Cross X / Halloween

 Kendal had her district Cross Country meet on the 23rd. She ran a great race and was able to squeak in a PR! She came in 8th on the team and they took 2nd in the district meet! Because one of the top 7 players decided to opt out of State that gave a Varsity running spot to Kendal for State, instead of her being an alternate in her 8th place standing. 

Alice had her last game on the 26th. It was the closest game of her little season so far, but they came out with a win! Alice got into the game and was so good at defense. She even got shots up a few times. She was sad that her season was already over, but had a good month of games and is looking forward to next year. That night we had our ward chili dinner and costume parade with the kids. 

Since the weather was so mild last weekend we put up our Christmas lights. Felt weird to do so before Halloween, but we couldn't pass up 70 degree weather in late October to get on the roof. The kids also carved their pumpkins. Kendal ended up painting ghosts on hers, Pete did a Lego Vampire, and Alice wanted hearts all over hers. This past week was book fair week and parent teacher conferences. Casey also had open gym's at the high school at night. Since I was at the book fair I couldn't be at the middle school for parent teacher conferences. 

Halloween we all got to dress up for school. Casey was gymnast Steve from the Olympics this summer and Pete ended up being his coach for school. I was Oscar the grouch - which not enough kids knew who that was so I changed it up to be a care bear at Stricker. Alice happily wore her unicorn costume that shes had at the ready for over a month now. Casey was my hero and ran a school dance during our PAWS afternoon at school he had roughly 280 students in the gym jamming out to tunes and having a blast on Halloween afternoon. (I was stuck cleaning up the book fair, and helping with Alice's class party. Casey and the other teacher's are my champions for helping make this work, so I could do some fundraising for the library rewards that I do. Kendal collaborated with friends and they were minions at school. After practice that night Kendal was picked up by friends and went out with them to eat, do a bit of trick or treating, and watch a movie. We made a deal with Kendal that if she went sugar free the week leading up to her State competition she could earn something. She was unhappy that this landed during the week of Halloween, but I should say the proof is in the results. So hopefully she saw the benefits of doing so even though it was pretty rough to keep that commitment. Peter ate a quick dinner then went out to join his little gang to trick or treat and ended up at the Meidell's to watch a scary movie. I was in the depths of a cold and just a bit done with the week (mix of AR stuff, book fair, and the dance) so Casey took Alice out for trick or treating in the neighborhood. Alice came home and happily ate some treats and handed out candy to a few kids that came to our house. We were lucky enough no to have to work or go to school on Friday. 

Kendal left for State on Friday. We had a send off Friday at 12:30 and the athletes went up to run the course through and prepare for their meet on Saturday. Yesterday we were able to go up to Boise and watch Kendal run for Varsity at State. We drove up through rain, but got a slight break just before and during Kendal's race. Despite mud and a not great day for running Kendal came out with a new PR by 45 seconds! Going into this meet we made sure that Kendal was mentally prepared, and in it for the experience and to hopefully come out with a new PR, and she did just that! In the middle of the next race it starting pouring hail and rain along with lighting and thunder. I was soaked as I huddled Naomi and Alice off under my coat to the bathrooms for a quick trip. They had to delay our boys running by 35 minutes after the storm passed over. Everything was soaked, wet, and cold. I felt bad for the two boys races that had to end the day with even more mud and slick trails to run along. We're so very proud of Kendal's accomplishments this year in Cross Country. Her time counted for Varisty in many of their races and she ran in the top 7 girls out of 16 for most of the season. She grew in leaps and bounds from beginning to end getting PR's a long the way in all but one of her races. She gets one day off and will have basketball tryouts tomorrow with Casey for the high school teams. 

Bonus pictures from the last two weeks. . .