Rachel Basketball

Rachel had a lot of fun at basketball this season. And we had a lot of fun watching her. The team improved so much over the very short season. I can't wait until next year to see how great she does.

Jacob was able to make it out to watch a couple of her games. 

 The kids always wanted to bring their pompoms to help them cheer. And they enjoyed climbing up on the very top row of bleachers for extra fun.

 After the last game:

 Rachel scored in nearly every game. There were several games where she scored more than half the points (ex. 6 out of 10 points).

This is as good of a shot of her team as we were able to get at the end of season banquet:

 Rachel did so great she was awarded the Offensive Player of the Year for the team.

 Her friends Adrienne and Alana also had great seasons and got awards.

 Rachel and Coach Mendivil:

She worked hard and practiced a lot at home and at school and was aggressive and a great player. We can't wait until next basketball season comes around!

January

January was jam-packed. Back to school, Rachel starting basketball, etc. And we managed to do a lot of fun family activities, too. 

We've been needing to take down our play set for a while now as the wood is getting rickety and old. Ryan broke off part of a piece of wood when he was going on the monkey bars, so  we finally got everyone outside and started disassembling it. Rachel didn't want to join in the fun at first, but we made her anyway, and she learned how fun destruction can be.

The kids all liked using the tools, but Rachel stuck with it until the end.

 The others got a little distracted with the pieces as they were dissassembled, and a new playground was created.

 The second weekend in January, and no sign of snow, so the kids used the platform and the old swings to go sledding.

 Ryan earned his next belt in karate and is up to green with a white stripe. He sure loves his sports.

 He learned a new form this semester using a fan, and had a lot of fun with it. The fans can be good and loud when they unfurl them, and loud noises are Ryan's favorite kind.

For my birthday we had my birthday buddies, Jill Reimann and Jen Grace, and a few others (the Allens and Knights) come over for games while the kids had a movie night in the other room. It was fun hanging out with friends, and we do that so infrequently these days, it was much needed.

The next day we had a party lunch at Grandma's house.

 It was a long weekend with MLK Jr Day on Monday, so we went on a hike in Saguaro National Park. It was a decent hike and beautiful weather, and only a couple people got cactus stuck in them, so we'll call it a good day.

 We got a Minute to Win It kit for Christmas and we had played one or two games here and there, but that night we got them all out and played all the games that were included. The funniest one to watch was the Elephant March one where you try to knock over a bunch of cups with a tennis ball stuck in pantyhose stuck on your head.

 It was definitely a winner.

 Annie did a great job in the 3rd grade concert.

 This was the only picture I could get from my point of view of the square dancing they were performing. Lighting already messed up pictures, and movement made it worse. But it was really cool to see a bunch of 3rd graders perform so well.

 We got tickets for the U of A women's basketball game vs. ASU and invited the rest of the family along and they took us up on it. It was a lot of fun to watch and the game was pretty close the whole time, but U of A won in the end, which made it even more fun.

 Rachel started middle school basketball at the beginning of the month, so it was even more exciting for her to watch. Ryan starts his basketball league in a week or two and since we got the basketball hoop for Christmas all the kids spend lots of time shooting hoops, so watching a real game in person was a real treat.
Except that Megan was NOT interested. We sat down and within one minute she asked if we could just go home. Popcorn eventually placated her for most of the first half, then sitting by Peyton helped for a while longer. What kept her occupied through the second half, however, was taking pictures with my phone. We got a lot of gems.

 Ryan was really into the game and may have caused deafness in some of the people sitting near him with his enthusiastic (ie loud) cheering. We may need to bring complimentary ear plugs for anyone sitting by Ryan in the future.

For Christmas Grandma bought us all family bowling. Megan again asked to go home within a minute of getting there, but after we got started, she ended up liking it more, and she won one of the games, with the help of the ramp. The kids really wanted to play in the arcade when they weren't bowling so we found a quarter for each of them and they got to play foosball to get a jawbreaker.

 Pizza was included in the bowling game, so the pigs ate it up.

 Ryan bowling:

 It sure is fun to have cousins close by to hang out with so frequently.

Rachel's first basketball game was last week. Apparently it was against the best team in the league and they ended up losing, but Rachel scored 6 out of the 10 points for the team, and had a great time. You could tell it was the first time playing for some of the girls, but it was still a lot of fun to watch the play.

 After the game the coach asked Rachel what she ate for lunch that day because she was on fire. She replied, "Peanut butter sandwich." He told everyone to eat a peanut butter sandwich for the next game since that's obviously got something good in it. I'm excited to watch more of her games this season.

Friday Annie's ELP (gifted) class got to go to Mildred's and Dildred's Toy Store for a field trip. They're starting a toy invention project, so this was their research, learning about what kinds of toys are good for different ages, and what makes a toy a good seller. They got to play with some toys and games for a while, then they headed into the store to hear from the owner, and choose a toy that caught their eye and explain what made the toy appealing.

As always, it was a lot of fun. And Eloise just got in to ELP, so she and Savannah got to come along on the field trip, too.

With such a full January, I'm sure there are many things I forgot because if I don't take a picture, I don't remember... a few that come to mind are that Ryan got to start Primary Activities, Megan got to go to Burger King for a mommy-daughter date that she earned by having a good attitude at school, Jacob and I managed to make it to the temple, and I was able to go another time, too, and I also made it in to Casa Alitas a few times. Busy, busy is our life. Especially after school, just keeps filling up with more and more activities.

Christmas break

Christmas night got sick and slept pretty much all the next day. The next two days I felt like maybe I had a cold, so I took some cold medicine and took some naps, and Jacob and the kids took care of meals and the house. We did manage to go out to the movie theater to see Frozen 2, thanks to the generousness of our neighbor, Shannon, who paid for our tickets and some treats.

Everyone enjoyed themselves. We also went to Todd and Savannah's to play games while the kids watched a movie. When I was still feeling sick and achy and feverish by Saturday night I started to think that maybe I had the flu. When I woke up Sunday morning to Megan complaining about body aches and a fever I took her straight in to the CVS minute clinic where it was confirmed that I had Influenza B. Megan didn't have to get tested because I was positive, so they gave her Tamiflu which really did severely limit how long she was sick. I was sick probably 6 days, hers only lasted 3.

Megan and I missed church that Sunday, but Rachel received her Young Womanhood Recognition award and medallion that day for finishing all of Personal Progress.

She just barely turned 12 in November, but has been working on it since January. It is very impressive that she was able to finish it in just a year, when the program was designed to be a 6-year program (though 4 years was pretty common to get through it). She decided at the beginning of the year that she wanted to finish it before the new program started this year and Personal Progress was done away with, and she worked to achieve it. I'm very proud of all the time and work she put into accomplishing it.

On New Year's Eve Megan and I were not completely recovered, but both of us felt a lot better. We didn't want to risk infecting McKenzie and Peyton who hadn't gotten their flu shot this year, so we didn't join the festivities at Todd and Savannah's house. Megan was upset about missing out, so we decided to get some pizza for dinner.

Pizza Hut was pretty deserted and Megan thought it was the coolest thing to get her very own personal pizza and root beer, and we enjoyed ourselves before heading home for an early bedtime.

The other kids got to sleep over at Grandma's house after a party involving a piñata at Todd and Savannah's house. I'm sure it was lots of fun.

By New Year's Day Megan and I were back to full speed. We all headed to the park to play with cousins and Megan was happy to finally get to see Peyton and McKenzie.

The pogo sticks that the Knights got for Christmas were a big hit. Rachel kept practicing and working at it until she got nearly 300 jumps in a row. She has since made it to 1000 jumps.

For Christmas Santa gave us tickets to a play at the Gaslight Theater. They're always a lot of fun. And half the fun is pictures out front beforehand:

We ate way more popcorn that should be healthy, and got milkshakes or ice cream sundaes. The kids really loved our seats up on the balcony, too.

One of the big hits at Christmas was that all who didn't have roller blades got them. There have been lots of rollerblade outings.

Cari came down to Phoenix/Mesa for New Year's and managed to find a ride down to Tucson for the day. We went to meet Jacob for lunch at a park. The kids and Cari also played on the playground for a while

Back home the kids taught Cari how to play Unstable Unicorns, Rachel's new game that has been a big hit with everyone.

We also managed to play some of the Minute to Win It games we got for Christmas from Mark and Ashley. Pictured here is cookie unicorn, trying to balance 10 cookies for at least 3 seconds.

We were glad Cari got to come visit, if only for a short time. It's always a fun time to see family we don't see much.

The last Saturday of break Savannah ran in the Run Around Tucson race, as well as some of our friends in our ward. Savannah and Rachel's friend Sara both had the leg that went right past our neighborhood, so we got out our pompoms and went to cheer them on.

For Christmas the kids each got a coupon for a late night movie night with Mom and Dad. Ryan cashed his in on Friday, and Annie and Megan both wanted to cash theirs in on Saturday, so Megan started downstairs with both of us, then halfway through her show Jacob went upstairs and he and Annie started their movie on the laptop.

After Megan's movie ended and she went to bed, Annie came down to watch the rest of her movie with both of us.

At Grandma's the next day after our family dinner the kids were playing outside and fighting over whose turn it was for the hammock. Megan had made herself so comfortable that she didn't want anyone else to take over.

I thought it looked so funny, like Megan was just a head and arms.

Our Christmas break was over, and aside from the sickness (and partly because of the sickness) it was a nice, relaxing break. We got lots of family time, not as many outings as we had planned, and therefore, lots of chill time at home and out front with the basketball hoop. Can't complain much about that.