Last High School Season for Soccer

The soccer season has started again and I can't believe this will be the last year I get to see Lauren play soccer.  There are 7 seniors on the team and Lauren got picked to be one of two captains.  We kind of figured she was going to since she's been a starter on varsity all 4 years but you never quite know for sure.  So here's some pictures from her first few games:

This doesn't happen for every game but at this one the starting players were announced.  Her name had just been called.

They line up in the middle of the field, slapping hands as each player announced comes out.

Then stand at attention, holding hands, while the National Anthem is played.  I love when they announce the players.

Here's Lauren doing one of her captain duties.  Before the game and after half time she gives a little pep talk and starts the cheer.

Another one of Lauren's duties as captain is to be a part of the coin toss at the beginning of a game.

Doesn't she look pampered?  She's getting one of her team mates to stretch her leg for her. 

I guess it didn't work because she came out injured!

Whatever she did it didn't last because she was back playing/practicing the next day.  If we can only make it through one season without anything major happening it would be a miracle. 

Zach's Timeline

I remember this project from when the girls were in first grade!  You have to start from when you were born and for every year write something that was important to them or a milestone.  Then either illustrate it or use pictures.

He picked out the following for each year:

• 2006   Zachary is born
• 2007   Zachary's 1st steps
• 2008   Zachary's 1st Hershey Park ride
• 2009   Zachary's first day of preschool
• 2010   Zachary's 1st Nascar race
• 2011   Zachary gets his tonsils out
• 2012   Zachary starts t-ball
• 2013   Zachary's most recent bump!

When he brought it home I put it in his box of stuff I save.  I believe I've saved all the girls' too.  One of these days I'll have to sort through everything, find them and put them all together.  That will be a future blog post, like, in about, 10 years!

Little League Opening Day

What a long day opening day is.  The kids have to be there at 9:00 but the opening ceremony doesn't start until 10:00.  Then that takes forever because there are so many teams. Way too long for an antsy Zach, good thing he was Paul's problem!   Zach was on the Mets again this year and Paul volunteered to help coach.  

His first game wasn't until 5:30.  That's probably why today was such a long day!  I made it to his game late because Kristin had her district band concert at 3:30 so when Kristin and I got there we just stood by the outfield fence and watched him.  Of course I had to take pictures.

This is what he was doing when it wasn't his turn to bat.

Paul was coaching 3rd base and I thought he saw Kristin and I standing there.  After all, he did look right at my camera but he said when he got home that he had no idea that we were there.

So that starts the season for t-ball with many more games to come. 

District Band Concert

Kristin played in the District Band Concert today which just means that all 3 high schools from our district came together to play.  Here's the one and only picture I took of Kristin and her friend.

I took some video of some of the songs they played.  Just a warning, you cannot see Kristin at all.  I just put the videos on here if you want to hear how 3 schools together sound.  

 

 

 

Spring Time in the Park

I love going to Hershey Park in the spring, the lines are usually shorter, it's not as hot as the summer and it's a lot cheaper!  The downside at going in the spring is that there are few water rides up and running and the ones that are, like the flume, we avoid.

 

As always, the first ride we head to is Fahrenheit since that line can get long.  Here's the picture I took of Megan, Kristin, Paul and Lauren.  Like how I kept the "Please, no personal cameras" in the picture?  Yet another advantage to having a tall husband, he can block the view of the park employees for me!

We had to let Zach do something so onto the Fun Slide.  Zach raced Paul...

...and Kristin raced Lauren.

I used to love this ride when I was younger but I can't do spinny things anymore.  Well, I can, it's just better if I don't!  So instead I enjoyed watching our kids go round and round.

Most rides we could just walk right on.  Zach was actually tall enough this year that he could have rode quite a few roller coasters but he chose to only go on one, the Wild Mouse.  Not the best starter roller coaster in my opinion, the ride is too jerky.  The funny thing is he rode The Sooperdooperlooper last year but flat out refused to ride it this year.  I know it took us forever to get Lauren to ride roller coasters but I'm hoping it won't take quite as long for Zach.  How cool would it be for all 6 of us to ride together?  I can't wait for the day.

We took a break and ate the lunch we brought and also posed for a picture.

Then headed back into the park for some more rides.

This was taken on the Kissing Tower.  See how Zach is holding onto Lauren?  That's because when he asked me what that ride did I told him it spins and goes up and then suddenly drops.  He wasn't sure if I was kidding or not.  Yeah I know, mean mom.

It's not Hershey Park if we don't drive the old cars.  It's always the old cars too, never the race cars.  This time Megan rode with Lauren...

Paul rode with Zachary...

And I rode with Kristin.  Of course I don't have any pictures of that since I'm the one taking the pictures.

The girls and Paul wanted to ride another roller coaster so Zach and I went and got Dippin' Dots.

We always visit Chocolate World and go on their free ride.  Lately we've been buying the picture they take.  Here's this years:

I don't know if we'll get to go back to Hershey Park again this summer or not.  If not, this trip was fun and we hope to at least go again next spring.

Easter

Our Easter morning started with going to church.  Since our church starts at 9:00 there was no way we were getting up extra early to find our baskets.  Good thing the Easter Bunny agreed with me.  So here we are all ready to leave for church.

The Easter Bunny set up our egg hunt while we were gone.  I kind of like doing the egg hunt later, everyone's dressed up and looks nice, no pajamas in the pictures!  So we read the note that was taped to the front door and everyone grabs their bag to collect their eggs.

One of the clues led them to the refrigerator where they each found an egg waiting for them.

Other places the kids were led with clues was:  the upstairs linen closet, the dining room table, Zach's lunch box, the pool table and the washing machine.  The last clue always leads them to their Easter baskets which this year happened to be in the trunk of Lauren's car. 

Once back inside they went through them to see what the Easter Bunny left them. 

The Easter Bunny started the clue game way back when it was only Lauren and Kristin and somehow it just stuck.  Some years the bunny gets a little crazy with the clues, other years they're a little easier.  I guess it depends on how creative the bunny is when he writes them up!  Silly bunny.  Good thing he only comes once a year :)

Getting Ready for Easter

It's not Easter until you dye some eggs.  Zach got to dye eggs at church again this year.

I think we ended up bringing 2 dozen eggs home with us!

Then later we had to do egg dying as a family.  So there was another few dozen eggs.  We're going to eat a lot of egg salad sandwiches!

The only egg hunt we went to this year was the one that was at church that was actually held on Easter Sunday.  Each child got to find 12 eggs and they got to keep the candy that was inside.

 A group shot of the kids that were there.

Now onto our Easter day fun!

You don't see this everyday.



 Paul spotted the fox first, it was lounging on our front yard.  I guess I spooked it when I shut the garage door and then it took off walking down the sidewalk. 

It was a mangy looking thing with it's tail all matted.  I hope it doesn't have rabies!  Let's just add this to the list of other crazy animals that have come near our house:  ferret, huge snapping turtle and now this.  I really don't want to see what we'll encounter next.

Happy 13th Birthday Megan!

Another teenager in the house!  The birthday girl/boy gets to pick where or what they want to eat that day.  Megan chose to go out to breakfast at Perkin's so that's what we did.   

Later after dinner we sang happy birthday to her and enjoyed cheesecake.



 One thing that Megan likes are Hershey chocolate bars.  She was happy to get a bunch.

  The following weekend Megan had some of her friends over for a sleepover.

 

I can't believe that I've now got 3 teenager daughters.  That's pretty scary.

New Year's Day

We spent New Year's at Grandmom and PopPop's house We had delicious food, played games and just enjoyed each other's company.

Christmas vacation is over!  The kids go back to school tomorrow and Paul and I both go to work. :(