Tessa finished her cross country season in October. She ran the final district meet at a park on the east side. She was a little nervous leading up to this meet because her friend, Ayla, was not able to run this meet; so Tessa was nervous about having to run by herself. A funny story: we had told Tessa if she finished in the top 5 of the race, we’d treat her to Bahama Bucks. She told us after the race that once she passed enough people to be in 5th place towards the end, she remembered telling herself “at least I’ll get Bahama Bucks.” Then she heard her coach cheering her on and she was able to pass another two girls to reach third place for the final stretch of the course. We were really cheering her on at this point and she raced up to catch the girl who was in 2nd place right in front of her. As she pulled up with that girl, another girl was catching up behind her. She said with all the yelling and cheering she knew someone was coming up behind her, so those three girls had a race to the finish for 2nd place. Luckily, Tessa pulled ahead easily and ended up crossing the line first of those three girls and so she ended up 2nd place in the entire district, not far behind the first place girl. We were so proud of her! Tyler walked down to the middle of the course and got this first picture of Tessa as she ran over the dirt hill that she remembered from the course last year. I stayed close to the start and finish line and was able to see Tessa as she rounded the last corner and crossed the finish line.
One of Tessa’s young women leaders, Sis. Kener, came to Tessa’s race to cheer her on. It was so nice of her to support Tessa and be there with us. The high school coaches ran this district race and the cross country coach from Franklin was very impressed with Tessa’s run. He had started talking to Tyler during the middle of the race and he also saw her come in 2nd place at the end, so he talked to us more after the race about cross country at Franklin and was really talking it up like he wanted Tessa to run on his team next year. The final event for cross country was the awards ceremony. With Covid, we weren’t sure if the kids were going to get any medals this year, but they got them all at the end, so the coaches called out those that got medals for each of the races. Tessa placed 2nd in every race this season so she received three silver medals.
The 8th grade girls from Hornedo placed 1st place in the district, so the school gets a trophy for that honor. We took a picture of Tessa with the trophy since she helped earn that award for her team. We also took a picture of Tessa with her closest friends from the team. From left to right it’s Elise, Isabel, Ayla, and Tessa.
I got another picture with Tessa and some of her teammates and their coach, Coach Venegas. Tessa had an awesome cross country season and is excited to continue running and hopefully run with the cross country team in high school next year too.
Abby finished her volleyball season in October as well. Some parents were in charge of taking pictures during games, so I was able to save some pictures during the season. Here’s one with Abby next to her coach, Coach Sterling, during one of their time outs.
Here’s another picture that someone took of the team that included Abby on the side lines while they waited for their game to start. This second picture was taken by a yearbook staff member that’s friends with Abby so he sent the picture to her. Here she is serving during the game.
He also took some other shots of Abby during their game. I love these pictures because I had to work rotating the balls, so I couldn’t ever take any action shots while she was playing; but now I have these pictures of her actually setting during the game which I really appreciate.
This is another picture taken by a parent while Abby was on the court. I loved watching her play and being there in person for the few games we were able to see in person.
Before one of Abby’s final games, she and her friend Braelinn were getting ready together. Braelinn is on the drill team at Franklin and she had a football game the same night Abby had a game, and they thought it was funny to see the difference in how they each prepared for game day. The preparation difference between a drill team member and a volleyball player is pretty drastic, so they wanted a picture to remember the day. I also got this picture of Abby with two of her friends, Sabrina and Andrea on Andrea’s birthday. We drove to a park where they were having a birthday drive by, so Abby jumped out to wish her a happy birthday and get a picture with them.
Now on to Taryn’s birthday. Taryn turned 9 on October 14th. That was a Wednesday this year and it happened to be a week that they didn’t have any school for a fall intercession break. We thought it was great because it was like we had an entire week to celebrate Taryn’s birthday. The Monday before her birthday, we rented out an entire movie theater. We were able to take 20 people so we invited the Kasallis and Andersen families and Taryn’s friend Elsie. With them and our family, we had 20 people to take up the entire theater and we watched the movie, The War with Grandpa, which was pretty funny.
The Kasallis family gave Taryn some balloons, so after the movie we took some pictures of Taryn at the front of the theater holding her balloons. She wanted to wear a dress so she’d be dressed up for her birthday outing. With her all dressed up and going to a bought-out theater, I kept thinking of the original Annie movie where they do the same thing and sing, “Let’s go to the movies...” It just made me smile. I took pictures of the different groups once we got settled in the theater. Taryn and her friends, Elsie, Teagan, and Cort sat between Cort’s parents and me and Tyler.
The pre-teens sat behind us so that was Tessa, Sam, Aubrey, and Lexi. Meg, the youngest of our group kept rotating seats between parents and kids. The teenagers sat down a few rows in front of us and enjoyed the movie from there. It was Reve, Logan, AJ, and Abby.
I took one more picture before the movie started of our entire theater from the front. We really loved that we were the only ones there. It was funny because as people laughed or commented during the movie, which normally we don’t like, just made us laugh this time because we knew who was making each comment. We had to finish our movie with a dance party at the front of the theater during the credits. We really had a great time with our friends and kicking off Taryn’s birthday week.
On Taryn’s actual birthday, I had scheduled her well visit for that day since it was all they had available that week. I felt a little bad because even though a well visit isn’t a big deal, during Taryn’s well visit we always do flu shots because it’s the right time of year. So on Taryn’s actual 9th birthday she had to get a shot. The plus side was she wasn’t the only one getting her flu shot and I told them if they didn’t whine or complain we’d get Bahama Bucks afterwards. They did amazing (I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner because Aubrey’s always a bear during shot visits), so they enjoyed their Bahama Bucks smoothies and snow cones after getting their shots. I loved this second picture because Taryn was so happy and she came up with this pose of her avalanche sized snow cone with her sisters. Abby’s laughing because in these pictures she hadn’t actually gotten her flu shot yet. She and I went to a free drive up flu shot center after we had purchased our Bahama Bucks treats.
As you can see, Taryn chose to dress up and wear a dress and fancy shoes for her birthday as well. We had Taryn’s pick of Panda Express for dinner and we fed the missionaries too. One of the missionaries had his birthday the day after Taryn so she was nice enough to share her birthday cake and candles with him. They each took a turn blowing out candles. Abby and Braelinn made Taryn the three-tiered chocolate birthday cake that she requested. We took one final picture of Taryn with all her presents after she unwrapped them. She was very excited for everything she got - from the water bottle, to the hatchimals, to the games and candy. She also really loved the Rainbow High doll that was at the top of her birthday wish list this year.
I had to post a final picture of one of Taryn’s filtered pictures that she saved on my phone. We really love this girl and the joy and happiness she brings to our family. She is still our sensitive one who really feels the emotions of others. She’s quick to say sorry and quick to give a hug when someone else is sad. She loves to play with her friends and ride her bike. She likes to bake and eat treats and she loves watching tv shows and movies. She really loves to play games on her Nintendo switch, on the Wii, and on any phone she can get her hands on. Happy birthday Taryn!
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