Halloween! It was a bit of a different Halloween for us. We had my parents and Leah over for soup and sandwiches before trick-or-treating. Ellie had a few of her friends over too. They dressed up as a deck of cards, so I made shirts for them using vinyl and they made tutus with red, black and white tulle. Lincoln was a storm trooper, Miles was Ironman and Bennett was a ninja. Jackson didn't dress up and handed out candy instead. He did wear his axe headband for part of the night though. It was pretty cold, so they had to layer up. They were quick to eat and wanted to head out, so we let the twins join Alex and Lincoln and they met up with Josh and Jax Porter. They loved the independence of going by themselves. And while we were a little hesitant, it was helpful our neighborhood wasn't as busy as people hit up the indoor activities because of the cold (I forgot to mention we had snow!!). Ellie and her friends went out for a while, came back to regroup and went out again. Us adults ended up just staying in the warm house, enjoying food and conversation. Leah had her mom and Zach come by too to grab something to eat.
Mountain Bike Trail. Andrew and the kids have been working hard on a mountain bike trail out at the ranch. They estimated they have around 1/4 mile of track. They used rakes, shovels, hedge trimmers, chainsaws and manual labor to clear out the tracks and they even have some variety to the courses. They took me out one day to help a bit and tried to convince me to ride, but I only did a tiny little portion. I'm amazed any of them can do it, but the love it.
More outdoor adventure continued this past weekend with Andrew taking the boys deer hunting. He wasn't sure they would see anything with his crew, but when they came home, Lincoln walked in carrying a trash bag of deer meat. He shot a little buck with the first shot. His dad was pretty proud of him. He wanted to show me the the deer head that was in the back of the truck too.
K-Life had their 2nd trivia night and we made a team out of our family and my parents. We were total losers in came in middle of the pack. It was an enjoyable night hanging out with the fam.
Lincoln participated in the Show Me 3v3 Soccer Fest again. It was just the two of us who went to Columbia as Ellie and the twins both had birthday parties and Jackson got to work for Andrew and earn some money for his vehicle. Thankfully, we had much nicer weather this year than last which made for a pleasant weekend. We played two games on Saturday and went for lunch at Shakespeares for Leah, Joyce and Alex. Kirksville took 10 teams all together to the event and Lincoln's age group took 3. They played great and won their pool, winning their two games on Saturday and their last pool play game Sunday morning. The bracket play was short, just four teams in the semifinal and then the championship. We ended up having to play one of our other Kirksville teams and lost the first game of bracket play and were done. They ended up third overall which was awesome. And it was nice to have some one-on-one time with Lincoln.
Basketball, Basketball, Basketball. First we started off with Ellie making the 7th grade team, then Jackson made the high school team, Lincoln was asked to play for the Kaos team and we put together a 2nd grade boys team for the twins. Basketball is kind of life right now and we have something whether it is practices or games every day. Ellie has practices at 6am and Andrew has been taking her. Jackson is thankful he gets to practice after school. Lincoln practices two nights a week and then Andrew leads practice for the twins team Wednesday nights and Sunday afternoons. We only knew a few of the parents of the boys on the twins' team, but we had a meeting to discuss everything and it seems like a decent bunch. We just plan on playing in a couple nearby tournaments and a few games up in Schuyler with their winter league. Ellie is the only one who has had games so far and they have won all three. Actually, their first game got canceled because of weather. Crazy. Thanks mainly to the other Elli on the team who has scored the majority of their points. I remind our Ellie that the other one has played a lot of games, A LOT, and just to go out there and give it your all. I love watching her play and get a little less timid each game.
The twins have been really interested in reading their Bibles and will read by their booklights when they go to bed.
We took some time the last Sunday to do our Operation Christmas Child boxes. We went to Wal-Mart after church on Sunday and got it done. It is always a bit chaotic trying to keep track of what everyone is getting, but I'm glad we get the chance to do it. The kids packed them up when we got home and some even made a little Christmas note to put in them.
I have been working on TriFAHL. The Aquatic Center is closing next week and we have been trying to work out some ways for people to be able to get some swim practice in. After going round and round with Truman and thinking they took away all the options for us, they surprised us by opening up a course for non-students to allow them to use the pool during their open swim hours. And I just worked out a deal with Depot Inn for a way for participants to pay to use their pool for lap swimming. It is half the length of a 25 yard pool, but it is our best option of any of the hotel pools.
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