Basketball Shootout

Morgan's team played in a shootout on Sunday morning in Aurora. Shootouts are mini-tournaments with about four teams in your bracket. Team with the best record wins a medal. My parents were able to join us since they were in town for the weekend.

The first game was a pretty easy win for her team 29-5. They had about an hour break between the two games. The second game was going really well through half time. Not a lot of scoring, but they had held the other team to just a few baskets at halftime. After half time, the other team made a great run and Morgan's team just couldn't sink a shot to save their lives! The girls were getting super frustrated, especially Morgan. They were tied with a few minutes left in the game and Morgan got fouled. She made one of the free throws, so her team was up 1 point. They got the ball back and they basically passed the ball around for the last minute playing keep-a-way from the other team. They ended up winning by that 1 point! :) So, they got medals!

After the games, we grabbed lunch with my parents at a nearby place.

Happy Birthday to Grandma!

We celebrated grandma's birthday with a pizza party on Friday night! We got a cookie cake and sang happy birthday to her! Luckily, it was a nice night and we could hang out in the backyard. The kids had fun playing "try not to laugh" with mouths full of water... we were all laughing! :)

Not sure what this look is for... but it's hilarious!

It looked like spit-take central in the backyard!

The girls and I spent Saturday morning shopping at the outlet mall with Grandma. We all found a few things, but I think Avery was the big winner! :)

Morgan even hung with us... she's getting better at her shopping stamina!

Shopping selfie (while waiting for Avery to try on clothes!)

Birthday Fun with Lizzie

The girls' friend Lizzie wanted to celebrate her birthday with a trip to the city doing a bunch of fun things and invited the girls along with her! They took the train into the city, went to the Color Factory, took a ride on the water taxi and had lunch at Ed Debevic's! They had so much fun!

Dance Team

Avery was really excited to find out she made the Teen Dance Team and the Teen Hip Hop Team! She'll be busy with dance next season!

Dance Recitals

Avery's other two dance recitals were on Saturday. She was in the 2:00 show for her Acro dance. Then, she was in the 6:00 show for her Lyrical and Jazz dances.

She got an award for being with DPDC for 5 years!

Here she is in the closing number:

A teacher from her school came to watch!

There are five girls from her elementary school that dance at DPDC.

After the 2:00 show, we made a quick trip to Starbucks for a drink and bagel before the next show.

Here she is in the opening number. All the kids dance together to kick-off the show:

Up first was her jazz dance. She isn't a fan of the costume, but likes the dance.

Yet again, she's the one that's getting lifted!

Next up was her lyrical dance.

After her dances, we got some pictures with Morgan and Dad. They had to take off so that Morgan could eat and get to bed early. She had another game in the sweltering heat the following morning.

Avery got her 5 year award again at the end of the 6:00 recital. This time, she got to keep it! :)

So proud of this girl for putting in the work and dancing beautifully! She loves being on stage and we love watching her! :)

US Club Midwest Regionals

Morgan's soccer team played in the Midwest Regionals tournament this past weekend. There was a heat advisory the whole weekend and it was brutal! Luckily, they lifted the substitution rule and allowed unlimited subbing. Normally, you can only sub a kid once in a half. They also allowed multiple water breaks during the games to give the girls a break. Even with those things, it was still brutally hot! Our team only had two subs each game, so we were definitely at a disadvantage against the teams who had 5 or 6 subs. The girls won the game on Friday, but lost the next two games. So, we didn't make it to the finals.

It started off rainy on Friday, but that quickly lifted and the heat set in!

Morgan played goalie for the first half of all games and sometimes a bit more. She does really well at goalie and the team would love for her to be the full time goalie, but she just doesn't want that. She likes playing in the field, too.

After the last game, the girls all went to Culver's for ice cream to celebrate Gia's birthday. But, when we got there, the indoor dining area was closed because they had no A/C. They said only the drive thru was open and they gave them coupons for free ice cream. So, of course, the girls all decided they should pile in the truck and go through the drive thru! :) Luckily, Sydney's mom was up for it and drove them.

They sat outside, ate their ice cream and sang Happy Birthday to Gia. I'm glad the girls all get along pretty well. I think it's tough some times for Morgan because she is one of the three girls that are younger on the team. They all have cell phones and are in middle school! She is not and has no cell phone yet (which she complains about frequently!)

We're all looking forward to some time off of soccer! It was a rough season with a lot of losses. They moved up to the NPL and played against some tough competition. I'm sure it's good for them, but it's hard on the confidence. We'll see what next year holds! :)

Competition Recital

Avery's competition team dance recital was Thursday night. All of the Team and Company members perform their dances they did for the competitions. This includes the solos, duets, trios and full group numbers. Avery had a duet and two group numbers this year for Team.

Matt and Morgan were able to come watch Avery dance. We lucked out that her duet was towards the end of the duet show and both of her group dances were in the beginning of the groups show. I got to stay the whole time! ;) They did a graduation ceremony at the end for the seven seniors that are heading off to college.

Here's to wrapping up another great competition season! Avery has auditions for next year's Team on Monday. Then, we get a little break from dance until August.

Frequent Flyers at the Orthodontist

Poor Morgan is having a rough go of it with her braces! We had to make another trip back to the orthodontist for a broken bracket. We walked in and the orthodontist just looked at us like "you guys, again???" Ha! We think she's having issues with the brackets because she grinds her teeth in her sleep. They added some more "bite block" to her top and bottom teeth (basically builds up your teeth so that when you bite down, your mouth doesn't fully close). He said he could tell that the old bite block had already been worn down from the teeth grinding. Once her teeth move and her bite is better, this shouldn't happen (hopefully!) I'm glad they don't charge by the visit!

Summer camp is in full swing!

The girls started summer camp on Monday at Avery Coonley. We first did this camp back in 2019, then took a break in 2020 due to Covid, but have been going every summer since. They have three 2-week sessions each summer and offer some fun classes, both academic and recreational. We are only doing two of the sessions this year because we will be on vacation one of the weeks of the last session.

For this session, Avery is doing three classes: (1) Sculpture, (2) How to Win Games and Influence People and (3) Lights/Camera/Action (LCA). The LCA class is a longer class and meets in the afternoon. They write, film and edit a short movie that they show to the parents at the end of the session.

For this session, Morgan is doing two classes: (1) How to Win Games and Influence People and (2) Natural Disasters. The second one is taught by the science teacher from Herrick, her middle school next year. Morgan has always been fascinated by storms, etc, so I thought it would be a fun class for her. Of course, she was a little mad that I made her do something "school-y" during the summer. :)

Here they are ready to go for Tropical Day at camp!

Dress Rehearsal

Avery has a busy week with dance! She had dress rehearsal on Tuesday from 3:00 to 9:00. They actually wrapped up early, so I was able to pick her up (with Jimmy John's in hand!) at 8:30. She's in three recitals - one on Thursday (competition team) and two on Saturday.

The recitals are at a different location this year, the Yellow Box theater. It's in Naperville and takes about 30 minutes to get there with traffic.

Still smiling when she got home! We are all excited to see her dances on Saturday!

At dress rehearsal they give the kids a card and suggestions for the next season. She got invited to audition for Company next year. Avery has been on Team the past two years. The commitment level for Team is a lot less than Company, so we're going to stick with Team for now. She wants to be involved in other things in middle school and if you do Company, that's all you can do.