatever.  I feel like trying to get ready for wrestling has been like that.  But we're getting there.  I just need to figure out the sweet spot. When will all the info be in, but it won't be too late to get things lined up.  Still unclear.

I've been going to around 2 or 3 football games a week (yes, he's been playing in JV, C and then Varsity).  I skipped the Friday night game this last week.  Too cold.  Too rainy.  I was just too done.  Then one swim meet a week.  (Thankfully all indoor :)

So I haven't had much time for writing. But finally yesterday was clear, and my mom had given me notes on the 2nd manuscript that I really wanted to get to.  So I got in several hours yesterday.  I hope to keep writing and do a few more queries before wrestling season starts.  I'll need to finish book two (working title Stand Up) and get some more beta readers.  Let me know if you want in?  Book one (working title Reversal) is ready to query for real, and I have 3 names of agents from WIFYR.  Why not?  I'll see if they might want it.  Maybe tomorrow morning.

We're celebrating Sarah today--she turns 18 this week.  Crazy.  She had a great time at the Shorecrest Homecoming last night with her choir friends.  More on her birthday next week.

Number 9 on C team.  29 on JV and Varsity

Mimi & Papa Visit Sept 2026

 I didn't get enough Randall time this summer.  I spent the first week of summer (which was actually my last week of school) in Utah at the WIFYR conference with my mom.  It was so fun.  But then I never went back to Utah, never got to hang out with them again.  I got the great idea to have them come visit us here during the fall sports season. They've never seen Ben play football or seen Sarah swim or dive.  

I hunted down a week where Sarah could swim and dive at the same meet AND Ben had a JV game (since he doesn't really get varsity playing time this year).  (Sarah can only dive at about 1/2 of their meets because not all of the pools have dive tanks.  For those meets they dive the day before at practice.) Anyway, we found the perfect week.  Ben had a JV game on Monday, Sarah had a swim/dive meet at Kamiak on Tuesday.  We had a mostly free Saturday and Sunday to spend time together.  Perfect.

Well, it never turns out quite as expected.  I was just getting over a cold and Ben came down with something serious while they were here.  He sequestered to his room, but had fever, body aches, even some vomiting.  Poor guy.  So he wasn't really up to playing football, which was good.  Because his game was cancelled.  Shorecrest couldn't field a JV team.  

Sarah did get to swim and dive.  It was really fun to watch her do a great job.  (She felt like she could have done better, but still--she hit all 6 dives.) 

We ate all the Seattle mandatory foods (teryaki, Ivars) and they did a downtown tour with Derek on Monday while I was at school.  They got piroshki from Piroshki Piroshki.  SO SO good. We went to the Ballard locks to see the salmon running.  Unfortunately a sea lion was blocking the locks, so we saw them running from the sea lion instead of going through the locks.  

We also completed a fun puzzle.  I seriously have the BEST parents.  It was hard to see them go. 

Sarah with Coach Keela (wearing the shirt we made her last year!) 

Finished puzzle!  They worked on it a lot while I was at school and my long range facility planning meeting.  

It is hard to get good pics of dives!

Ivars

My mom won the Scrabble game. 

Derek was not happy about the Scrabble loss. 

Beautiful day at the Ballard locks

  

Fall Sports Update

We're having a fun fall sports season.  It's kinda fun to have a season where we are about playing and having fun doing sports that aren't our real family sport.  Sarah is doing both swim and dive this year (last year the swim & dive practices were at the same time, so she chose dive).   She's pretty tired at the end of the day (and hungry!) but having a good time.  She's doing captainy things like helping plan a team party and picking fan gear for the team shop.  She did her first 6 dive meet and helped score some points for the team.  (It was during practice, since they don't have a dive tank at the pool where they had the meet, and I couldn't get there.). I did get to time for the swim meet and saw her getting it done in the pool.  No PRs so far, but she's got time. I told her she should swim each meet like she might have stitches preventing her from swimming in the next meet (like happened last year.) 

Grammy got to go see her at the jamboree too--so I got a picture from her of that day.  

Seniors get pink caps! 

Ben goes back and forth about whether or not he should do football next year.  Depends on the day (or even on the hour).  But he's loves being part of the team.  He likes it when he gets in the games, and he could still grow, right? 

There will be some JV games.  So he'll probably get more playing time in those games.  Let's hope.  Especially the one my parents are coming up to see! Let's go #29.  

Back to School 2026

Okay, what is the face I'm making?  Yeah.  It about sums it up.  I really felt like I was going to change jobs this summer.  Had 3 interviews.  No takers.  So I'm back in fifth grade.  And I really do feel good about it.  I love what I'm doing.  It just feels like a lot when you add seminary and wrestling stuff.  I feel like the answer to my prayers has instead been a mindset shift.  I don't have to get worked up over every little thing. So I'm trying not to.  Also I have a class of 31 again.  So far they seem to be an easier bunch than my last big class.  So here's hoping! 

Love these cuties so much.  Are Ben's eyes closed in that picture? Maybe.  But he's been having a great year so far. 

This is senior year!  It's having 4 classes at school and one running start class.  It's having swim and dive every day after school.  It's being dive captain.  It's being awesome. 

This is sophomore year.  It's being in regular history and maybe kinda wishing you'd gone for AP World.  It's taking driver's ed.  It's being a pretty good little driver.  It's playing football and getting in the varsity game when the team gets way ahead.  It's finally being 5'4" and hoping there's a lot more growth where that came from. It's being fun to be around. 

 Tomorrow we start seminary! It's getting real! 

Classroom Prep

 Since Girls Camp, I've been cleaning, gardening and getting my classroom ready.  Since I was at WIFYR when my year ended, and I was interviewing for and hoping to get a new job, I let my classroom languish in semi-disarray.

So once I knew I was staying at MP (kinda sad, but also super relieved) I did a massive clean out.  Sarah and Ben helped a couple of times.  I also had an awesome parent from last year come and help out.  It is shaping up so nicely that I didn't even have to go in yesterday.  (I worked on wrestling instead, ha.) 

 My theme this year is related to our dreams giving us wings and helping us fly.

I'm pretty excited about it.  We are going to make catapults instead of cars.  We are doing our first activity with paper airplanes.  Should be fun.

Each year I learn some things as I put together my door quotes.  Mostly I learn that I should slow down and be more careful with my letter placements.  But I think this year turned out pretty good. 

Almost ready for school to start on Sept. 1.  Glad I have another paid workday tomorrow to get things ready. 

Youth Camps 2026

 Planning YW Camp again this year was super fun.  The girls basically said they wanted to do again what we did last year.  So that was nice!  Going to the same place at the same time meant we knew what we were getting into in such a great way (although we didn't plan on smoke.) 

Sarah had two other girls join her as Youth Camp Leaders this year, and they had great energy as a team.  We had several girls bring friends this year, so our numbers went from 16 to 25.  We had such a fun group.

Sarah designed the logo for the shirts.  Loved them! 

Front of the shirt

We added a hike to Franklin Falls on the way up.  It was amazing! When I did the hike to test it, it was cold and rainy, so no one was playing in the water.  On a lovely sunny day, the girls loved playing in teh water. 

Some fun decor (still waters, green pastures and sheep in our balloon towers.) 

Feed my sheep

Sheep lights

I only took my camera out a couple of times.  One was for the slip n slide

and Rope swing! 

I'll also add the camp schedule as a record.  We did have to deviate due to smoke.  We drove down back toward Seattle to get out of the smoke for our lake day. On Friday we did indoor competitions since it was too smoky for pickleball.  Then it cleared up for a fun evening.  I've said I'm taking a break from camp.  I've been for six of the last seven years, 4 of those as director or assistant director.  Time for someone else to have some fun. Next year I'll have one or two daughters to get off to college! 

I also got some pics of Ben having a great time at surf camp.  His most memorable moment was when they tried to walk to town in the middle of  the night, lost a flip flop in an encounter with a mean dog, and ended up being rescued by the police to get back to camp.  Oh boy.

IKEA! Ben's Happy PlaceI

I have been having so much fun with Ben lately.  He's started drivers ed, and it's M-TH in person.  So he drives us there and I sit in a nearby Starbucks and write.  It's been a beautiful way to catch up on all the writing I've not done all summer, and spend time with Benny.  

We also went to IKEA!  He really wanted some new shelves.  And I love a good IKEA trip--turns out as much as he does.  We got a new shelf for my office (I now have my own printer hard wired to my computer because wifi and printers don't mix sometimes).  Ben got new shelves for his lego collection, and we got a new coffee table for the family room.  It was a bear to put together.  But we had fun. Then Ben decorated it with all the silver things.  So hilarious.  It still has the silver tray on it because who has time to decorate any more?  It really just points out how much we need a new rug, new couch, and new chairs in that room. Ugh.  Oh well.  Next summer probably?

Ben is driving really well!  I even let him drive home from Ikea (once we got pretty close to home I we got off the freeway and I had him drive the rest of the way, ha.) 

I did not leave the grater and the compost bin, but nice idea Ben. 

The table opens up so you can use it as a computer table or whatever. 

 

Ben Summer Update

For some reason I didn't do a Ben summer update when I wrote the girls'.  

Ben just got back from YM camp.  He had a great time.  He's also been doing lots of fishing and swimming at Logboom Park with Jack.  He's been chatting with a girl from FSY (she lives an hour or so away.) 

He had back to back to back camps this summer--he was busy, but very happy. (FSY, Reunion, Youth Conference, Wrestling Camp)

Tomorrow he starts football and driver's ed.

He helped clean out the pod at Grammy's house.  

Fish! 

The bouncy house party at Aunt Maren's

Spiderman! 

Young Men's camp