There's Treasure Everywhere
The last few years that we've gone to Texas for Thanksgiving, we've come home late on a Saturday.
Then Sunday after church we always decorate for Christmas and do our annual mall Christmas shopping trip.
It's a lot of do in one day, but it's nice having it all done before the kids go back to school on Monday.
The girls even decorate their room for Christmas.
This year after our shopping trip, we went to BJs for dinner.
Once we busted out the Christmas jammies and Santa hats, it felt like we were ready for the Christmas season!
We had a caroling night at our church. We loved getting to sing our favorite Christmas hymns with some of our favorite people.
All we had left to do was wait for family to get into town and then let the festivities begin!
This is several months worth of random pictures, so buckle up! :-)
Papa J got some tickets to a Padres game through work. Since Ellie was the only one that had school from home that day, she got to go.
Not only did Joey try water polo for the first time this year, but it just so happened that all of his best friends from his old school did as well. They all play for Mission Hills high school, and we got to play their team twice this season.
After one of the games, we all went out for ice cream afterwards.
Hannah LOVES having home school days on Mondays and Fridays. She often uses her extra time to bake.
Ellie's friends from school try to get together outside of school time on a regular basis. One day we went to a park for the morning. There was a beautiful little hiking trail that we explored.
My parents came over one night to celebrate my dad's birthday in mid October. They were leaving the next day for a five week trip in their Winnebago Travato so they also gave Joey his birthday present that night. My parents love playing card games with their grandkids. Since it was my dad's birthday night, they played one of his favorite card games, "Five Crowns."
Because of water polo, Joey couldn't go to a ton of his high school's football games, but he was able to go to a few. Every game had a theme. This was the pink night. It was fun to watch him interact with his high school friends.
While Joey was at a water polo tournament, the girls and I went to the Homecoming game to help in the snack bar. We had a blast, and we got to cheer on Abigail on the flag team.
Joey is too old for rec basketball now, but Andy is still coaching the girls' two teams. Andy took Joey along to help at the evaluations. He was hoping Joey would be his assistant coach this year, but Joey is too busy with his high school basketball season. He does help at practices whenever he's available.
Ellie made some Halloween spiderweb apples for her and her siblings one morning on her home day.
The apples were a bit hit as an after school snack.
These two don't always get along, but when they do it's pretty cute. This year they were both able to do Shooting Stars again (hence the matching shirts). Shooting Stars is a basketball league for special needs kids. Joey and Hannah really enjoy being big buddies and helping with the kids. Ellie will hopefully get to do it next year.
One random morning these kids were all home from school for various reasons. It was a lot of fun having them all over!
Somehow I accidentally joined Ellie's swim team. It's much more fun than I expected, but it definitely kicks my bootie!
Doing some research for Halloween.
This was another field trip that my friend from Classical arranged. We went to Mission San Luis Rey in Oceanside, since fourth graders learn about California history. Can you spot Ellie in this picture?
The mission is quite beautiful. I went there with Joey when he was in fourth grade.
We went with a big group from Classical. Ellie's friend Emily bought matching necklaces from the gift shop for her and Ellie. It was so sweet.
One of the highlights of 2021 for Andy was getting to go to five Phish concerts. He went to three in Indiana, one in San Diego, and one in LA.
While Andy was at a Phish concert, we had these two little darlings over. We hadn't had them spend the night in a while, so it was a fun treat.
Ellie was invited to a birthday tea party for a friend at school. It was so cute.
Hannah has really gotten into water coloring this year. It's been fun to see what she paints.
We went to see a couple of our friend Zachary's flag football games. One time our pastor and his two sons came. While we were waiting for the football game to play, they played a little pick up basketball.
I actually got this picture from Joey. After his water polo season was over, some of the guys got the idea to shave each other's heads. One guy brought some clippers to school and started shaving kids's heads in the bathroom. The principal walked in on them and said they couldn't do it in the bathroom, but they could do it outside if they wanted to. Joey declined getting his head shaved, but the story still made me laugh so much!
Every year at Thanksgiving, our church gets lots of donations to help supply a food pantry at the nearby seminary. They always need volunteers to spend the money and buy all of the food. Our goal was $1,000 and with the help of these three lovely ladies, we hit our mark almost perfectly.
The real challenge was getting all of the stuff in the car, but we made it work!
Our annual Harvest Meal at our church. We were sitting next to this rambunctious table. Their straw experiment was making us laugh.
We went on a field trip with Classical Academy to the Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park.
The kids really liked the Makerspace area.
The girls and I went to see "A Little Princess" at Calvin Christian school. My friend's daughter Jenna was in it.
Hannah's rec soccer team went to the AYSO regional tournament.
They made it to the championship game and got second place. Chloe came to cheer on Hannah for the final game.
Joey's water polo team had their end of the year banquet in early December. It was just at a local pizza place. Not everyone could come, but this was all the JV players that were there.
These were all the "scholar athletes" that had 4.0s from both teams.
Each team had four special awards given. Joey got the "Caiman Spirit" award for the JV team. The award is given to the kid who best exemplifies good character, coach-ability, a positive attitude, etc. As the coach (above with Joey) started describing the kid who won the award I thought, that sounds a lot like Joey. Then she said his name! It was really neat!
Joey's good friend, Ben, was the JV goalie all year and won "Most Improved. I love that they both won awards their freshman year. They can't wait until the season next year.
