Photo overload ahead

Sad to say but the Grey Rhino's season has come to a close. It was a good one, though. Lots of fun and lots of laughs!

But if you ask Lucas, Tyler or Joey what the highlight of the season was the answer probably wouldn't be the goals scored or goals saved, they would probably tell you that subbing was the BEST part of soccer. If you knew (or know) Coach Sloffy you know he makes EVERYTHING fun!

Friday afternoon, after helping to count over $54,000 in Jog-a-thon funds (actually, some of you will be happy to know I didn't do any of the money counting, I helped with other tasks that needed completing that didn't involve the details of bookkeeping!) :) I headed with Holly's grade to Stoney Ridge Farms for a field trip, a very fun field trip. Although, this year it was a rather wet field trip.

Saturday the weather didn't get any better, it actually got way worse! But we still had 3 soccer games to go to. (Thank you Grandma and Aunt Joan for taking extra kids so they didn't have to stand in the cold and rain!) Mia had 2 games and Holly had 1.

We did get them all in before the downpour and thunder and lightning struck!

Thanks to Uncle Dave for making rain so much fun. He took L, T, and J puddle jumping in the Rover. Later, while I was out with Lucas I was informed I could not find puddles good enough like Uncle Dave. Saturday night we stayed home and took a new approach to pumpkin carving this year. Less mess and rather fun to mix things up a bit!

By Monday after school I kicked everyone outside for some fresh air. (no swine flu here, yet, knock, knock, knock)

Today was the big show-n-tell event. I got to school in time to see Lucas reading his book to Mrs. De Boom Boom. :)

Then, the moment they've been waiting ALL year for. Their Guinea Pigs made their school debut. Here is an action shot of them fielding questions from their classmates. They didn't (L, T, and J) stop talking the entire time! God bless you Mrs. Cook!

Holly couldn't have them in the same building without them making a stop in her classroom. Apparently they're talked about in class quite often. They must have discussed fire safety in school yesterday and Holly was rather concerned if the fire fighters would know where to find them in the basement if our house was ever on fire. I asked her teacher if she mentioned that her brothers room is also in the basement and if she was at all concerned about the fire fighters finding them. The answer was "No." :)

We ended our day back at school watching Marissa's last cross country meet of the season. Marissa is really, really ,really fast! I think that's an understatement. She was in first with no one in site behind her. Great job, Marissa!

Brrrrr, it's cold outside!

Fall has definitely made its arrival this weekend with cold, windy weather but still lots of sunshine!

Thanks, Wendi, for the great pics! Thankfully, since I'm coaching, I can still hand off my camera to someone willing to take lots of pictures with ti!

There will be no more strangers hiding out in our playhouse, the playhouse is gone! Everyone agreed it was okay to let it go, we were ready to reclaim our backyard. More space for soccer and football games. Plus we had a buyer ready to take it so away it went!

Mia, Holly and Eric headed to the Skagit and came home with some dinner. Always providing for our family! :)

The kids had 2 days off last week because of Teachers Convention so Friday was declared Monster Playdate Day! Everyone had a great time (although, this photo might show differently with Mia and Holly!) Thanks, guys, for coming over and making it a great day off!

More soccer! I have lots of photos of L,T and J with their tongues hanging out. I think this is a hereditary trait they received from their Grandma R. (I don't know why I think that, I just do! Anyone agree?) :)

If you're on Facebook, you may have already seen these. I do think they speak for themselves. Unfortunately, this is not the first time he's done this.

Friday night "sleep over" in the basement. Who needs friends over, with enough brothers and sisters you can have one great sleepover together. Tyler is there, too, he's just tucked way behind Mia.

Mia, I finally updated the blog! Thank you for the daily reminders to do so! Love you! :)

Not slowing down!

First soccer game of the season for the Grey Rhinos and these guys did great!

Joey got his first goal and was loving it!

Still working on those throw-ins! :)

Quite the defensive line.

Blue and White day! We pulled out Daddy's old jerseys.

We had beautiful weather for the Jog-a-thon. It was a great day and things couldn't have gone better.

Joey was busy weaving in and out of traffic.

Tyler and Emma enjoyed their time cruising the track together.

I totaled all their "laps" and it came and they had a combined total of 142 which comes out to about 17.5 miles. That's a lot of miles for those guys! We're all going to sleep good tonight!

Fall is in full swing over here.

Everyone is playing soccer this fall! Lots of fun and it also means lots of time out at the fields. L, T and J have been waiting patiently for their turn to be on a team and this year it finally happened. Can't wait to see what happens, they've got great coaches and a fun little team!

Mia's already had her first field trip of the year. We headed out to Padilla Bay in Anacortes. We all learned a lot of new things about the estuaries in our area and even were able to take some of the creatures we found back to the center to check them out under the microscope.

And yes, I was made fun of (and, yes, I'm used to that!)for taking photos of these huge things (this is a a sea slug I think) They just looked really cool through the microscope, projected onto the overhead.

Holly and Mia are in their second week of the new season. This is the face of Holly at half time running to us for more water.

And this is the face of Holly on the field during the game! :)

We had a little birthday party for Nate tonight to finish off the weekend.

And if you ask nicely I may post the picture of what made all these kiddos laugh so hard. :)

Finally their turn

Wednesday was finally Lucas, Tyler and Joeys first day of Kindergarten! All day long, lunches and everything. I was told they have LOTS of snack times LOTS of recess. Apparently I didn't pack enough food because they were soooo hungry. They had a great day and were anxious to go back on Friday.