August 2019 - Start of School, Volleyball, & Cross Country

Abby made the JV team at Franklin High School. They had their tryouts on the first day of August, about a week and a half before school even started. They even had a couple games and tournaments before school started. Here are some pictures from her first game/scrimmage as they warmed up and played.

Abby's goal was to make the JV team as a Freshman so she was very excited to accomplish her goal. We are so proud of her. She was used as the second setter and she was one of four freshmen who made the JV team. 

One of the final summer activities for church was going to a Chihuahua's baseball game. Tyler, as Young Men's President, organized the activity with Kristina, the Young Women's President. They had some extra tickets, so the younger girls and I went a little late and got to watch the game too. Here's Abby with her church friends. Abby, Braelinn, Kirsten, Celeste, and Aubrey.

We had a final summer get together for Taryn and her school friends at Peter Piper Pizza. These kids have been hanging out since kindergarten even though Taryn hasn't been in the same class with them since kindergarten. They still love playing together and getting together to party. Here's Taryn with Alyssa, Bella, Gabby, Jackson, and Benny. The older siblings didn't mind hanging out at Peter Piper either, so we took a picture of them too. Tessa, Kayla, and Aubrey.

Abby's first tournament was played in Fabens which is about a 45-minute drive from our side of town. They played both Friday night and Saturday. They won all of their games and took first place in the tournament. The first setter, Bella, was hurt, so Abby was the first setter, and they played great!

We wanted a picture with just the Freshmen with the trophy. These girls played so hard and worked really well together being the new players on the court. It was fun to watch them play. Here's Abby with Sophia, Megan, and Niki.

School started on August 12. We took our annual first day of school pictures out front and used our green tree for the background this year. I thought the pictures turned out really pretty. Here's Abby on her first day of high school. She was so excited to be able to wear whatever she wanted after having to wear a uniform for the last three years of school. Tessa was excited to be starting 7th grade and not be the youngest in the school this year. She was also excited about her new elective class besides Honor band - art class.

Aubrey started 5th grade and was happy to be the oldest in the school this year. She was looking forward to doing safety patrol, being a PAW Pal leader, running for student body government, and playing the cello in orchestra. Taryn started 2nd grade and was a little nervous about not being smart enough for it. I kept telling her she's already so smart and that she wouldn't have any trouble with what they would be learning this year. She was excited to see her friends and especially for Teagan to be able to play at the big playground with her now that he wasn't in kindergarten anymore.

I was happy to oblige when Taryn asked if we could have a picture together and I love when the girls take adorable pictures together. Everyone's so happy when they show their love for each other. I love my girls!

First day of school for all four of my beauties.

While taking the girls to their classes that first day, we found Sam and Teagan in the cafeteria, so I took a picture of all four of them. They were ready to rule the school. Down on the blacktop, as we figured out where each class would line up for the new year, we found one of Aubrey's teachers, Mrs. Currey. Tessa had Mrs. Currey too so we already love her, and Aubrey was very excited to get her as a teacher this year.

Abby had another tournament the first weekend after school started. They were down five of their regular players because of sicknesses and injuries, so they were all playing different positions and just trying to fill in where needed. However, they played really hard and ended up placing 2nd in the tournament. We were so proud of them. They only lost to one team which happened to be the same team they beat the week before to win their first tournament. That team, Montwood HS, was where the tournament was held and so they had the home-court advantage and they came to win. They looked like an entirely different team than the one we beat the previous week. But our girls played tough and stuck it out to at least win 2nd place, so we were very proud of them. Both tournaments we had different coaches coaching the team since Abby's regular coach was out of town with the Varsity team.

As school started, Tessa decided she wanted to run cross country. We went to the meeting and found out that practices would be every morning at 5:45 am, but the season was only 9 weeks long, so Tessa said she would make the commitment to do early morning practices and we started carpooling early in the morning with the Andersens. They had their first "fun run" (only a mile run) that was hosted at Hornedo. We took pictures while we waited for all of the schools to get there. Here are Tessa and Reve and just Tessa in their cross country uniforms ready for a run.

We started about an hour late because some of the schools took so long to get to our side of town, but once they did start, the 7th grade girls were the first to race. We were near the beginning of the route so we could see Tessa as she started off and as she crossed the finish line. Reve's parents were in the middle of the route and took Tessa's picture for us as she ran up the hill on her way back to the finish line. She was smiling and feeling good as she ran.

Here's a picture that was taken right at the starting line. I didn't think to count how many racers came in before Tessa and since it was just a fun run, they didn't keep track of the order or time, but I think she was probably around 12th or 13th of all the 7th grade girls who raced. As we waited for the 7th grade boys and all the 8th graders to race, we cheered on all the runners. I took this picture of Tessa with some of her Hornedo teammates as we waited for the final 8th grade boys to pass on their route.

The next week, they had their first official cross country meet and it was held at Franklin High School. They basically had to run around the perimeter of the school twice and that ended up being two miles. We found a spot right by the start/finish line which was the same since they ran in a very large circle. We even got to cheer them on as they ran around the first time, so we saw her half way through the race too. Here are pictures of when she crossed at the half way point and as she crossed the finish line. She ended up 6th place with a time of 17 min 21 sec. 

She did amazing for having only started running a couple weeks before. We were so proud of her and she was so excited to get a medal.

We went to a couple high school football games this season to support AJ on the JV team and to see the varsity team play since Abby wanted to be with her friends. One of the games we went to, the Franklin cougar mascot was there, and all the kids followed him around like little puppies. He was a good sport and played games with them and walked them all around the stands. I took this picture plus a video of them dancing, but they had a fun time as we all cheered on our football team.

July, Part 3 - Grandma Solheim's 90th Birthday, End of Summer

My Grandma, Jeanne Solheim, will turn 90 in September of this year, so my mom planned a big family reunion to celebrate her birthday. We all met in Phoenix, AZ the weekend of July 24th in honor of Grandma Jeanne. Those who were coming from out of town all stayed at the same resort and my mom reserved their clubhouse for a lot of our meals. The first day there, everyone arrived, got settled, and we took the kids swimming. Here are the girls with their cousins. So many girls!

As we ate our first big meal together, we took some pictures. It was fun to catch up with my cousins and have my kids meet some of their second cousins that they'd never met before. My grandma was so excited to see so many people and be loved by everyone. We played games in our free time, inside and outside the hotel rooms. Besides the pool, the resort had a sand volleyball court, shuffleboard, horseshoes, and a place where we set up a cornhole game. It was so fun to hang out with everyone and visit.

 

We had a little program and talent show at Grandma's church on Saturday. My dad played the pan and even Tessa prepared a number on the pan to perform. She did great playing in front of a bunch of people she didn't know.

Tessa and the other drummers in the family played a percussion number that was brought back by popular demand and requested by other family members because they remembered it from our last family reunion years and years ago. There was face painting and Taryn enjoyed playing with my cousin's daughter, Skye, who thought Taryn was just the most fun girl to play with.

Taryn and I went and sat with Grandma Jeanne while waiting for the program to start and while watching the slide show that my mom put together. We were all about the selfies so we could have some pictures with Grandma.

Grandma told us some of her favorite childhood memories and stories and ended with her testimony of the gospel. I was so happy to have my children there hearing the stories and testimony directly from their great-grandmother. It was so cool. I grabbed a quick picture of Grandma with her three oldest kids, my mom, Uncle Danne, and Aunt Denise as they brought out her birthday cake. Grandma also has 5 more kids from my Grandpa Ray's first marriage, and Uncle Matt, who was born after everyone else. Most of my aunts and uncles were there to help celebrate and it was fun to meet new members of the family and to reunite with those we hadn't seen in so long.

Each child under Grandma was assigned a bandana color so we could tell which kids belonged to which line of the family. We were black of course. Abby had me take a picture with her outside the church and I thought it was so cute. I love this girl.

I took some pictures of Abby with Tyler while waiting for the festivities to start. I thought both of these pictures were so awesome that I couldn't just pick one. They both had to be included. They look so much alike!

Here's a picture of all the black bandana folk. My mom and dad and all of their kids and grandkids with Grandma Jeanne. I think everyone was there except for John's wife McKaye who had just started a new job and couldn't take the time off from work.

I had to take some more generation pictures. Here are the four generations with Abby. And then a picture with just my family with Grandma Jeanne.

We set Grandma up in a comfy chair for all the pictures she had to be in. I took individual pictures of the girls with Grandma too, so here's Taryn and Abby.

And here's Tessa and Aubrey. I always love mentioning Aubrey when she gets her picture taken with grandma because Aubrey got her middle name, Jeanne, from her great-grandma and I love having her picture taken with her namesake.

One more picture of the cousins while we waited for the program. The girls got to dance to music that Abby had set up because Grandma loved to dance, so we did a lot of group dances. Old songs and some new to entertain the family. They had a fun time. Taryn played a little sand volleyball with her second cousins once she was tired of swimming in the pool. 

With all my brothers there, we decided to take a picture together and I found a memory on Facebook that showed a picture of all four of us together, so we tried to reenact this photo, but Nevla said we didn't do a very good job of getting all the same facial expressions right. But I still thought it was cute and loved having the time to hang out and visit with my big brothers.

After our sibling picture, we needed one with just our family. I love these guys so much.

On our drive home from Arizona, we stopped at an Arby's in a gas station and this huge A was on the wall next to where you order. Aubrey thought it was pretty neat and asked for a picture by it since she determined that it was "A for Aubrey."

Abby finished up her volleyball league games when we got back into town. They played almost every week during the summer, but we missed some while we traveled, but I grabbed a few pictures at her final couple games.

As the summer went on, Abby practiced more and more with her high school to prepare for the school's volleyball season. The high school has you sign up for a week-long volleyball camp to help prepare for the school season. They bring in coaches from out of state to work with the girls because the high school coaches aren't allowed to technically coach until school starts, so they spend a lot of time doing open gyms and game playing during the summer so the coaches can observe. And then when they have their official tryout, they can make the team decisions based on the entire summer. At the Excel camp, Abby was working with most of the JV team from the previous year. She was a setter and her coach for the camp was named Kai and he was from Hawaii originally, but he's from SVU, which is a school with similar standards to BYU. He was very helpful in coaching Abby and even finished the week by giving her advice about college and telling her to consider SVU in her future. She had a great time that week and learned a lot.

 

I was able to go to the temple at the end of the summer, but since I walk across the border while the driver goes through an express lane, I asked some friends to go with me so I wouldn't have to walk alone. Audrey and Jessica were both able to go that day and we had a great time attending the temple together. I have great friends!

We had a few final fun days to end our summer including swimming playdates with friends. We swam at the Andersen's house and I took a picture with Meg while we hung out in the shade and visited. When Meg was on my lap while I talked to her mom, Jessica, Abby came over, so Jessica made my daughter sit on her lap, so we could take this last picture. I thought it was pretty cute.

Our summer of 2019 turned out pretty awesome!