Cross Country Camp

Austin and Karsen were busy this week during the mornings with Running Camp sponsored by the high school cross country team. They learned stretches, starts, and worked on building endurance and played running games. Both kids enjoyed themselves a lot! Today they ended camp with a camp-wide race in which they ran a timed mile on a cross country course.

The campers.


Right before the start of the race.


Out of the 50+ campers, ranging in ages from going into 1st grade to going into 9th grade, Austin finished 8th!! He had a great time for his mile, 8:11, especially for his first actual competitive race.

Karsen did great as well, one of the first of the "little ones" to finish. She had a time of 9:55.

They all enjoyed rice krispy treats, popsicles, fruit, water, and juice at the end of their race and received their awards and certificates.

Another big happening this week was that Austin's new glasses came in. He was very disappointed that he will have to have them, and tried to talk us out of them in every possible way. He thought of contacts (which his eye doctor discourages until age 12), laser surgery (we told him when he is MUCH, MUCH older), and his friend Cooper and he devised their own eye test to prove that Austin can see Cooper just wonderfully when he holds his fingers up. When all of that failed, Austin reluctantly went to his fitting appointment this morning and emerged with his new handsome everyday glasses and his cool sporty glasses for baseball and soccer.

The sports goggles. Austin really likes these.

Both of our beautiful children:

We also enjoyed a couple of days of babysitting our cousin Ross and his wife Krissy's sweet little 3 month old, Emily. The kids did pretty well, and yes, my memory of small babies came back rather quickly. She is really an excellent baby and not much trouble at all, so we are hoping that our Brycen has some of those same easy-baby genes.

Please ignore the look of terror on Emily's face. I promise I wouldn't let Austin and Karsen hurt her :)

OH I could eat her up--she is so sweet!!! Next time I post a picture of one this small, it will probably be Bryce! So hard to believe his arrival is less than six weeks away!

School's Out!

The last day of school for the year is finally over for Austin and Karsen. Due to all the snow days, they had to make up 9 days. The last day was a fun one though, the annual field day. I helped by working at the "Survivor" game in which the contestants competed to see who could or would attempt to eat some gross foods to score points for their team. We had Spam, tuna, sardines, onions, peas, beets, vienna sausage, jalapenos, and other yummies. Also the rain held off which was completely lost on Karsen who was so soaked by the end of the water relay that she looked as if she had taken a swim in her clothes.

So now I have a 3rd grader and a 1st grader! Yikes! At the end of the day, the sixth graders had their sixth grade parade around the school where everyone stood outside their classrooms cheering and giving high fives to them while "We are the Champions" played over the Intercom. Our cousin Dakota was so handsome and grown up and of course I cried a little, which Austin and Karsen didn't understand. They are going to be REALLY embarrassed when it is them doing the sixth grade parade because I will really cry then!!
So summer is beginning, officially. We have lots of baseball and pool time planned. Karsen is improving ever so much with her swimming practices with the New Castle swim club and is so cute to watch when they have mock relays. She is the youngest, most inexperienced swimmer, but the only word I can use to describe her is that she swims with gusto. Austin's White Sox has definitely improved as of late, winning their last two games 10-2 and 11-2 over pretty decent teams. Austin has drawn a lot of walks! He is very patient and loves to score runs for his team.
Bryce is well, we have an appointment tomorrow. He is quite the kicker. He keeps me up at all hours, and we are definitely looking forward to seeing his little face. Still trying to decide on a middle name for the guy...but we may have to see him to finally choose one.
Here are some pictures from my new 3rd grader and 1st grader. I am so, so proud.