Back to school

 Megan was the only one to go back to school on Monday, since the high school starts 4 days later on Friday. Megan is a WEB leader this year. WEB stands for Where Everyone Belongs, and they help the new 6th graders, and other new students find their way around, and make friends. Megan is perfect for the job. She had 2 days of training the week before school started, and the Friday before school she and a partner led a group of 6th graders through a morning of orientation activities. Megan is also the only one to get a first day of school picture, I think.

Megan likes most of her teachers, but wishes there was a 2 day week and a 5 day weekend. At some point she decided that her bed wasn't comfortable, but the floor was more comfortable, and slept on the ground for weeks. Occasionally she'd head downstairs and sleep in the office on the guest bed, but for the most part she slept on the floor until Rachel headed to school and Annie moved into her room, leaving Megan with her own room. 

Back to school meant all the clubs started. Megan is doing drama club this year, and WEB. At the high school the clubs meet during lunch or Power Up, so they don't have to stay after school. Ryan goes to chess club most Mondays and Fridays, and Annie's only club, as far as I know, is the Thespians. Maybe she's doing Sigh, the girls acapella group, but I don't know.

We had a stake post-FSY activity to wrap up the summer. A few youth shared their experiences, and an FSY counselor shared some thoughts, then the kids got together and did some of the FSY line dances. I'd never seen this one, but they had a blast with it.

Right before I left with Rachel, Megan got her bed all ready to become the top bunk where her stuffies would live when they stacked the beds in her room. She was excited to have her own room, and definitely counted down the days.

Back to band

 Over the summer the new band uniforms arrived, so we spend a morning inventorying everything and hanging up what we could, then coming back a week before band camp, during percussion camp, to reorganize the uniform room and figure out how to hang everything up. We cleaned out a TON of old stuff. The dumpster was full. Then stacked perhaps a few too many heavy boxes on the shelf to be out of the way. I came back from a meeting to find that our shelf and rods holding up all our new uniforms had fallen. 

We hung stuff up on rolling racks, put in a work order to get it all fixed, and headed home. The next morning Marivic came in with her daughter and started organizing things by size again on other rods, and shortly thereafter we had another disaster with those rods collapsing, too. 

Thankfully the work order was completed before band camp started on Monday, so we were able to get the shirts fitted ok, and everything went smoothly from there on. It was quite an ordeal getting all the MANY pieces of the uniform sorted and figuring out how to store it all, but thankfully we have a good uniform team this year, and they did most of the work, so I just showed up and did what they told me to do.

Band camp had relatively nice weather, not hitting 100 all week, thankfully. I helped with snacks and uniforms and whatever was needed while Annie and Ryan sweated their way through the week.

Friday night there was the end of band camp performance and the big uniform reveal. 

The following week the band fed the Cienega staff. It's good to be back with the band moms. I miss them during the half of the year where we don't hang out all the time.

This year is the 25th year of the marching band, so we're planning a special homecoming, and some fun swag, too.

We've already kicked off the season at the Copper/Navy game. 

And soon the season will be in full swing with football games and Saturdays full of competitions.

Swim championships and synchro show

 With a slightly longer summer this year, the swim team championships were the Saturday after band camp instead of the Saturday after school started. The synchro water show was supposed to be the week previous, but it got rained out with a crazy strong storm that had us pulling over on our way back from the pool for about a half hour until it was safe to drive again. So Megan had a very full day with swim team championships in the morning, then running home for lunch, and back for the watershow in the afternoon.

Ryan swam butterfly, breast stroke, and freestyle, along with butterfly in a medley relay. 

Megan swam butterfly in the medley relay, breaststroke and backstroke, and swam in the free relay, too. 

Ryan got 1st place in all his races, and Megan placed in the top 3, getting 1st, 2nd and 3rd place medals. 

And that afternoon we were back to watch the Purple Heart synchro team perform their show to "That Girl is on Fire." They did great.

Megan's birthday (and Independence Day)

 Megan got face paint for her birthday, so I let my face be a canvas for her as she practiced her new skills. Perfect for the 4th of July.

She opened her presents a little at a time throughout the day, and for dinner we had burgers and dessert as a family. When it got dark we headed to the wash by Grandma and Grandpa's house and did fireworks there. 

They tried to set a record of how many of the spinning tops they could light at once. They managed more than 10, I think.

For her birthday party, Megan wanted to do a mall scavenger hunt, but all as one group rather than as a competition between two groups. The kids had a good time doing things like pose like a movie picture, find a bench everyone can fit in, and find a funny birthday card. 

Back at home they each had a personal mini pie, then played games. A fun time was had by all.

A few days later, Megan's dream came true as she was sleeping when Jacob went out the front door and there was a tarantula climbing on our metal security door. I caught it and kept it in a box overnight in our back yard so she could see it when she woke up the next morning. We let him loose in our garden, hoping that he would stick around and eat some bugs. We saw him again that night on the grass, but haven't seen him since, so we figure Wallacen the 2nd (as Megan named him) must have moved on. 

If we had actually gotten her a tarantula with a cage it could live in inside our house, that would have been her favorite present by far. Megan sure loves tarantulas. Instead she just got boring stuff like face paint, a weighted blanket, bedazzling kit, a new camera, and a few other things that she loved.

Seattle Trip

 Jacob stayed home to work while the rest of us headed to Seattle for a few days to visit Todd and his family. 

Airplane picture:

The week before we got there the weather was perfect for spending time at the lake, but right before we came it got cold. Coming from hot Tucson, it was a nice change, but some of the kids were disappointed to miss out on fun time at the lake. But, as always, the woods were a big pull. There were some ripe berries (and some unripe ones that were eaten, too), and Annie used her nature app to "collect" plants and bugs she saw as we hiked through the woods.

Megan missed Jacob a lot. He does the best pushes on the swing in the backyard, but she also just missed having him around, and called him every day, sometimes a couple of times a day.

Monday we split into two groups and Todd took the boys minus Jared to a church camp where they could play mini golf, swing from a rope into a lake, and go down a giant slip 'n slide. They didn't let the fact that it was barely 60 degrees stop them from participating in the water activities, and they had a fun time, even if they were freezing for part of it.

The rest of us went to downtown Seattle. We visited Pike Place Market and went to the gum wall. Never have I seen so much gum in one place. Kind of gross, kind of impressive.

We also went on a cool tour of the underground Seattle tunnels. There were authentic original "Crapper" toilets and original skylights still in place that you could see from below on the tour, but also that you walked on on the sidewalk above.

Toilets used to be very fancy. Like fine china you eat on, I guess.

After the tour we went to a Jazz open mic night at a little hole in the wall place downtown. 

By that point Megan was pretty tired, so we decided that I would take her back via the train to the car, then the rest would ride the train back afterwards and Todd could go pick them up. 

The best part of the trip was, of course, the cousin play time. Lots of time in the back yard, lots of time playing games like Dixit and especially Secret Hitler.

We even got in some thrifting. There were some very... interesting finds.

We did make it down to the lake for an afternoon. Some of us stayed nice and cozy in hoodies and shoes, while others shed their layers and enjoyed the water despite the temperature.

The boys minus Jared all went out on paddle boards, and Mosca loved it so much.

It's never enough time when the cousins get together. I'm glad they're such good buddies, even if it means they miss each other when they're apart.