Fall Sports - John

John had a very busy start to his Jr. High years. He had already been playing football for the last 2 years.  Starting this year he was able to go out for cross country.  Ah, yes, this mommy's running heart was jumping for joy when he wanted to be on the team.  This is the only year he is able to enjoy both sports at the same time.  JFL is not school sanctioned so he was able to take it all on.  Next year, John will have the grueling decision of which sport to continue in.  He will no longer be JFL, he will be playing for the Jr. High.  For now we are not pushing him one direction or the other.  Yes, this mommy runner wants him to continue with cross country, but it's not about me.  I only want him there if he wants to be there. Time will tell, there is no rush to decide right now.

John did  a great job of balancing all the demands.  Most days of the week he went straight from school to cross country practice then was picked up and taken straight to football, often eating supper in the car.  Academically he had no problem with the load.  I rarely heard complaints from him about it.  He was really enjoying it all.

JFL turned out to be a rather frustrating year.  Not that winning or losing is all that matters, but the last two years his team was top of the league.  This year they didn't win any of their games.  Such a bummer year for his final season on that team.  John still enjoys playing football and had many great plays himself.  He may be little, but boy can he ever take down some of those big....BIG boys.

It was bitter sweet to have this season end. We were ready to be done with all the practices and wanted our Sunday afternoons back.  It was all worth the 3 years when they announced that John won the Darrel Stranger Sportsmanship Award.  This honor is given to one player from each team that is picked by the coaches.  It's given based on the player's attitude, contribution to the team and how he acts toward his fellow teammates.   I guess we thought the award would be given to the kid who was more of a mvp, was on the field all the time, the quarterback, making all the plays.  John is a good player, but I'm not sure we'd say he's the above mentioned.  Somehow it's so much more of an honor to have him picked for this award than to be that anyway.  John has a lot of heart and character that goes way beyond being some big jock.  Actually many players on the team could have also qualified for this award.  We live in a great community with a lot of great people.  This award was just a cherry on top of his 3 years with JFL.

Cross Country seemed to be much more in his favor.  He had a few races where he really struggled, but for the most part he was at the top of the team.  He posted the fastest time for the entire season with a 13:31 (for 2 miles).  If he can run this time his first year of competition at the age of 11, it's crazy to imagine what he will be capable of as he progresses and matures.  He didn't start out running his best time, but built up over the season.  It was great to see him get faster and faster and push harder and harder.  Of course, this was right up my alley going to all those meets and cheering him on along with the other teams mates.  Yes, I was the screaming mom who was yelling things like "GO....GO....GO and FASTER!"  I can't help it, I get all excited when it comes to running.  It doesn't matter if it's my son or Ryan Hall.  I really get into the competition.  Overall, for John he ran in his own way and ran his best for him.  Believe it or not his time was not even close to qualifying him for state.  That didn't matter though, he ran his best and that is all we asked for and want from him.

Below is a slide show of some football (he is number 1) and cross country pictures.

Houston, we have a problem

The post below about Homecoming I started weeks ago.  I came upon a little problem when I wanted to finish the post with pictures.  I knew this problem was going to happen, but it's timing is not good for me at all.  With this blog, I am allowed 1GB of picture storage space.  I've had this blog for 5 years now and it's fair to say I have a lot of pictures on here.  So my 1GB of picture space is up.  Eeek!

I can go back and delete certain pictures, but when I do that the picture no longer shows up in the post.  I can also go back through all my posts and delete some of them, but I would need to decide if each post is worth keeping or not.  Either way, I'm not really in a position to get that done.  I have 5 years and over 500 posts on this blog.  I just don't have time to deal with that right now.  There are alternate ways to show pictures on my blog and I will have to switch to that format.  But it will be different and perhaps a bit more work to do it that way.  Hmmmph!

Just giving you all a heads up!  Maybe I'm just looking for an excuse to not update as often....hahaha!  I'm kidding....kind of : )  I'll keep working at it!

Homecoming

Homecoming was last weekend.  For the first time Angel did not go to the dance.  She was offered a babysitting job that was paying quite nicely.  While she could have gone with friends, like she has the past two years, there is no other motivation to even go to the dance.  There is no boy within the greater Galesburg area that interests Angel or warrants her time in pursuing.  She is quite content to hold off on dating and boys and all the yada yada yada that comes with that.  So she happily made some money instead of dealing the the usual affairs of the dance.

Mandy did decide to go to the dance.  At her age, we don't allow her to date so going with a boy was not an option.  However we are fully aware that there are plenty of boys at this dance and we know she looked forward to connecting up with one in particular once she got there.  Boy or not, she still had a lot of fun getting all dolled up for the night.  The pictures speak for themselves....she looks beautiful!

Football Season

I have SO MUCH that I could post in regards to football season. John is playing in his last year of the JFL league. That will get a post of it's own.

For today (since I really am trying to get back on track with updating more) I thought I would post some video from the high school football games.  The video has nothing to do with football itself.  While we do go to support the high school team we are more motivated and there for the Gadets, which Angel performs with, and the band, which Mandy performs with.  Enjoy these videos:



I know it's a little hard to hear the music. They performed this at the first football game of the year.


This is not the school song, but Hi Ho Silver Streaks, that they play to bring the players onto the field.


This is a rough draft of the marching band show for this year, which is doing a tribute to John William's music. It was their first time performing this in front of a crowd. Which, in case you can't hear, the crowd was quite rowdy that night :/

New set of wheels

With the passing of Jim's dad, there has been one item that was a no brainer that we keep for ourselves.  That would be Papa Jim's motorcycle.  He has always been a Harley man.  Back in 1997, he sold his '69 Harley so he could have money to travel to Jim's college graduation.

We had to pay a little extra money to have it properly shipped from California, but it arrived a few weeks ago.

Then it sat in the garage for a few weeks un-touched.

 Jim was able to get into the Motorcycle Safety class a few weeks.  It took up the better part of his whole weekend.  Once he took & passed the class he was then able to get his motorcycle license.  Since then he's been out practicing.  First it was just up and down the drive way.

He's been faithfully practicing almost every single day.  Once he was comfortable with the driveway then he moved to up and down our street.  Then around the block.  Finally he felt ready to take on a passenger.  I am very honored that I was the first person to ride the bike with my man.  Once I had a ride he took all the kids on a short ride as well.  They are beyond thrilled.  Now Jim is taking bigger rides, like 1-2 miles at a time.  Still practicing and getting used to the bike.  We will wear helmets on a regular basis.  He has one on order.

Jim has always wanted a motorcycle.  More from a practical stand point since he commutes to work 30 minutes each way many days a week.  We actually looked at and bought a motorcycle many years ago.  Once we got home though, we realized what we thought was a good bike for a good price wasn't and we called and cancelled the agreement.  So it's been on Jim's radar for many years to get a bike, but we couldn't ever find the right one for the right price.  Although this bike came to us at the price of losing Jim's dad, I can't think of the most perfect bike for Jim. I KNOW Papa Jim is smiling down on us and is very happy that his bike is now his son's.

1st day of school

I know I've said this before, but I am (again) making a vow to be better at updating this blog.  I started this blog to keep family members up to date on our lives since none of our family lives in the same town as us.  Most of my family is within an hour or so from where we live, that helps a lot.  We see them a lot more frequently.  Jim's family though is further away.  His closest relative is 3 hours away, many of them much more than that.

When I started this blog it was at the same time that I joined facebook.  Back then I only had a few friends.  Facebook was still relatively new to the public.  I was actually very leery of it, refused to join it the first few times I had requests.  Anyway, one reason I'm guilty of not updating this blog as much is because of facebook.  I don't post everything on there, but I do post a lot.  I forget that not everyone has facebook or is as addicted dedicated to checking it.  Even if you frequent fb, it's easy to miss things that others post.  I miss stuff all the time.  Anyway.....enough excuses.  Back to updating the blog with the happenings of the zoo.

I know I mentioned that I didn't post A LOT of stuff that went on earlier in the year.  I had every intention of catching you all up.  But I think I'll just start with a reasonable goal.  Making too big of a goal will just discourage me & I'll feel like I can't possibly ever catch up.  So we'll start with the 1st day of school.

Angel, 11th grade & Mandy, 9th grade.  Yes, TWO in high school.

Note:  There is no good picture of Mandy.  I think this one was just bad timing of the shutter, but it's still the best one of the bunch.  Besides the "enough pictures mom!" attitude, she was not too happy about going out into the pour rain storm we had that morning.  It was pitch black and POURING when we walked out the door.  Do you know how much time she spent straightening her hair?!?!?!?!?

Brianna, 7th grade & John, 6th grade.  Yes, TWO in Jr. High.

Andrew, 1st grade.  I haven't had only 1 kid in elementary school for 9 years.  It won't last long. Carmen will join him next year.

He is standing out on the porch about 30 minutes after I took the girls to school.  You can kind of get the idea how icky it was that morning.

Carmen, preschool.  She returns to Bright Futures which runs a 2 year program.

She gets picked up right in front of our house each day.  She started a week after the other kids, hence the bright sunny day.

Our school year is off and going again.  It's full of activities and happenings.  I'm looking forward to another great year!

Papa Jim

I apologize for the delay in posting. I don't mean about the normal everyday stuff (although I should apologize for that too), but about the big news that has been happening in our lives. When I started my other blog She Runs Everywhere this blog took on a new meaning. I don't want to put importance on one vs. the other, but I admit that I post on my other blog a lot more frequently than this one. Anyway, I should have posted sooner about this, but I was wanting to wait until I got the pictures/slideshow ready. Anyway, enough excuses.....

In most recent news for our family, Jim's dad has passed away. We were completely shocked and unprepared. Ha! As if you ever are prepared. In many aspects we are used to not seeing Papa Jim (as he's always been affectionately called by our kids & us). This has helped in a practical sense. Especially for the children. Heck, Andrew doesn't even remember him & unfortunately Carmen never got to meet him in person. This breaks my heart as I grew up never knowing my grandpa either.

It's been quite a heart wrenching time. For a week or so my heart & spirit was very heavy with this news. Even as life moved on I just had this heaviness about me. I suppose that is the grief though. Slowly though that has lifted. I haven't cried in days, although at least once a day I feel like I am going to. I'm an emotional sap anyway so this squeeze on my heart makes me that more susceptible. Jim has handled this differently. We are such complete opposites, you know....I guess that's part of what makes us so great....we balance each other out.

Due to some circumstances Papa Jim was cremated and we will hold a memorial service for him at a later date. Right now, Jim is out in California taking care of all the other business that surrounds this all. As the oldest child he is next of kin and everything defaults to him. I hate when he has to be gone for an extended time (which does not happen often). I miss him a lot.

Here is a slideshow of pictures of Papa Jim. It starts when he is a young boy, then shows him as a young adult then moves to when Jim was a baby and then into some of the visits from when he was a grandpa. I know there is more. I'm having a hard time recovering some of the digital ones that were taken in more recent times. For now, this is good.

If you want to read more of my thoughts/insights on him & this situation you can read about it on my other blog.