Finally, at long last... here it is.
Nearly every weekend in the month of October involves soccer. Soccer has becomes such a big part of this family. When the kids aren't watching it on TV, they are playing it either on the field or in the kitchen. Clara has really found her niche as goalie. Her coach thinks that she could be good enough to play on the travel team next year. That is still to be decided though. And to top it all off... in the last game of this past season, she scored her first goal! It was one of those really great moments... that we will remember for a very long time. Lucas takes the game so seriously, I think he finds it difficult to play with the other U6 players: the ones who still handle the ball or the ones who dance around and pick weeds. I have seen him mature a great deal over this soccer season. At the beginning, he would cry when he got pushed down, but by the end, he was picking himself back up and going after the ball again. Poor Eli wants to play so badly, and he gets stuck at the sidelines for both games... every weekend.
October
Nearly every weekend in the month of October involves soccer. Soccer has becomes such a big part of this family. When the kids aren't watching it on TV, they are playing it either on the field or in the kitchen. Clara has really found her niche as goalie. Her coach thinks that she could be good enough to play on the travel team next year. That is still to be decided though. And to top it all off... in the last game of this past season, she scored her first goal! It was one of those really great moments... that we will remember for a very long time. Lucas takes the game so seriously, I think he finds it difficult to play with the other U6 players: the ones who still handle the ball or the ones who dance around and pick weeds. I have seen him mature a great deal over this soccer season. At the beginning, he would cry when he got pushed down, but by the end, he was picking himself back up and going after the ball again. Poor Eli wants to play so badly, and he gets stuck at the sidelines for both games... every weekend.
Columbus Day Weekend - For the past couple of years, we've taken advantage of the three day weekend at the peak of fall foliage colors to camp in West Virginia. This year we picked a quiet little campground in Seneca State Forest. On Sunday, we rode the Cass Scenic Railroad up to Bald Knob (elev. 4,842 ft.), the third-highest point in WV. On Monday, we toured the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and saw the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope, the Green Bank Telescope.
Biography day - Every year, the GT third grade does a project for biography day where they pick one person off a list to research. They learn all they can about this one person and then in addition to an oral report, they have to create a puppet of this person, and they have to come to school dressed like this person. Clara's person was Harriet Tubman. Her puppet and costume looked really great!
Halloween - This year, Clara was very adamant that she wanted to be a colorful macaw for Halloween. Meanwhile, Lucas wanted to be a bat. I attempted to make both costumes, while Eli wore a hand-me-down lion costume. They all three ended up looking great... and happy with their costumes.
November
Lucas was awarded the Citizen of the Month at his school. Yay, Lucas!
Clara and I went to see the Nutcracker ballet performed by her dance studio, the same ballet that she participated in last year. Two revelations came from our time in the audience: "I HAVE to be on the stage next year. I'm not meant to sit here and watch." and "I was named after the Clara in the story, wasn't I?" Oh yeah, she's growing up.
Thanksgiving was spent in Missouri this year. It was an attempt to beat travelling in bad weather, as we have the past few Christmases. We succeeded. The weather was perfect for most of our trip... and NO snow! On the way there we stopped at New River Gorge N.P. in West Virginia and walked around for a bit. The New River Gorge bridge is spectacular. We had a wonderful visit with family and a very nice holiday. I missed seeing our old JoMo friends, though. Of course, we are incredibly lucky to have friends that put us up going and coming, so as always... it was great to spend time with them. On our drive home, we stopped at Perryville Battlefield in Kentucky.
