My daughter, the teenager!

YIKES! The day has finally arrived. I am officially the mother of a teenager. How can that be? Time has flown by so fast. In honor of Maryna's big day, I'll reveal 13 facts about her.
1. She is an amazing soccer player! She has achieved so much in her 9 years of playing soccer and continues to amaze me with her achievements.
2. She is right-handed and left-footed. Weird, huh?
3. Her first word was "Uh-oh" but one of her very first words was "ludicrous"
4. She now wears the same size shoe as I do (big feet on both sides of the family).
5. She loves to shop (I've taught her well). In fact, for her birthday she didn't want a party, just wants to go shopping with friends and get some ice cream.
6. Her grandfather (my dad) call her "boat dock" in honor of her name. It's the only real nickname she's ever had and my dad is really the only one that can get away with using it.
7. Her middle name is Renee - which is also my middle name and my sister-in-law's first name and my niece's middle name.
8. She has been on the honor roll every year at school. We are so proud of her academic achievements.
9. She learned to use a sewing machine before I did. Maryna is taking family consumer science (AKA Home-mec) this semester and sewed a gym bag as a project.
10. Has some of the fastest fingers I've ever seen. She can text message so quickly and does it often. In fact, her grandpa (dad's dad) added texting to his cell plan because of Maryna.
11. Received her first recruitment letter this year. She had a letter taped to the outside of her locker during the first week of school trying to recruit her to the cross-country team. Since she is her mother's daughter, she turned the coach down. He gave her a hard time about it. She said that distance running is boring (I agreed) and yet ran the mile in gym class yesterday and beat one of the top cross-country runners at the school.
12. She has a MAJOR sweet tooth (just like her dad). Fortunately she's athletic and young so it doesn't impact her right now.
13. Maryna was baptized this year at church.

Happy birthday, kiddo. We love you and are so EXTREMELY proud of you.

Happy Birthday, Garrett!

In honor of my son's eleventh birthday today, I decided to write 11 things about Garrett:

1. His middle name is Dennis which is also his dad's middle name and his grandfather's first name.
2. He is a very artistic child. One of his favorite things to do is draw and his drawings typically consist of drawing cars.
3. He has a very large collection of Hot Wheels, model cars and R/C cars. The model cars and R/C cars are displayed on shelves around his room.
4. He loves to run. Our neighbors call him Forrest Gump cause he keeps running and running and running.
5. He has been playing soccer since he was 4 years old.
6. He says some of the funniest things. The most recent one was that his most exciting thing he did the first day of school was go to the bathroom cause it got him out of class.
7. He has decided he wants to work at or own a car dealership cause then he can deal with only cool cars.
8. He is the spitting image of my brother Ben. In fact, many people think Garrett is Ben's son. AND he acts just like Ben did at that age :)
9. He was baptized this past year. Praise the Lord!
10. His favorite subject in school is math. His Gigi (my grandmother) will be so proud.
11. He is not an adventurous child. In fact, up until a few years ago, he was terrified of water/swimming pools. Garrett would much rather watch other be daring then to try it himself.

We love him anyways :)

Happy birthday, buddy! We love you and are so very proud of you.

Misc summer pictures

Here are several pictures from our summer adventures. We had a great time with family and friends.

Karri, striking a pose prior to going and and watching fireworks on the 4th of July

Everyone has hamburger and fries on the 4th, but for dessert?

Brad playing in a 6v6 soccer tournament.
Fun with the Fisher family at mom and dad's house in Oklahoma.
The cousins!
Celebrating Dad's 60th birthday.
The kids at the Indiana State Fair in August.

Back to school

The kids headed back to school on August 12th. It was hard to believe that I no longer have a child in elementary school. Garrett is in 5th grade this year so he is in intermediate school and Maryna is in 7th meaning Junior High - YIKES! It's sad when she is going into grades at school that I remember VIVIDLY! In fact, she is the age I was when we went back to Brazil. I don't know how my parents managed me during that time with such a huge change in location, environment, culture and the raging teenage hormones. They obviously deserve some type of reward.
Maryna will be turning 13 on September 25th....pray for me. I'm not sure I'm ready to be the mom of a teenager. They both are doing really well in school so far. Maryna has transitioned great into JH. Garrett, however, is my more reserved child. He's not a big fan of the unfamiliar and wasn't thrilled when his close friends weren't in class with him (some were even at a different school). In fact, he said the only exciting thing that happed on the first day of school was when he got to leave class to go to the bathroom. UGH! He seems to be doing better know, however, if you ask him if he likes school you'll get a very confident NO!
Soccer season officially kicks off this weekend so our craziness is about to begin once again. I'm sure there will be plenty of things to post as the season progresses.

Summer continues

The schedule around our house doesn't seem to be slowing down at all. Almost every weekend we are running from one place to another. I'm looking forward to a Saturday where we have nothing on the calendar. As that doesn't seem to be a possibility any time soon, maybe I'll look at scheduling a free Saturday sometime in 2010. Until that time comes, we continue to enjoy our time together with family and friends. Below are some pictures of the craziness and fun so far.

We are looking forward to seeing my family in July at my mom and dad's house. It will be fun to relax and spend some time just hanging out and catching up. I'm sure we'll also find some fun pictures to take and post :)

Summer and soccer

We are 3 weeks into summer break and our schedule has yet to slow down. Maryna just finished soccer last weekend as she guest played with another team in a tournament. Her team finished second in the tournament and Maryna scored 4 goals in 3 games (high scorer). For the finals, the girls all sprayed their hair to match their uniforms.

Maryna's regular team finished strong on their season and won their division....this same team finished 5th in their division last season. What a great improvement from the team and great coaching from Brad.

Garrett still continues to do summer pick up games with his team (for practice/fun). He will probably play in a couple of 3v3 tournaments this summer. Both kids have tryouts for next year on the 27th and 28th of this month.

We have had a busy summer so far and it doesn't look like it is going to slow down any time soon. We have already had 4 graduation open houses that we've attended along with all the soccer stuff finishing up. This weekend is Garrett's team party, my birthday and father's day along with some adult soccer activities. Next weekend is soccer tryouts and then VBS begins on the 29th. The following weekend is the 4th of July and then we leave for Oklahoma on the 9th. We arrive back in town on the 13th and then Brad plays in a tournament on the 18th and 19th. Wwe leave for Chicago on the 25th as Brad's cousin is getting married. The following weekend is August 1st and pre-school activities begin along with the soccer season.

As you can see, summer vacation really isn't a vacation but we enjoy all of our activities together. We are excited to spend time with family in Oklahoma in July.

Wishing everyone a safe and happy summer!

School wrap up

Garrett has his school track meet (between 5 elementary schools) on May 19. He competed in the 100m, 800m and shuttle relay. Poor Garrett had a tough job as he ran the 100m prelims, about 30 minutes later had to run the 800m and then immediately go to the starting line for the 100m finals. He ended up placing 2nd in both events (although, given more time between the 800 and the 100, we're sure he would've won first). His shuttle relay team didn't fare as well as they placed 4th out of 8 teams. He was bummed about the 100m, but he knows he did a great job!

Both kids had games last weekend and Garrett finished up his season on Sunday with a tournament (they went 2-2 for the weekend). Maryna still has 3 more games until her season is done.

Yesterday was awards day at school. Of course, I wished I could've cloned myself as Maryna's awards program started at 8:30 and Garrett's at 9:15 at 2 different schools. So, I stayed until 9:30 at Maryna's and then headed to Garrett's. Both kids won the Presidential Gold academic award (based on ISTEP tests and grades - the highest honor). I was very proud.

Now the kids are on summer break. They were at home with their dad today and as of an hour ago, they were already complaining of being bored. I suggested that Brad take them to the library to check out a book and Garrett's response was, "Well, that doesn't sound like any fun." I had to laugh. We will need to figure out some activities to keep them occupied this summer.

Weekly happenings

So the past week has been CRAZY!!! Both Maryna and Garrett had soccer games last Tuesday (of course in 2 completely different locations). Wednesday, Maryna was supposed to have her school track meet but it was rained out. That evening, we had our AWANA awards night at church. Both kids did extremely well, but Maryna had to use the front pew to hold all of her awards :) Thursday was Maryna's large track meet (between the intermediate schools). She competed in the 100 m, the 4x100 m relay and the high jump. Her relay team placed 2nd, she took 2nd in the 100 m and still not sure about the high jump (although she did not have her best night at this event). It was a fun evening and the weather was perfect.

Friday, I took off work to get stuff done around the house, go grocery shopping, prepare for the half marathon and prepare for mom to arrive. Mom flew in really late Friday night (thanks to Ben for picking her up). Saturday morning was my race. I was very concerned about the weather as they had predicted severe thunderstorms that morning, but we didn't get any rain (couple of drops at the finish line). The weather was great (albeit a little humid) and I was so glad to complete it. Several have asked how the race went. I wanted to finish under 2:15 and finished at 2:11. I was happy with that time considering I was fighting leg cramps in my right calf starting at mile 6 and this course is EXTREMELY hilly. I know that if I didn't have those issues, I could have knocked at least 5 minutes off of my time.

Maryna's game Saturday evening was cancelled as fields were under water. Sunday, we went to church and then both kids had soccer games (1:00 and 3:00) and then Brad and I played an outdoor soccer game at 6:00.

I was glad my mom got to see the kids play while she was here. She flew out Monday morning (thanks again to Ben for taking her). As you can see, we had a very busy but very enjoyable time. Garrett has his school track meet tonight so we are excited to see how he does. The weather is perfect.

Soccer weekend

So, both kids had soccer tournaments this weekend in Ohio. However, Maryna's tournament was in Cincinnati and Garrett's was in Columbus. Therefore, Brad ended up taking Maryna and I took Garrett. I have decided that it is a lot more fun when all 4 of us are at one tournament as opposed to being split between 2. The weather was beautiful and I know Garrett's team had a really good time (I think Maryna's did as well). Neither of the kids' teams did very well in the tournament, however, my kids individually performed great. Final count...Maryna had 2 goals and Garrett had 4 goals. Maryna's 2 goals were corner kicks that she bent into the net. Two of Garrett's 4 goals were from cutting around multiple defenders for shots and the other 2 were from outrunning the defense and taking the keep 1 on 1. Great work from both kids. Since I couldn't clone myself and my camera, I only have pictures to share from Garrett's weekend.

Start your engines!

Every year our AWANA group at church does a pine derby race. My kids (yes, all three...Maryna, Garrett and BRAD) all look forward to this event. The first couple of years Garrett was under the impression that if he chose a real car that was fast (i.e. Corvette, Lamborguini, etc) as his car design, that meant the pine derby car would be fast :) It was really cute!

They have since learned that it is about design and the cool tricks that dad can do to the car. For the past several years, the kids have been very competitive. Last year, Garrett really wanted to win so Brad spent a little extra time on his car. And yes, he won!


This year Brad decided he was going to spend equal time on the cars and if they won, that's great. He wasn't going to focus on one car over the other though. So, how do you think it turned out?

Here are the kids getting ready for their first race (against each other)





Maryna carefully placing her car in just the right spot (hers is the orange car and Garrett's is the silver metallic car).
Cars are set, now let's get them racing.
And who do you think won?

Maryna took first place and Garrett took second by 0.002 seconds difference. The top 2 in each class then raced for the grand championship. Here is the winner!

She was so happy to win, but more excited that she barely beat Garrett :) It was alot of fun and the kids had a great time.

Garrett's school program

This is a short clip taken at Garrett's school program last night. Sorry the video isn't very good but it was quite dark in the building. Garrett is on the floor playing the drums for this song. He looks completely thrilled (NOT) to be participating. There were approximately 150 4th graders in this program. The theme was Indiana A-Z. They went through different aspects of Indiana history and did some really neat things including playing drums, percussion and even some square dancing (not sure Garrett was really thrilled with that piece either). Their music teacher did a great job putting the program together and it was definitely one of the best school programs I've seen in awhile. Hope you enjoy the clip.

Updates

So, today was the day. Both my kids were baptized in this morning's service. What an absolutely emotional moment. Not only were both my kids being baptized, but my father-in-law was the one baptizing them. Then to add to the emotion, it was my Sunday to sing a special. So, needless to say, I struggled through the first verse slightly as I had to sing right after the kids were done. Anyways, it was a beautiful moment. Unfortunately I do not have a digital video camera, so I used our regular video camera to tape it (mainly so mom, dad and Gigi can watch when they come at Christmas).

Did you know it's only 18 days until Thanksgiving and 45 days until Christmas? Unbelievable!!! I must admit, though, that I'm so excited for Thanksgiving as it is my 2nd favorite holiday only to Christmas. If for no other reason than being with family, eating lots of food and watching football. I mean, really, does it get any better than that?

One other note of interest. I've decided to do something I don't ever think I even dreamed of doing. I'm going to run a half marathon in May. Can you believe it? I decided I needed a challenge beyond soccer and we have 2 half marathons in Indianapolis during the month of May. One is centered around the Indy 500, but it is always sold out way in advance. So last year, another one was created and the course takes you around Geist Reservoir (a really nice lake area). I'm really excited! We'll see how it goes. The official training sessions start in January, but I've been exercising consistently (about 5 times a week), so the start of training shouldn't be too difficult.

Well, that's it for now. Off to watch some football and then head to church for Christmas program rehearsal.

Children

There are many times as a parent when all you can do is thank Him for your children and their innocence. Yesterday morning at church we were observing communion. As the plate passed with the "bread," Garrett leaned over to me and said "Mom, why can't I have one?" I told him we would talk about it after church. So, on our way home after church we had the discussion about communion and baptism. Garrett said, "Wow, I was wondering about that and didn't know what I needed to do to be baptized." So, long story short, Brad is going to talk with his dad about having both kids baptized. It was such an amazing conversation and I truly appreciate the innocence of our children. As I was talking with Karen (my mother-in-law) last evening, she indicated how excited she was but also realized that Dennis (my father-in-law) will have a very difficult time getting through this. I don't know yet what Sunday this will take place but will keep you updated. Please continue to pray for our kids as they go through this exciting time in their lives and pray that Brad and I can be good examples for our kids and be there to answer all their questions.