End-of-School Year Craziness!!!

After today, we are now down to only 9 days of school left!!! There are times where I wonder if we're going to make it. :-) It has been so busy with all the end of the year projects, events, homework, and sports that there simply isn't enough time for everything that needs done. I am precariously close to this moment:



Since it wouldn't be all that productive, I am fighting it as hard as I can.  Nine more days... we can somehow get through nine more days, right?

Delaney's soccer team finally started their league games, after many early season tournaments and games.  They are playing in the top division in the state, playing some very good teams.  Their record is 0-4 so far, which is hard for the girls; however, a couple of them were extremely close.  We've played Zionsville, Evansville Premier, Fishers and FC Pride -- so there has been a lot of traveling down south too. 











Sometimes events overlap a bit too much.  Delaney had a track meet one Friday evening.  She didn't get home until late, only to have to get up early the next morning and head down to Indianapolis for not one, but two soccer games -- and, she had a bad cold too.  It was a pretty rough weekend for her.









Here's Dee getting some pointers from coach before heading back into the game.  :-)



I liked this sequence, had to put them together.  Nice move, Dee!



The weather has been so extreme this spring too.  It seems as if we're either freezing or sweltering at games.  This picture was taken at their first blazing hot, full sun game; Delaney was miserable.  She said she felt like throwing up most of the game, simply due to the heat.  UGH!



Delaney's first year of track is now officially over.  She had a great year and really enjoyed it.  She was even selected to participate in the Track Conference, and she definitely will want to participate again next year. Thanks to both her coaches -- soccer and track -- who were willing to be a bit flexible and allow her to participate in both sports.  :-)





Kenny had his own little sports outing too, a Bad Pants Golf Outing.  It was raising money for diabetes.  He met a couple of his buddies, Terry and Shawn.  They were playing on the MicroIntegration team and simply wore some awful pants enjoying the beautiful weather out golfing for a good cause.  They even placed third!



Scary, isn't it?

Delaney's school had their Awards Ceremony just last night.  She works hard to keep her grades up, and this year she's had a few classes here and there that were quite a struggle.  We're so proud of her for achieving an award for the honor roll placement all year.  She also received an award for Perfect Attendance as well as an award for Outstanding Achievement - Exploring Music.  While she was excited about all the wonderful recognition she received, I think she was most honored to be presented with the reading award.

We all know how much she loves to read, and this year she wanted to try for the reading award.  She received the Jon Millstead Award, reading 106 books and earning over 1400 AR points.  Way to go, Dee!  Her name will go on the plaque for the 2011-2012 year, which is displayed in the library.  There are just enough spots left for Kyle to try to get his name on the same plaque when he hits sixth grade.  So once again, Delaney throws down the gauntlet.  That's okay though, because Kyle readily beat her grade school challenge -- beating her Solon Record while he's only in the third grade!  

The Jon Millstead Award for Reading Achievement was started in honor of a Taft student who loved to read and died of a brain tumor in November 1993 at the age of 15.  He loved to read as many books as possible, and his parents have been at Taft since 1994 to present the award.  When Kenny talked with Mr. Millstead last night, he mentioned that he was impressed with the fact that Delaney not only read 106 books... but a lot of BIG books as well.



Nine more days, seriously, we can make it through just nine more days of school, right?  (* sigh *)  The next couple of weeks are going to be crazy.

Ken, Dani, Dee & Kyle

Easter, Soccer, Track and more!!!

Way back on the weekend of March 17th and 18th, Delaney's team had some pre-season games in Indianapolis -- the Dynamo Round Robin.  Since Delaney had won third place in the St. Patrick's Day Parade Logo Contest... it was going to be a busy weekend with a lot of driving so she could attend the tournament and the parade.  (I've been a bit behind organizing all the soccer photos, but hopefully now I am caught up!)  Since I didn't think I could handle all the driving, soccer games and still attend the evening parade without complete exhaustion, Kyle and I chose to stay home that weekend.  So Delaney took Shelby (a friend from school) with them and headed out for the tournament.















































It was obviously a bit wet and muddy!  Shelby helped out by taking some pictures since I wasn't there, and Kenny was busy keeping stats during the game.  They went 2-1 for the weekend -- 0-4, 5-0 (Dee had 1 assist) and 3-0 (Dee had 1 goal). 

Before Spring Break, Delaney's soccer team had a "friendly" game with Junior Irish.  It wasn't an official League game for the season, just another chance for her team to play before the season started up.  An old buddy of Kenny's from school was the "informal" referee for the game.  He was telling Delaney during some down time that he had a lot of stories about her dad that he could share.  :-)

 





Then, the next day after our little Spring Break trip to Key Lime Cove, it was Easter!  Kenny hid 118 eggs in the lower level for the kids to find the next morning.  Pretty much everywhere you looked, it seemed as if there was an Easter egg there. And usually their Easter baskets are sitting on the couch waiting for them during the egg search, but this year they had an added challenge:

...so they had an exact amount of eggs to find!  After the obvious ones were discovered, it took them a while to find the stragglers that were more strategically placed.  But they finally found them all!



  
 
 

Which was a good thing, because they needed all the puzzle pieces to put the puzzle together to find out where their Easter baskets were!



The back of the puzzle finally had their directions to find their baskets.



Tah-dah!  They finally found them!



They each had a t-shirt just for them in their basket among other goodies.  Kyle's was a nod to his constant love of video games (and the fact he never wants to quit).



While Delaney's shirt was soccer-themed with a quote that she's always liked.  She is always teased about being so petite, but she doesn't let that stop her from playing soccer as hard as she can.



Our very next weekend was yet another soccer tournament in Rockford!  This time they were playing in the Puma Champions Cup. The girls were playing so well!  They had worked out their kinks with their earlier games and were ready to bring it.  :-)  They had two games on Saturday.  Their first game was a 2-0 win (Dee had 1 goal); their second game was another win 3-0 (Dee had two assists).  She was psyched!

The next day they had to win their first game to get into the semi-finals.  At the beginning it seemed as if the game could have gone either way, but they pulled out a 4-2 win (Dee got 1 goal and 1 assist).  So now their second game of the day was playing another team who made it to the semi-finals too.  They played hard and won that game 2-1 (Dee got both goals).  That win took them to the final game, and by then you could tell that both teams were pretty tired.  Three games in one day is a lot, especially since the weather wasn't cooperating and the time to rest between games was pretty darn short.  They played hard but lost 1-2. 











So the U13 Three Lions team were runners-up in the Puma Champions Cup!  Great job, ladies!  They also had a team meeting this weekend where they presented awards from last season, Fall 2011.  Delaney was excited to receive the Most Goals award.  :-)



The Saturday after that, was SJC's Little 500.  It's always something!  The cold weather and so much running around was too much for me, so Kyle and I stayed home and chilled out while Delaney and Kenny took off again.  Kenny played in the alumni game that morning.  He said he was the oldest alumni playing!  He was playing against kids who were BORN the year he graduated!  He survived though, and then they had a lot of fun visiting and hooking up with Hurst and his family (see picture).



Later that same evening, we celebrated my mom's birthday at Danah's house.   I'm pretty sure she'd kill me if I posted a picture of her, so here's a picture of the beautiful cake that Danah made:



It was beautiful, but oh-so-rich.  Yes -- those are malt balls covering the cake.  Way too much food and calories, but it was definitely a nice celebration.

The next day we were heading down South past Indianapolis to Bargersville (loooooong drive).  This was the team's official first game of the season for their league, which seems sort of weird after playing so many games already.  :-)

The girls played really well, but gave up a couple goals in the last 10 minutes and ended up losing 1-2.  Delaney had a great assist for our goal.







And as if that wasn't enough, sprinkled throughout all this was Delaney's new sport: track.  Yes, she had her first few meets.













She does like to compete!  She has placed so far in everything she had participated in.  Earning two firsts and a second her first meet, one second and two thirds her second meet, and just tonight got a second and two thirds.

Wow, getting behind on photos really adds up!  I'll try to keep up so our posts aren't always so long.

Luv,
Ken, Dani, Dee and Kyle

Spring Break!

Our Spring Break was really laid back! The kids slept in, played a lot of video games, and just chilled out most of the time. Towards the end of the break, we took the kiddos to Key Lime Cove for a few days. We had never been there, so it was our very first visit.



It was a nice little indoor waterpark, and everyone had a lot of fun. Pretty much as soon as we got there, we changed into our suits and headed to the waterpark. We were basically wet the entire time we were there. Kenny and Delaney hit every single slide that was in the park SEVERAL times.





Kyle is still a bit timid on rides, so he stuck to all the smaller slides and had a blast.



We didn't know it, but one of Delaney's school buddies was there too. She was excited to hang out with Katelyn and her siblings one of the days we were there as well. That worked out well!





Kenny and Kyle messed around in the large play area while Dee was off with her friends. Kyle loved all the little buckets that you could fill up and dump on poor, unsuspecting victims down below. :-)







And where was I the majority of the time? Here:



I get so cold so easily, that I must admit I felt like I was freezing most of the time. I spent most of the time covered up under towels! I read a lot, and occasionally gave in and rode around the lazy river for a while until I couldn't stop shivering. The cold also didn't encourage me to feel like tackling the very MANY stairs to go down any of the slides. Now if we were outside, on a hot beautiful sunny day... aaaah... that would have been more my waterpark trip.



Kyle loved the lazy river too; we kept losing him in there! He just liked going at his own pace and switching back and forth from the lazy river to the play area. Since we only had a few days, we thought the Key Lime Cove was perfect. If we would have more time, the Wolf Lodge up in the Dells is still our all-time favorite indoor waterpark.

Keeping with the lazy theme, we took our time heading home. We did some shopping, and Kenny and the kids played some more laser tag. THEY LOVE IT! Kyle won. :-)



The kids and I were so bummed to start up the whole school schedule again today. :-(

Luv,
Ken, Dani, Dee & Kyle

Our Kids Are Growing Up Too Fast!

Kenny took this picture on Easter Sunday while at Easter Dinner at Danah's house. About all I can say when I saw this picture, is that our kids are growing up way too fast.

Here's a flashback to Easter 2003!



(* sigh *)

Ken & Dani