Joey hasn't gone to a Homecoming dance since his freshman year, but he decided to go for his last year. He had water polo practice, ran home to shower and get dressed, and then took off to meet his group for pictures. I forced him to take a couple of quick pictures before he ran off.

Hannah had her good friend London over so that the two of them could get ready together. Ellie and I made them a charcuterie board and virgin strawberry margaritas.

We took a few pictures in the backyard.

Mother daughter picture!

After our quick backyard photo shoot, I drove the girls over to meet up with this huge group of mostly sophomore girls.

I love this picture where the girls stood in rainbow color order.

We also took a few small group pictures.

Meanwhile, Joey met up with a big group of mostly seniors. I couldn't be there, so my friend Amanda took some pictures for me, including one of Joey and Abigail (her daughter).

This is the only high school dance that Joey and Hannah will attend together, so I told them they HAD to get at least one good picture together at the dance. Thankfully Abigail came through and got this sweet picture.

It's weird that every sports season for Joey this year will be his last! After a bumpy start due to his arm being in a cast, Joey enjoyed his last season of water polo.

His senior night was a few weeks ago.

After the game, the coach said a few words about each of the seniors.

Bryce has been the Varsity coach for a couple of years now, and he's such a great guy.

He's clearly passionate about water polo, but he also really cares about his players.

Someone had these cute leis made for the seniors, and the moms presented them to each boy.

After all of the nice things Bryce said about each of the seniors, they decided to throw him into the pool.

He did put up a fight.

But he didn't last long.

This fall has been busy, busy with school and sports...mostly sports...

Hannah was on the JV volleyball team this year. She really loved her team and her coach.

She loves playing middle and blocking shots.

Ellie was on her middle school volleyball team again this year. 

She also loved playing, although her season was a lot shorter.

The high school had a "middle school night" where they invited the middle school volleyball team to come and cheer on the high schoolers. It's always a fun night.

Joey was on the varsity water polo team (that will be a separate post), but he also played some preseason basketball with his high school team. He's a varsity captain, so he was leading the warm up.

Zachary is a freshman this year, so we're so excited that the boys will be playing together. Papa J got to watch them play in a preseason game together.

 Now that summer is officially over, I thought it would be a good time to post all of our random pictures from the summer.

One Saturday in early June, Andy took our kids and the Meisters to play some basketball for fun. It's not much of a picture, but that day becomes important towards the end of the summer...

These girls never miss a chance to pose for the camera.

We had a beach day with some of Ellie's friends. This was finally the summer that Ellie decided she loved the beach.

While Joey and Hannah were at Hume Lake and I was at a meeting for church, Andy and Ellie went on a date to IHOP. That feels like a ridiculous amount of pancakes for two people!

My aunt, uncle and cousin were in town camping at the beach, so the girls and I went down to spend the day with them. 

Although Brynn is my cousin, age-wise, she is in between Hannah and Ellie.

This summer we had an unexpected treat in that Joey and Hannah played on the same basketball team in a co-ed league.

We never expected to see the two of them play together, and it was so fun.

Even Ellie got in on the action and was invited to practice with the team with all of the high schoolers, which she really enjoyed.

Joey and Hannah's team was mostly girls from the high school team, and they recruited a few boys (like Joey) to play.

Unfortunately the rest of the league didn't have many girls, so it wasn't quite the co-ed experience we were hoping for.

But having these two playing together was so great!

The girls love going to have lunch with Andy and then shopping at the Irvine Forum. 

This time we invited Abigail to go with us.

Lovely girls at a lovely shopping mall.

At one point during the summer, Ellie decided that she wanted to make a reading nook/fort. The cats were totally on board!

Remember that first picture when Andy took the kids to play basketball at the beginning of June? Joey got his hand caught on the rim and sprained his thumb. Eight weeks later it still hadn't healed so I took him to the orthopedic specialist. He recommended casting it for three weeks to keep it completely immobile. It's the first cast any of my kids have had. It was quite a dramatic cast for a small injury, but we're hoping it finally does the trick.

The cats enjoyed a lazy summer.

Millie seemed to appreciate that I redid my recipe books this summer.

The girls wanted to do one more Google/Irvine Forum trip before the summer was over so this time we went for breakfast and then shopping. Between our amazing vacations and a lot of relaxing down time, it was one of my favorite summers ever!