Allie morphs into a tweenager

Even though Allie turned twelve 2 months ago, and has been showing hints of a teenager attitude from time to time, for the most part she has stayed my sweet little Allie.  This week, her facade took a dramatic step towards looking more like a teenager with the addition of braces.  She just looks so much more grown up now!  It just seems to me that she went into middle school and grew up overnight.  On Thursday, the braces were put on.  I feel so blessed.  I was a little worried that they would be hurting her for tests on Friday and distracting her.  But all of her tests were on Thursday.  Despite the fact that the braces were already on, they weren't hurting yet, and she was able to do well on her tests.  Everything is going well.

There is no I in Volleyball

Gabe has been playing volleyball in a parks and rec league this fall.  He really enjoys playing, but is struggling with his team a little.  They aren't a bad team, but they have fallen into a disturbing and frustrating pattern.  To win a match, you must win two of the three games that the play.  For the first game, Gabe's team plays great!  They are calling the ball, getting three hits (you get a bonus point every time you get three hits) and playing well.  They tend to win the first game very easily.  However, for the second game, they just don't do as well.  I am not sure if they relax because the won the first game, or they are just a little tired.  They seem to just barely loose the second game by two or three points.  Then comes the third game.  That game just seems to be hexed.  Sometimes they start the game really well and jump out to a big lead, just to loose it in the end.  Sometimes they just fall apart and can't seem to hit the ball.  In the end, the result always seems to be the same, they loose the third game.  Gabe is very frustrated with the whole thing.  After a very frustrating baseball season last year, he is really struggling to enjoy sports at all.  We think he is doing great.  He is the only consistent overhand server on the team, he passes the ball fairly consistently and rarely allows a ball to drop near him.  He even has a few spikes (very rare in this league).  We are just trying to teach him a lifelong principle.  It doesn't matter if you win or loose, it's how you play the game.  Play well, and you have nothing to be ashamed of even if you loose.  He is thinking along another line.....the other day he asked me if he could start playing an individual sport!

Subbing down Low

 Jeff and I went to San Diego for the weekend to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary.  We had a great time.  We went to a play, we went out to eat, attended to the temple, went in the hot tub, and slept in!  Our last activity was to go to the Maritime Museum in the Harbor.  I have always wanted to go in a real submarine (the one at Disneyland doesn't count) and they had two at this museum.  We enjoyed looking through the periscope, climbing in their bunks and admiring the engineering.  I really liked the Russian torpedoes!

Halloween in Wonderland

For this year,  our Halloween theme was Alice in Wonderland.  This was inspired by our theme last year, the villians.  I was trying to think of a villian for Maddie, and thought of the Queen of Hearts just a few days before Halloween.  I was so enamored with the idea of being the queen of hearts, that I decided to revolve this year's theme around it.  It was an easy theme, there was Alice, the caterpillar, the cheshire cat, the mad hatter, card soldiers, and so on.  There were just so many costume ideas!!  We finally settled on Alice for Allie (Alice was a little essential), The Queen for me, The Mad Hatter for Jeff and Gabe as a card soldier.  Our costumes came out fabulous, even better than I anticipated.  Allie was able to wear her costume to school the next day.  Her homeroom class voted that she should go to the school competition.  She was thrilled.  We went trick or treating around our neighborhood and receieved a lot of candy.  Luckily, Allie and Gabe have been very generous at sharing their candy with Maddie and Jayd.