Halloween

We had a fun Halloween this year.  Sarah was Mike Wozowski from Monster's Inc, Alex was a Red Panda, and Lily was Elsa from Frozen.  Mom didn't get many good pictures of their costumes.  Luckily, Dad took one at Intel right before they went trick-or-treating at his work.

 On the day of Halloween we carved pumpkins and got ready to have some friends come over for a party and trick or treating. Sarah went to a party after dinner with her teenager friends.

 We have lots of trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. Mom gave out 3 extra large bags of candy and pirate patches, pencils, and glow in the dark teeth.   It was lots of fun!!

 Lily is right at the age where she loves to plan parties.  She helped Mom all day get ready for the festivities.

 After the party and trick-or-treating the kids sat and sorted out their goods.

Lily's Apple Hill Field Trip

One of the benefits of having all of your kids in school is being able to volunteer there.  I was able to go with Lily on her field trip to Apple Hill.  Apple Hill is a community of apple orchards just up the freeway from us towards Lake Tahoe.  It is a very beautiful place to visit and yummy too.  Lily and Mom had fun riding the bus together and then learning about making apple cider.  We also got to pick apples and ride the train.

 It was a beautiful fall day!

Jog-a-thon

The kids each participated in their schools Jog-a-thon. The Jog-a-thon is a fundraiser for their schools PTA.  They run around the track as many times as they can to earn prizes and money for their school. The parents are encouraged to come and cheer for their kids as they run.  It was fun to watch Lily and Alex have fun running.

Soccer, Soccer, XC, and more XC!

Fall means sports for our family.  Lily and Sarah are both playing soccer.  Alex and Sarah are both doing running.  Alex is running with the Buffalo Chips Youth Running Club and Sarah is running on her school's cross country team.  They all have been really busy, but loving it!

 Lily is an awesome soccer player.  She love to be goalie and a defender.  She is really good too.  We love watching her determination and good sportsmanship.  Most of her teammates are in her Kindergarten class which is really fun.  She likes playing with her friends!

 Man down!  Lily is about a foot taller than most of the other girls.  She definitely has a little advantage when they try to push her around.  (She didn't push the girl down in the picture above, she just tripped.  ;))

 I didn't get a lot of pictures of Sarah playing.  She has a completely new team this year, but her friend Sadie is on the team with her.  She has been playing really good and has an amazing offensive left kick!!  We love watching the older girls play.  There seems to be more organization and passing going on than in the games with  the little ones.

 Sarah is also running XC with Folsom Middle School.  She has some good friends on the team and loves it.  She usually comes in 3rd place each meet for the girls team.  She has been super busy with Soccer and XC on the same days!  We love watching her run hard and kick into the finish line.

 Alex has been running with the Buffalo Chips Running club.  He is now officially independently running in races.  Dave runs a little with him at practice, but he usually runs with his group and in races runs on his own.  He is one of the youngest boys and does really well.  He has put in some amazing long runs on Saturdays running 5 miles.  We sure love watching him and how much he loves being a runner!

 Daddy and Alex recently ran the Willow Hills XC Meet.  Dad was running against a bunch of college age kids and still did really good for being 12 years their senior.  A couple more years and he can dominate the masters age group!

 Alex brings up the rear in the Willow Hills XC meet!  He didn't slow down the whole time!

 Dad checking his watch at the finish, while causing some serious pain for the guy in front of him.

Whew! Sweaty.  Time to relax.