Fall is here

I love fall. This picture doesn't do it justice, but I drove to Ludington last weekend for Anika's volleyball tournament. It was a sunny, beautiful, colorful drive.

The hot weather stayed with us for quite awhile, but it is quite chilly out today.  

Anika has had volleyball tournaments every weekend. One tournament was in Detroit and we shared a hotel room with friends.She has played some, but more the last two games as two of the seniors were in a car crash and have pretty bad whiplash. They are recovering and expected to play in the district game next Thursday. Scary for all of them, but they are ok.

Anika is on the left

We have had many games, practices etc over the last few weeks. Brandon's soccer is finished and the basketball team has started workouts. Jessica is finished with both cross country and volleyball.

 

And while I am driving around to all these various games and practices, I often have a side kick sticking her head out the window. Of course, whoever I am picking up thinks its quite fun to do this.

our pet 'elephant'

Jessica, Maria, Anika, a friend and I went to Camp Pendalouan - the camp I work for - and played in the lake one evening with the paddle boards, four square, beach volleyball. It is so peaceful and it was so hot and it felt so good!

Friends invited Matt and I to go to a Joe Bonamassa concert... who you might ask? so did I.  This is what our friend wanted for his birthday - his wife didn't know who it was either. But we went. He is a very talented guitarist. I expected laid back jazz festival, it was much more like a loud rock concert, but I still enjoyed it. Although, I showed my age and wished I had brought ear plugs.

The next day, I met a friend in Grand Rapids and we walked the streets for a few hours looking at Art Prize. Its an art festival which has become quite the thing. Artists from all over come and display one piece and the visitors vote on which one they think is best.  This isn't the coolest one we saw but I took a picture of it to show to Anika. The faces on the wall are made of pennies. The mural on the side wall is made by putting small pieces of duct tape together. CRAZY. The artist ruined 6 scissors making the mural.

close up of the duct tape pieces

To add to the fun, we dog sit. One weekend we had two dachshunds, the next weekend a sheltie and two labs. Always a good time.  The owner of the dachshunds is a 'family' for some of the local USHL players. Hunter, one of the players, is pictured here in the suit with Brandon and some of Brandon's friends. We get tickets to the games for taking care of their dogs. 

Maggie and Marley and Maria

Maggie

Chip and Peanut

Charlie

It was also grandparents day, which means a few things at our house: grandparents visit, pumpkins come, Maria begins to celebrate her birthday. This year she received a Vikings shirt (that's my girl) and her treat was Swiss Cake Rolls (because I refuse to buy them). 

Serious game of Dutch Blitz - Aunt Kathy and Holly joined in the weekend for a few hours!

It was also the chili cookoff at church. Jessica has won the white chili for two years, but we messed up the recipe this year, so she took home second place. This year there were 13 different chilis. You get a voting card and take little bowls of each of the chilis, then vote for the best white and the best red.

And Brandon continues to grow - or at least his feet do. I am still an inch taller than him - but this is my bare foot next to his basketball shoe - a size 15 - I have no idea how he is able to run.

Anika and Brandon were chose to be a part of Calvin College's high school honors band. The concert was last night and it was good. The first words they both told me - separately - was how hard the music was. They are both section leaders in the high school band here, so they both get the hard music. In the honors band, they both received the lowest music and they both said it was harder than their first chair music at school.  I love that.  A coworker always says, If you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room. I love it that this challenged them and showed them how really good someone else could be. They were both a bit disappointed to go back to their own band this morning. =)

And tonight, Maria had a pumpkin carving contest at GEMS. Matt went to help. She did not win, but they got to carve a HUGE pumpkin and had a great time. Maria's is a ghost if you can't tell.

It's HOT!!

We have set records the last three days for heat and will probably set two more on Monday and Tuesday. We were told it was because of the hurricanes coming from the east - it has stalled our weather.  Its nice to have sunshine in fall, but man is it hot.  We even had to turn the air on!

We had visitors twice this week!
Last Sunday, Aunt Kathy and Holly came to visit for church and for lunch. It was great to just hang out and talk - and it was sunny and warm!

Our friends from MN, Dave and Ronda, were driving through to meet their family in Maine, and stopped here for lunch on Thursday. It was great to show them around and just to catch up a bit!

Last weekend was Warrior Weekend. A Homecoming of sorts. True Homecoming is during basketball season, but they have this - which really is another homecoming - during soccer.  Lots of crazy stuff goes on, including dress up days which I did not take any pictures of this year.  They had dress like a farmer day, green and white day, sports jersey day, denim day and one other one I can't remember. Anika always gets very into these things. I guess Jessica was called up to represent the 7th grade class in a dance off, and she didn't know the song, so it didn't go so well, but she did it!

Anika is SOOO excited for pep band, can you tell.  Yes, pep band for a soccer game, soccer is a BIG deal out here.

Brandon playing in the JV game before the varsity

Jessica and Maria have been making all sorts of slime. There are many different ways to make it - but they prefer to use glue, tide, shaving cream and many other random ingredients. I guess its a big deal in the 5th grade girl circles right now. Maria said girls on her soccer team buy and sell it. Whatever works.

This Saturday Jessica had a first - first cross country meet. She isn't sure she wants to be a volleyball player so for junior high she is trying both. She ran 2 miles in 17:14 so she did pretty well considering it was almost 90 and the due points were in the upper 60's!

Brandon had to ref three soccer games - Jessica was supposed to, but the cross country meet conflicted so we made Brandon do it for her. He was overjoyed at the idea of blowing a whistle at 6 year olds. It was a long morning.

And finally, Brandon had to work Saturday night, Matt was reffing, so Anika, a friend, Jessica, Maria and I went to camp to play in the lake.  Did I mention its hot here?

We love to play there - paddle board, kayak, basketball, beach volleyball, four square - always something to do!

What's New

Whenever I am asked the question 'What's new?', I'm never sure how to answer. I feel like we do the same thing most days, over and over. Not quite like Ground Hog Day, but you get the idea.
So, today, I tried to think of things that were different:
-I still got a good workout in, but being old, I twisted my ankle
-I helped mow the lawn, and Jessica finished; typically I make someone else take that job
-our ice maker broke; I feel like such a privileged white snob saying that; then the kids didn't know the word for ice cube tray - which we don't even own anymore; anyway, its back up and running again.
-Anika and Brandon had pep band for the varsity soccer game; It was Warrior Weekend, which is sort of like homecoming, except in the fall, they have their real homecoming in the winter over basketball;
-There were LOTS of fans at the girls volleyball game; lots of excitement; and even though Anika didn't play, she was the first person to jump up and cheer and encourage her teammates - which I thought was very cool! She enjoys her team, and she supports them no matter what
-Brandon's team has had 3 wins and 1 loss I believe, and he has scored 3 goals in the last two games
-Jessica now is on the middle school volleyball team and the middle school cross country team, she had her first volleyball game this week

-Last week Sunday evening, youth group started up again. Anika's group won the Amazing Race game

-There was a full cup of pop spilled at supper tonight
-Anika and Brandon played piano together, not totally unusual, but different for today

-Jessica, Maria and I went to the sunset; we don't go to the beach nearly enough, I feel like living here we should be there every night, but I also realize that just isn't possible; we went to the dog beach this time and took Midge; we all jumped in. I'm not sure we've ever gone swimming this late in September, but it was great.
-All six beds are clean, I finished today; this includes pillow case covers, all the blankets - and if you saw their beds you would know how insanely out of control my kids are on blankets, mattress pads, etc., washed inside, dried outside in the sun!
-We got our new family pictures printed, its always fun to look through the years

high fives to the parents after the game

And finally, last week we said goodbye to a dear friend at our church. She has been sick for 18 months; she lost so much weight so quickly and had several misdiagnoses.  Not many weeks ago, she finally had a CAT scan and stomach cancer which has spread everywhere was discovered. She lived a beautiful testimony of living life to the end and finding joy in the little things.  Someone told me at her funeral you couldn't know Paula without knowing her Savior.  

She had her whole funeral planned - including the catering from Lee's Chicken!

Summer ends, school begins

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly summer comes to an end, the weather changes, and just like that we are in school running around to games and practices, and trying to keep up!

All of our chrysalises have hatched to date. We are waiting on three more.  Doing better than the wild this year at least!  This is Mrs Beach hanging out at work (I took her with me), drying her wings before she is ready to fly.

Downtown Muskegon has a large 1930's theatre that is used for several things/events. There was a free historical tour so I decided to attend. It wasn't much of a tour. We sat in the seats and the guide read to us from a script, then we had a 30 minute organ concert. I did learn a few things and most of it was quite enjoyable, just not what I expected. We always laugh when people talk about Muskegon. Most sentences begin with, "Well there used to be..."  That was much of the Frauenthal history tour. It is quite a beautiful building and has been restored to its original paint, tapestries, etc.

Maria had a soccer tournament in Portage last weekend.  She is on a different team again this year which means new families and new uniforms. Why do I do this I often ask myself.  It gave Brandon the privilege of driving us there. 1.5 hours closer to the 50 he needs to get his license.

They played a game where you are both blindfolded and try hit each other with a rolled up newspaper. It was quite funny to watch.

Anika has had several volleyball tournaments and games. She doesn't play much but has seem to find a routine and work with it. She often takes stats on the tablet during the games.

The kids started school on August 29. Anika and Brandon had service days - their small groups go into the community and help with a project; Jessica had team building at a high ropes course, and Maria had a half day. Tomorrow, they start off another week back at it!

11th, 9th, 7th, 5th

They had school off Friday, so Brandon went tubing and surfing with some buddies. I don't know all the details, but I guess a friend of a friend was there - a professional surfer - and he taught Brandon a few things.  This is surfing behind a boat. The waves don't get THAT big on Lake Michigan - but we love it when they do!

Saturday we got some things done at home - including partially cleaning the house - and we hauled the kids to the Muskegon Museum of Art. There is an exhibit there of over 200 photos of many of the different tribes of Native Americans from 1910 - 1929. It was interesting for the most part. The kids sat at one table and colored while Matt and I perused. Some of the history is crazy, and sometimes its amazing to see all they could accomplish with so little - and tipis (that's how they spelled it at the musuem?) are HUGE!

Our neighbor is a sales rep for Dip N Dots, owned in West Michigan, by the West Michigan White Caps! So he gave us free tickets to the game and of course we had Dip N Dots! After the game there were fireworks and kids could run the bases. Aunt Kathy joined us for the game. The Whitecaps got beat badly, but we had plenty of fun.

And sometimes its good just to go outside and play with your dog!

Today I tried to finish cleaning the house, but ran out of hours and energy. Almost every blanket in this house has been washed this weekend and hung outside to dry. Every nook and cranny including under the couches and refrigerator has been vacuumed. Shoes have been tried on, stored or bagged up for someone else, and groceries have been gotten. Tuesdays and Thursdays are crazy around here with all four having something! On your marks, get set, go!