Three Lions placed 2nd in the NISL League Tournament!!!

Delaney's Three Lion team placed 2nd in the NISL League Tournament this past weekend in Elkhart. Woo-hoo! Way to go girls! The weather was horrid on Saturday, and they had to play two games (of course). I swear the first one was sleeting, and the second one was definitely raining and QUITE COLD the entire time. But they won both games in nail-biting, no score games that went into overtime then penalty shootouts. Geez! Then Sunday, they played a tough game and lost -- but still placed 2nd for the tournament. Look at those excited girls receiving their trophies!

We got to spend the weekend with some friends in the area, and it was a great weekend visiting and hanging out with them. Sorry it's been so long since we've posted, but it's just been busy, busy, busy!!!! Hopefully, I'll have some great Halloween pictures to post next. :-)

Dani

Yet another soccer weekend!

We had yet another soccer weekend at the Benich household. Surprise, surprise -- right? Kyle's game Saturday morning was just a tad cold, but they had a great game. He's learning passing and working with his teammates getting the ball down the field.




He's getting time on both offense and defense. He had a great run to the goal and ALMOST got it in for a goal -- but it hit the post! Uggggggh!

Delaney's game on Sunday was a little nicer than Kyle's Saturday morning's chilly game, but it was still pretty cold. I guess our nice warm weather is officially gone. (* sigh *) They had a game all the way at Argos (I had no idea even where that was), and they played pretty well. Delaney got 1 goal and 2 assists, and they ended up winning 4-2. On her goal, she was able to sneak it in when the goalie just couldn't keep a hold of the ball -- way to go never giving up on that ball, Dee!

Her Three Lions team is doing very well playing together, and it will be a pleasure to see them keep growing in their soccer skills!



And if all that soccer wasn't enough, we had out-of-town family visiting from Wisconsin. So an impromptu bonfire/feast was planned at my sister's and parent's house after Delaney's game on Sunday. Mmmmmm! Lots of food, fun and visiting. We were able to snap a picture of all the great-grandkids together (they don't get to all hang out all that often with each other). From left to right: Connor, Parker, Shaylee, Jocelyn, Delaney and Kyle. I know I'm biased, but what cute kiddos!

And Danah and I are protesting our lawn-golf game loss... never played before -- humph. We think Ken and Graeme are pulling one over on us - rematch!!

Dani

Happy 14th Anniversary!

Can you believe we've been married for 14 years? Egads! It makes us sound so "old" to have been married that long. :-) HA!

On our ACTUAL anniversary night, September 2nd, my hubby planned us a romantic evening out in Chicago. It was a bit stressful figuring out if we could go, with a sick kid and homework issues, but once we straightened all that out -- we had a great time.

The weather was ABSOLUTELY gorgeous, sunny and warm -- a beautiful day. We walked around Navy Pier and took a lot of pictures.







And believe it or not, Kenny agreed to ride the Ferris Wheel! This, if you don't know, IS A BIG DEAL. Kenny isn't too fond of rides like this, so I was really surprised he volunteered to let us ride it. (I just had to promise not to rock the cart we were in.)







The view from the top was amazing! We were really up there.

We could even see the boat we were having our dinner cruise on from up there. Nice, huh?

We could finally board the boat after 6:00, the sun was starting to go down but it was still quite beautiful out.








Kenny had informed them it was our anniversary ahead of time, so we had an awesome dessert plate with Happy Anniversary in chocolate written around the edge of the plate.




Afterwards, we went back up to the observing deck and enjoyed the view.




The evening closed with a spectacular fireworks show off of Navy Pier. How cool is that?



It was a wonderful evening! Thanks, honey!!! :-)

XOXOX
Dani

Pike Fest - Delaney's first tournament!

Delaney had her first tournament this past weekend in Indianapolis with her new travel team, Three Lions. We all had a great time. We got to spend a little bit of time with some friends who kindly let us crash at their house, the weather ranged a bit from cool to warm (but at least there was no rain!), and the travel team played together VERY WELL for their first time playing together in a game.

In the first game, Delaney got a couple of nice goals -- including one with her left foot (she was proud of that one!). She also got a lot of great crosses over. They won this game 6-0.



In the second game, she got a great goal - turned and hit it into the upper 90! Woo-hoo! The team they played against seemed to be a bit more skilled than their first one, but they still won 3-1. Three Lions was doing really well with their team skills - a lot of passing and working together. Great to see!

They had the opportunity to be in the championship game if they won Game 3. They really outplayed the other team. The ball was in our side of the field the majority of the game and they had MANY shots on goal. Unfortunately, they just could NOT get the ball in the net. Three Lions received a penalty kick against them, which was the only goal scored the entire game -- so it was a 0-1 loss. A hard way to lose, but next time Three Lions will have scored the goals so it wouldn't matter! :-)



Great job, ladies! Keep up the good work!

Three Lions fans!!! LOL!

Dani

First Day of School!!!

Somehow, we are the parents of a 5th grader and a 1st grader! I can't believe that both kiddos are in school full-time now, definitely NOT ready for this. :-)



While both kids were not ready for summer vacation to end (or us for that matter), we secretly think they were excited to see their friends and get back to school again.

We know you guys will have a great day today!!!

Luv, Mom & Dad

Happy Anniversary - Babe & Kathe 40 years!

Happy Anniversary to my folks, Babe and Kathe - 40 years!

Ken

Delaney got glasses!

We decided to have a little photo shoot at Aunt Danah's house to show off Delaney's new glasses. She looks great in them!



She is near-sighted, so the clarity of the farther away things now with glasses is pretty amazing to her. :-) (Kenny, I think you can't put off the mowing any longer -- oops, sorry, wrong house.)




I can't believe that my daughter is this old. She even looks older than 10 in her glasses, I think.



Thankfully, she was a good sport during this entire process.




Everyone says that she looks even more like me in her glasses, I will definitely take that as a compliment!



I like this:

We never dreamed you'd be so beautiful...
In all of the times we tried to imagine
every last detail of who you would be,
thru all of the nights we spent quietly thinking
of how we would feel when we first looked at you,
we patiently waited and silently wondered.
We hoped and we prayed and we tried to imagine...
but we never dreamed you'd be so beautiful.


WE LOVE YOU, DEE-DEE!

 

Finally... Kyle got a haircut!

We've been having too much fun this summer, that finding time for haircuts has been hard to come by! LOL Which meant that poor Kyle was in desperate need to get his hair trimmed. But finally, we made it today. Here is a picture of us playing miniature golf with the kids Sunday afternoon:



And here is a close-up of Kyle's shaggy hair!

Now, doesn't he look handsome with this great summer cut? :-)

(* sigh *) SO MUCH BETTER!

Dani

Butterfly Garden!

We're definitely enjoying Kenny's time off of work. On Tuesday, we headed down to the Indianapolis Zoo. We spent most of the day there, and we visited their Butterfly Garden too. We got so many pictures, that I'm just sharing the butterfly pictures!!!! It was one of everyone's favorite places that day.

The Butterfly Garden area was very beautiful, filled with flowers and sunlight. There was even a catwalk area you could go up on as well.

We took our pictures there -- first Kenny and I (courtesy of Delaney), then...

... the kids with me!

And, of course, we took LOTS of butterfly pictures:

Aren't they beautiful? I could have sat in there for quite a while just watching them. This butterfly down on the stone by Delaney was pretty big.

Here is a close-up of it:

What was neat about it, is it had the most beautiful blue color on the inside of their wings. It was hard to see -- but Kenny managed to snag this picture of one flying away:



We had a great time, and maybe I'll try to share some other zoo pictures another post.



BYE! :-)

Dani