Celebrating with friends

One of the girls' friends had a birthday party where they got to make jewelry. Fun!

 

DPDC Dance Season Kick-off Cookout

The DPDC competition season kicked off with a cookout at Ty Warner Park. This is an annual event where they get to learn the showcase theme and learn who is in their dance "family". It's always a fun time for the girls!

Avery had been feeling under the weather in the morning, but felt better by the late afternoon after sleeping a lot of the day. So, we were able to go. It was one of the first cooler days!

Just hungry

I saw this video on Instagram and sent it to Morgan...

And she said she's definitely just hungry! :)

Picture Day

We got the girls school pictures back. Of course, they don't love them, but I think they are great! :)

Fancy birthday nails!

Avery gave me a fancy manicure for my birthday... she's getting so good at doing nails!

And we got Crumbl cookies to celebrate my birthday!

Sunday - Breakaway, Andy's and USA basketball

Sunday started off with some shopping for my mom and me. We found a few things at Kohl's and picked up a Target order, so now I can brush my teeth. :) The girls and Matt made a grocery run and stocked Ruth's kitchen back up now that she's home from the rehab facility. We grabbed lunch and then headed off to Lombard for Morgan's first Breakaway games. She's doing their Fall GBL (Get Better League), which involves two practices a week and then two games on Sundays. The games are scrimmages with referees. So, they break the girls up into teams and then they play two games. Morgan is in the 6th-8th grade group and there is also a high school group. But, this weekend, I guess not a lot of 6th-8th graders showed up, so they were mixed in with the high school girls. I'd say at least half of the girls were Freshmen/Sophomores. There was another court with older high school girls as well. There was one smaller 6th grader (Willa), but most of the girls were taller.

Morgan was first put on the white team with Coach Christian. There were 7 girls on each team. I guess they sometimes play 4v4, but decided to play 5v5 for these games today. Morgan's team won the first game easily (60-something to 30-something, I think). Then, they decided to mix the teams up to make them more fair. So, she and a girl named Ellie got moved to the other team with Coach Jess and two girls from that team switched to Morgan's original team. Ellie is really good. The second game Morgan's new team won easily (69 to 31). There were two high school girls on Morgan's team (Ellie and Maddie) that were good and the three of them worked really well together. Morgan had quite a few good assists! I didn't keep track of her points, but I'm guessing she had at least 10 in each game. In this league, if you get fouled on a layup and it goes in, the "and 1" is automatic. If you miss the layup, you get one free throw. If you make it, it counts for 2 points. I guess this keeps the games moving. They don't keep track of fouls (at least that I could tell), but they also didn't call a lot of fouls either.

Morgan getting ready to drive in

Maddie is on the left and Morgan on the right in black.
They looked like twins running around out there!

Here they are again flipped on defense

Not too bad for her first experience at Breakaway! She and Ellie were the only girls that won both games - ha! I think this is good for her to get to know some of the Breakaway coaches and other girls before the winter league kicks in.

We celebrated with Andy's!

Morgan loves having a cheering section!

Then, we went to hang out at Erin's place for a bit. The kids played basketball and the moms played Word Yahtzee.

Selfie mismatch - look goofy - ha!

Selfie mismatch - look normal - ha!

After that, we came home and watched the FIBA USA game (we had recorded it). We already knew the USA eked out a win over Italy, but we wanted to watch it anyway. Milo was super happy that we were all hanging out in the family room together and made his way around the couch begging for love.

Fun at Brett's House

We went out to Brett and Sandi's house to celebrate a few birthdays! The kids swam and played games. We lucked out with some great weather (not 100 degrees and no rain!)

Matt smoked a brisket in the Green Egg and brought that. It was delicious!!!

I managed to take only these pictures. Avery enjoyed the hot tub!

Soccer season... new coach, new division

Morgan's Roadrunners team is starting off the fall season with two losses. They moved the team up to the top NPL division for their age group, so they are playing some tougher competition. Also, they have a new coach this year after being coached by the same person for all the years Morgan has been on the team. They lost one player, but gained two others, so the team is mostly the same as last season. Morgan really likes the new coach so far, so that's good! It might have been good to keep them in their NPL division one more season until they got settled with the new coach, but no such luck.

Last night's game was in Elgin, which is about a 50 minute drive. Not ideal to have an 8:30 PM game on a school night almost an hour away from home. We got home around 11:00 last night, then Morgan still had to shower and of course, she was hungry.

She's working on being "tougher" this year and not letting opponents push her around (this is according to Morgan). She did well at this last night and maintained possession of the ball in tight matchups with the other team. She's strong and has good footwork.

Enjoying the cooler-ish weather and a fire pit!

Cool sky - got this picture on my phone with no filter!

We sat outside and enjoyed the fire pit! Milo slept on the deck. He's still recovering from his allergies and the shot we got him on Friday morning. Poor doggo!

Bring on Fall!

Day 2 - Friday!

I like that they have a Friday already on day 2. Easing our way back into school! I think this is much appreciated by Morgan who has a hard time waking up in the morning. She needs a human alarm (me) right now.

We were out a little late Thursday night because Morgan had her first RR soccer game of the season in Schaumburg. I completely forgot to take pictures, so nothing to post. But, they lost 4-1 against Deportivo, which is the team that won the upper NPL division in the Spring. RR won the lower NPL division in the spring. So, we were half expecting to lose 10-0. It wasn't nearly as much of a blowout as expected, so that was good.

Here we go on Day #2! The girls said the A/C in the building was so cold on Day #1, so Morgan brought a hoodie. 

They had another good day - found all their classes! They went to the DGS v DGN game on Friday night at DGN. I was the lucky parent that got to drop them off there. Middle schoolers aren't allowed to go into the games without a parent. One parent can bring in max of five middle schoolers. So, if a group of their friends want to go, a parent needs to buy a ticket and take the kids into the stadium (and technically are supposed to stay the whole game, but most parents do not unless they have a high schooler.) But, this being the North vs South game, the parking was crazy. I ended up parking at their friend Jayne's house and walking the girls over from there. At least they get in free since they go to Herrick! When they are in high school next year, they are allowed to go by themselves.

Oh, Morgan - why am I not surprised!

Not even ten minutes after we said our last good byes, I get a text from Morgan. "bro i already lost my mini schedule im so fried". I had put together a pocket sized schedule for each of the girls and "laminated" it with tape. Morgan had already lost hers by the time she got on the bus. She survived the day and made it to all her classes... eventually.

By the way, do you love the background on Morgan's chat with me? She did this from a picture we took of Erin when shopping in Michigan City. Erin thought this full body Adidas coat would be good for soccer games and sent a pic to Morgan. Morgan thought it was hilarious! So, now it's our background.

Something the kids think is so funny is that I use punctuation in my text messages. I was writing a message and Avery was sitting next to me and kept laughing when I would put a period in or something.

Found this in Morgan's backpack... they must have made name tags for their desks in a class. :)

8th Grade - First day!!!

Avery and Morgan are starting their last year of middle school! I can't believe they are in 8th grade! Not as nervous this year because they are old pros at the middle school! Although, this year the 6th graders are getting moved up to their middle school, so it's going to be a bit more crowded! They will have 900+ kids at their middle school this year!

Milo was really confused why we were all outside without him (peep him in the window in the background!)

And they're off... no bus pictures anymore. We're too old for that. Ha!

Morgan wrote this about 5 minutes before she walked out the door. She had late soccer practice the night before and didn't get this done. We are all big WNBA fans right now, so she has been focusing more on basketball. She still loves soccer, too! I love that she put 'anything' for favorite food! She loves food and will try most anything!

Of course, Avery had her board done the day before! She is still talking about becoming a forensic psychologist. She still loves dance and nail designs. She, Morgan and their friends love making fake nails to wear with all sorts of fun designs! Her first day nails are white with polka dots that match her phone case!

Locker Set Up - 8th grade!

And just like that, summer is over. :( We are doing all the back-to-school things. Shopping for supplies, picking up PE uniforms, figuring out the first day of school outfit and going for locker set up night.

Avery's locker is on the bottom floor and she lucked out with a larger one! But, her combination didn't work, so we had to have a teacher open it with a key. We put in a work order request for them to fix it before the first day of school.

Morgan's locker is on the first floor overlooking the library. No problems getting into hers!

They both had activities to get to, so we walked their schedules quickly and then headed out. Two more days until school starts!

Just a girl and her silly dog

 

Another Fever Game (and a Caitlin Clark autograph!)

The girls and I went to the Sky v. Fever game at Wintrust Arena in Chicago on Sunday night. We had recently been to the Fever game in Indy for Matt's birthday and were able to score some tickets to this game. I called it my birthday present! :) Morgan was determined to get an autograph, so we drove downtown early and were in line before the doors opened. We had pretty good seats behind the basket in section 103. When we got there, we walked over behind the bench to see if we could get signatures. But, then the security made everyone leave that area. We made friends with some lady in our section and she was on a mission to get signatures, so we followed her around. She got a great spot in the first row and brought Morgan and Avery down with her. We got to watch the warm ups up close, which was really awesome! And the best part of it all was that Caitlin Clark walked over to where we were and signed autographs! Morgan was so excited! Unfortunately, Avery was trying to get her Fever arm sleeve signed and Caitlin walked by and didn't notice, so Avery got skipped. :( 

The game was close until the 4th quarter, when the Fever exploded! Caitlin had a career high 8 three pointers! The last time the Fever played the Sky, DiJonai Carrington from the Sky was ejected for pummeling Sophie Cunningham. Carrington did try to trash talk Caitlin Clark in this game, but Caitlin just sunk a few threes and scored a bunch of points. :) There was one incident with former NBA player Enes Kanter and one of the Sky players, Natasha Cloud. He ended up getting ejected from the arena. So much drama. The Fever ended up winning 113-90.

Our first spot watching the players warm up

Then, this guy was getting lots of attention and got to meet Caitlin Clark. Morgan recognized him as Robert Lewandowski (apparently she follows him on Instagram).

Moved to the other side of the court
(the blond behind Avery was their new best friend!)

So excited to get Caitlin Clark's autograph!

DiJonai Carrington warming up

Warm ups

Team huddle before the game

We had a great view!

Fever win!