More October

It's "fall back" night, so since I get an extra hour today, I'll spend it blogging!  Here are more pictures from our busy, busy October:

Soccer sisters

Pretty dahlias from my garden

Jessi LOVES gymnastics class!  She's upside down here.

Meg sprinting to the finish at a meet at Stoney Creek Metropark

Meg's cross country team practiced every day after school.  One day, the whole team finished the practice with a run to the cider mill for some treats!

Me and my dahlias.  <3 td="">

Science club fun!  At our first meeting, we had a challenge to build the tallest tower out of toothpicks and marshmallow. Two engineers hard at work...

The second challenge of the night was to make a tower out of a single sheet of paper, and a 2" piece of scotch tape.  Meg was a pro at this!  She also had some experience, since she did this in STEM class a few weeks earlier.

Jess was good at it, too!

Katie in her color guard dress before a football game

Meg joined Girl Scouts!  We had a ceremony with walking over the symbolic bridge to become a Cadette

Bonding

Meg's troop, made up of great friends from elementary school.  (She's the only new girl, so that's why she doesn't have a sash.)  This will be a great way to keep in touch with her friends, who all attend a different middle school.

After the Girl Scout ceremony, we zipped over to the game at Adams HS.  The sunset was beautiful!

Our team got killed, but the bands were awesome!  They played together for this number.

The next day, we went to Uncle Carl & Aunt Jenny's house for their annual hayride and bonfire!!  We arrived JUST in time to get in this picture!!

We rode to Grandpa & Grandma's old farm, back to and through the woods.  It's a great spot for photos!

Beautiful Katie

Jess the selfie queen

Katie gravitated to the little kids, of course!  She had so much fun with Hailey!

On our way home, we "had" to stop at Cabela's, of course!

On Mondays, when the girls are in ballet/gymnastics/ballet, I go on a one hour walk down the Clinton River Trail and into Bloomer.  The trails are just magical...

One of Megan's eight cross country meets this season, this one was at Delia Park.

She placed in the top 20 overall, including 6th-8th graders!!

She won a medal!  I think her time was around 14:33 for two miles.

One day after school, we visited Yates!

Cider slushies and hot cinnamon sugar donuts, yummmm.  We love watching the cider press in action!

October fun

While I would love to stay in chronological order, I realize that I better start with the recent, easier stuff to get this blog back off the ground.  I have many hundreds of pictures from every month since I stopped blogging, which is just too overwhelming for me to start up again right now.  I do plan to post about our spring break adventures, and our summer adventures (especially Mexico and backpacking!), but for now, enjoy our October happenings!

First, Katie's homecoming!!  She went with a great group of fellow freshman band friends.  They met at Bloomer Park for pictures, then went out to dinner at Bravo Italian Cucina, then went to the dance at the high school.  Two of the girls came back to our house for a sleepover after the dance, too.

Random DQ trip after a soccer practice

My only picture from "Rochester Posed," where the storefronts of downtown Rochester are transformed into movie scenes with live mannequin actors.  Here's Harry Potter at the Home Bakery.  Our other favorites were Pirates of the Caribbean, the Wizard of Oz, and E.T.!

Jess at her school Fun Run

Meg stretching with her cross country team before a meet

My little runner!

 

Go Meg, go!

Middle schoolers run 2 miles in a meet.  This meet was at Spencer Park (our city "beach"), and the race course took them around the lake twice.  No woods/mud/roots/hills at all!  Not surprisingly, everyone had a P.R.!

Strong finish at the end!  Megan had a personal record of 14:33 for 2 miles, and placed as the 7th fastest 6th grader. She won a medal, and her team won first place out of all four Rochester middle schools, Holy Family, and Avondale Middle School!  But she missed out on the medal/trophy ceremony because an hour after the race, she had a soccer game!!

Here's Meg an hour later, ready for a travel soccer game in Madison Heights!

Our #28 was the team captain, and she played all 60 minutes.  She's a great outside defenseman, and her team won handily.

Having fun with stacking/drying cups.  These are from our elementary school, to promote "reduce/reuse/recycle," the PTA bought Ikea cups and plates for every classroom.  For all class parties and events, we use these cups instead of disposable ones!  I volunteered to wash all of the cups after the Fun Run, and got a little help from my family.  :)

My dahlias have been amazing this year!  I always have fresh flowers, and I give them away like crazy, but never run out!  We still haven't had a hard frost yet, thank goodness.

Random Sumo lunch on a soccer weekend.  We usually have 3-5 soccer games per weekend now!

Choir performance

I'm back after a very long hiatus!  Enjoy some videos of Katie's first choir concert of the year:

Life's Loveliness

Down to the river to pray

If ye love me

It was an impressive performance by an all-freshman choir, only two months into the school year!  Katie is in the front row, on the far left side.

Beautiful Katie after the concert

The girls came for the goodies!  Look at this spread!