Halloween 2014

Allison went for comfort and cuteness this year as a baby.

I dropped her off at Carson's house for a Halloween block party with all of their neighbors and then trick-or-treating with Saige and Hailey too.

They had a scary guy chase them down the block when they tried to grab candy, but benefitted when his wife felt bad and let them empty the bucket!  She came home with 13 lbs (yes they weighed it!) of candy that nearly covered our ottoman.  Yum!

Taylor went to Devan's for a Halloween party.  They were Sophia Grace and Rosie from The Ellen Show as seen below.

Their group did a little trick-or-treating and then came back to Devan's to watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  I guess the best part of the night was when Devan's dad came from the backyard running in the house with his chainsaw and scaring the you know what out of the kids!  So good!

Matt and I enjoyed a quiet night out home answering the door for the neighborhood kids for the first time in years.  It felt a little weird not having to walk with the girls, but I'm glad they had a good time!

Weeks and Weeks of Spirit

One morning this week, Matt asked if Taylor ever wears 'normal' clothes to high school.  I'm starting to wonder the same thing.  Every Monday is WSB Shirt Day, Wednesdays are College Shirt Day and most Fridays are Red Wave days.  For the past few weeks, they have added several other Spirit Days for Red Ribbon Week and Because Nice Matters.  Here are a few of them:

 Preppy Day

 Camo Day

 Pajama Day

Costume Day

Beaumont XC Invitational

 Allison and her teammates were on the bus at 6:45 this morning for their XC meet in Beaumont.  

 I made the lovely drive through cow country and got there in time for the 7th grade girls race.  

 This course was a little longer than the VRMS one and much tougher since it was all gravel and sand.

 Allison finished 28th out of 100 7th grade girls 

and looks forward to the next race at Diamond Valley Lake in a few weeks.  

Costume Night

 This poor team still hasn't won a league game (only 1 more game left), but they are still in good spirits and always looking for a reason to have fun.  Our super heroes all ready for practice.

It was nice to see most of the team participate…Eve and Turbo were Coach Charlie, Aubree and Anika were Thing 1 and Thing 2, lots of super heroes and Charlie in a monkey suit.

BRACES

We thought we had dodged the bullet on braces for Allison until her most recent dentist appointment.  Her last two teeth were coming in at a slant and her bite was off, so after an orthodontic consultation, braces are on!  Today she got the top ones and will wait a few months for her bite to change so the bottom ones can be added.  I've got the mac n cheese, ice cream, applesauce, soup and pudding ready for a painful weekend, but the beautiful smile will be worth it in the end.

JV!

High school soccer tryouts began on Oct. 6th.  Taylor didn't really think she could make Varsity as a sophomore, but wanted to get as much exposure as possible.  She had a fantastic tryout on Monday and Tuesday of that week…scored several really nice goals, had a few great feeds that led to assists and overall played very well.  She was so excited to make Varsity callbacks on Thursday!  Unfortunately, she rolled her ankle on Tuesday night and struggled at the Thursday callback.  On Monday morning, the Varsity team was posted and she didn't make the final cut.  

JV tryouts started on the 13th, but Taylor had to sit them out because she suffered a slight concussion at her game on Sunday (poor kid couldn't catch a break this week).  I emailed the coaches and asked if they could base her placement off of her tryout last week and they agreed.  Taylor attended all 3 days of tryouts, but had to watch from the sideline.  We were fairly confident she would make the JV squad based on last week's performance, but the waiting was still tough!

The teams were finally posted Sunday night.  Our #64 made the JV squad!!  She is so excited to be on this team and really looks forward to the season getting started.

They had their first team meeting after school today.  Practice starts Nov. 3 so she will have a few weeks with double practice for high school and club until the club season ends Thanksgiving week.  I'm just glad the stress of tryouts is over.  Go Wolfpack!!

Color Run

We were out the door at 5:15am for today's Color Run at Qualcomm Stadium.  The girls made cute matching tutu's and we wore as much white as possible to show off all of our color.

 Check-in was smooth and we got these cool shirts, headbands, tattoos and tote bags.

After a fun Zumba warm up, we followed the sea of white to the start line.  They sent us off in groups so we could be spread out enough to all get color-coated!

One final "clean" shot before making our way on the course.  The girls took off ahead of Leslie and I and we agreed on a meeting spot at the finish.  Leslie and I ran about 2 miles of the 5K and walked the rest.  There were color stations where volunteers sprayed us with color and cheered us on.

 By the time we reached the finish line, we were pretty well coated head to toe, down our shirts, in our ears, etc.

 The girls had more color fun by putting chalk on the drums

 and throwing color packets in the crowd.

Before we exited, we lined up to get cleaned off by the leaf blowers, but that only helped a little.  We looked a little silly going out to breakfast at Mimi's, but it was a very fun event!

Run Allie Run

Today was the first meet for the fall XC season.  The opening meet is always held at VRMS, so the girls didn't have to travel.  Allison and Turbo have done most of their training at soccer practice and during PE, but Allison has certainly become a stronger runner since last year.

They met up with their soccer buddies, but middle school rivals before the race :)

Allison and her fellow Bulldogs ready for the 7th grade girls race to start.  Race time was at 10:15 and it had to be in the high 90's!

After the starting gun, Allison was probably in the top 1/3 of the runners.  I was worried she went out too fast, but she seemed to be in a zone and totally focused.

As she approached the last lap on the track, she seemed to gain momentum and passed over about 8 girls in the final turn!  She said she could hear us cheering her on!

The girl in black passed her just before stepping on the mat.  Allison finished with a time of 13:12…1 minute and 16 seconds better than her time on the same course last year!!  

The top 30 girls got medals and Allison finished 19th out of 180 7th graders and advanced to next weeks Invitational.  We are so proud of her effort and I could see she was quite proud of herself.  

All of her buddies did great too!  Carly got 36th, Reanna got 37th, Zoe finished 45th and Turbo finished 46th.  Turbo even puked at the finish line!!  Great job to all of the runners and good luck with the rest of the season!!

Sugar Overload

Wendy and I both turn 40 this week, which was certainly reason enough to celebrate with SUGAR!  Since we had both just recently crossed Peterson's Donuts in Escondido off our lists, we decided to start with the Donut Bar in downtown SD.  We have seen many great reviews about it and it is listed as one of the 10 best donuts shops in the USA by USA Today.

We drove down as soon as we dropped the kids off at school, knowing that they sell out most days.

There was a line out the door!

I spotted the Nutella donut right away while window shopping

and we picked 5 more off of the daily menu.

 We had really hoped to try the Red Velvet, but it was already sold out.

We took our stash upstairs to the dining lounge, split each donut into thirds and began our sugar overload.  All 6 were very good, but I would rate them in the following order from best to worst:

Nutella, Chocolate CroBar, Apple Orchard, Mud Pie, Caramel Latte and Strawberry Shortcake.

We left stuffed, but will certainly be back!  We still had ice cream on tap for lunch time, so we had a nice walk in Balboa Park and then shared a small teriyaki chicken/rice plate to soak up some of the sugar before Round #2.

Just a few hours after testing 6 donuts, we were on to Hammond's in North Park.

This has to be the best ice cream in San Diego!  This time I tried Pineapple Coconut, Chocolate Macadamia Coconut, Strawberry Sorbet and Jamocha Almond Fudge… all delicious but probably liked the chocolatey one the best!

We had a great time today and will seek out new spots to try for our next celebration.  Until then, I will be eating lots of salad :)