Another Week // Winding Down from Summer School

I picked up Marissa and Melayna from camp a full week ago.  (I cannot even believe that it's June 21st already!!)  They were at camp the week of the 9th through the 14th and I drove up to pick them up around noon last Friday.  Both of them were sad to be finished with their week at camp as they had a really great week.  I am thankful that they had a week to be stretched in their faith and new friendships, but I'm also so very thankful for them to be home once again.

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On Saturday the 15th, the family participated in another "Blackburn Run / Water For Good" 5K.  Even though we all walked or ran at different paces, everyone in the larger Howett family (including cousins, aunts and uncles, and Grandma) all received a bracelet and placed in our age groups.  Not that our final places really matter when the money goes to such a good cause.  At last count, over $5,000 was raised which will provide two new water pumps (at least) in the Central African Republic.  There was a photographer there taking pictures and I'm hoping to add those to the blog as soon as he sends those out.

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On Monday we were back to our crazy summer school schedule for one last week.

Melayna had band camp each and every morning at 8:00 again so I would drop her off and then take Morgan over for her final week of P.E. in summer school which began at 8:30.  At 9:00, I would pick up Melayna and head home only to come back an hour later to drop off Marissa at her band class.  Then I'd wait at the school for an hour until Marissa finished band and then we'd pick Morgan up from summer school at 12:30 before heading back home.  Since it was the last week of summer school, there were a few "extras" thrown in, like a cook-out for band on Tuesday and two band concerts on Wednesday.  And Morgan completed her fitness testing all through the week as part of her final exams.  She did really well on all of those and was proud to see how much she grew stronger in just three weeks of intensive class.

You cannot see Melayna in the picture but this was her first concert as a 6th grade beginner.  She is in the front row playing the clarinet.  She really learned a lot in just two weeks of practice (as she missed a full week while she was at camp) and she's excited to continue playing through this upcoming school year.

Marissa has already played in the band for over two years but this year she is switching instruments as they had quite a few saxophone players.  (And she's ready for a new challenge).  So it was strange to see her sitting in a different place playing the Bassoon.

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After the band concerts were over and Morgan had come home from her class, I took Melayna back over for her second riding lesson at the new barn.  She got busy right away brushing and bonding with "Fancy" and then they spent another hour riding around the arena just getting use to the way Melayna guides her and how Fancy responds to Melayna's direction.  Denise would give her instructions and pointers every now and again but for the most part, Melayna just practiced guiding the horse.  She was really nervous again on the way up but quickly settled in.  I brought a good book and sat up above the arena and enjoyed some quiet time that I don't get very much of!!

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As the week winds down to a close, we are getting ready for another big weekend / upcoming week.  Marissa is competing in her 2nd annual Triathlon tomorrow morning and then we are heading up to Ludington, MI where Noel is competing again in the 2nd annual Coast to Coast Gravel Grinder bike race.  He will start racing at 6:00 on Saturday morning with a goal of completing the 210 miles on bicycle before the 3:00 a.m. deadline on Sunday morning.  Unfortunately, he wasn't able to finish the full 210 miles last year so he's hoping for a little redemption.

On our way home from MI on Sunday, we'll make a slight detour and drop Morgan off at church camp at Bear Lake Camp.  This will be her first experience at being away for camp and we are all praying that she will have a great time!!  (I'll post stories and/or pictures of that later as well).

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And finally, pictures showing shirts that our friend Doug had made for Noel's race this weekend.  Doug will be Noel's support driver and he thought it would be fun for us to wear t-shirts celebrating Noel's finish - when he finishes this year!!

One More Week...

You know our weeks are crazy busy when I only have the time to do one large post to highlight the entire week.  And this last week was another one of those.  So, here's our recap:

1.  I started off our week by finishing up a Senior session for Caleb.  We've tried to meet several times and the weather hasn't cooperated to take any outside pictures.  Until now.  I took multiple pictures but this is the one that Caleb wanted the most for his graduation announcements.  His Mom was so anxious to get the announcements sent out, she had them designed and ordered the same day that I sent her the edited proofs!

2.  On Monday night, Marissa had her last regular track meet of the season.  She ran the 1600, the 800 (matching her previous PR) and then she finished with the 4x400 relay.  The team won once again and Marissa found out that her performance in the 1600 should be enough to get her into the conference championships this upcoming Saturday.  She is only 1 of 2 seventh graders running varsity in the conference championships so she's pretty excited about that.  She's also been unofficially invited by her coaches to participate in the State Middle School track meet down in Terre Haute next Saturday as part of the 4x400 relay team.  We are still awaiting final details and the official invite for that which should come the first of next week after conference is over.

3.  On Tuesday night, the high school track teams hosted the conference championship as well so Noel was out pretty late with that.   Their season is also quickly winding down to a close.  Lady Tigers finished first in the high school conference for the 14th year in a row while the Men's Tiger team finished second in a tightly contested men's title.

4.  On Wednesday night, Melayna had her last regular track meet of the season.  Her team easily won.  She was excited to run the 50 meter dash, the 100 meter dash, and to finally move up to the 4x200 relay as part of the "A" team.  She finished in 2nd by the narrowest of margins in the 50, she easily won her 100, and she finished the first leg of the 4x200 with a pretty good lead that helped them win.  Man!  That girls loves to run and it's seriously fun to watch her.

These pictures are from the relay.  She was the first leg of the race and was receiving her final instructions.  (Melayna is the middle girl wearing the hot pink shorts!)

At the first turn she looks like she's in second place but she quickly made up the stagger.

 As soon as she came out of the turn, she poured on the speed and quickly overtook both of the other teams and put a good amount of distance between the 1st and 2nd place teams for the hand-off.

5.  Morgan's 15th birthday was on Thursday!!  Oh my goodness!!  15?!  Seriously??  I'll share more about her birthday celebration in another post.  Unfortunately for her, she had school all day and then our evening was busy with an awards ceremony and Noel had a meeting that evening.  I still wanted her to wake up knowing that she wasn't forgotten so I decorated the house the night before with our traditional streamers and balloons.  

Kudos to Marissa and a few other friends who went out of their way during their school day to make it extra special by getting the choir to come into their band class to sing to her along with other teachers and friends sending her sweet messages.  She says that she was embarrassed but I do think she enjoyed knowing others remembered.  

6.  Also on Thursday night, Melayna finished out her year on the Student Council with a year-end party and then we quickly headed over to the Wagon Wheel for the Arts Center Awards Ceremony.  The doors opened at 6:00 with the ceremony beginning at 7:00.  We arrived around 6:30 and enjoyed the free ice cream that they were passing out.  Then we took a seat and waited for the ceremony to begin.  When it was time to start, they called up the top three finalists from each division and then announced the winners.  I'm excited to announce that Melayna's design was the winner for the 5th grade division!

The winning banners will be hung downtown all through the summer so it will be fun to drive through town later and see Melayna's banner displayed.  And Melayna won four tickets to the play "Matilda" so we will get to go enjoy that play in June.

7.  On Friday while the kids were in school, Nolan and I headed up to pick up a clarinet for Melayna. Our preacher's daughter plays the clarinet and is super excited to see someone else learning her favorite instrument so she is giving us her beginner clarinet as a gift to us.  All we needed to do was to get it repaired and ready to play.  Now Laynie will be ready to start summer band next month and I am so grateful for how the Lord has shown us favor once again and blessed the children through the generosity of others.

8.  On Friday night, Melayna took part in the City Wide Track Meet.  Warsaw Community Schools has eight elementary schools of its own and also hosts two private elementary schools as part of the meet so it's a great time for the top two elementary kids from each school to compete against each other in their chosen events.  Once again, Melayna competed in the 50 meter dash, the 100 meter dash, and the 4x200 meter relay and once again, it was cold.  It was actually very sunny and the sky looked beautiful but it was very deceiving for sure!  I mean, I sat through the whole meet wearing my winter coat and gloves!!

But... despite the cold and windy conditions, my girl came ready to run!!  She started off the 4x200 relay and when she handed off the baton, they were in first place.  They ended up finishing in 2nd place.  Then Melayna finished 3rd in the 50 and another 3rd in the 100.  Considering that there were 10 schools and over 36 runners in her races, she did an incredible job!!  I'll post more pictures from the night in a later post.

9.  AND finally....  Marissa ended out the week back at Plymouth high school for the middle school conference championships where she ran the 1600 meter run as part of the top two mile runners chosen from her school.  She didn't earn a PR but she did finish fourth overall in the conference and only a few seconds off of her fastest pace so she was pleased with her performance overall.  And to top it off, both the boys and the girls teams won the meet to become the conference champions.

Congratulations Edgewood on another great season!        

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And congratulations to me for making it through another week!!  Yay!                                                                         

Random Reasons for Our Absence

Oh my goodness!  Where has the last week (or two) gone?  

I guess we're just living life.  'Trying to enjoy family time in our evenings without swim team or meetings.  We are slowly making the switch from swimming to track and we've been trying to enjoy warmer weather to run or bike ride as a family.  'Not always things that make the blog or even a camera - but refreshing all the same.

We have made sure to enjoy open swim at our local community pool a couple of nights.  Last week we went two different nights and both times I jumped in (to the cold water) with the kids and while Morgan and Marissa swam laps and tried to do a work-out of some sort, I convinced Nolan to take off his life jacket so he could practice swimming.  He's slowly getting the hang of the dog paddle and just might be able to keep himself above the water for a short while.  Maybe this will be the summer that he learns to swim!!

Last Tuesday night in honor of "March is Music in our Schools Month", Morgan had a band concert along with the choir and orchestra.  They only performed three songs but all of them sounded great!  I cannot believe how good our middle school band can be.  We really enjoyed the concert!!

Well, at least most of us....

... Some were too tired to enjoy it and ended up having a good quick nap instead!

I got my new washing machine this week.  Yay!

After three or four weeks without one, I was really excited for sure!!

And then on Friday night, Morgan went up with her band to compete in a band competition.  They had an interesting night with the bus getting them there late and then finding out that their percussion had forgotten some of their drumsticks, etc.  but overall they did another great job and brought home a gold!

Can you find Morgan in the picture below?