Some Morgan pictures

Just a girl and her dog playing in the backyard... this dog is such a baby!

Morgan is really excited to be starting basketball in January. We went to practice at McCullom the other day. She doesn't really know many rules or how basketball works, but she's ready to go!

Her soccer team finished out the season with a tie game. The last goal was questionable. It bounced down off the bar and no one thought it went in, but the ref said it did. At least it didn't cause us to lose the game. Morgan's team finished 3rd in their division. It was a rough year for her - being in a new position, new format on the field and then breaking her toe and having to sit out a couple weeks. Here's hoping the winter league picks up!

After their last game, the team went to Zazzo's for a pizza party. The girls all ate lots of pizza and then had ice cream sundaes!

Morgan was finally back to karate after being off for her broken toe for a couple weeks.

Although she has really liked doing karate these past few years, it looks like we may be quitting this to pursue all the other things she wants to do. We're getting to a point where we have to make decisions on what she wants to spend her time on. Soccer is taking up a lot of time and she also wants to play volleyball and basketball. With karate, she's moving into the higher levels that require more time as well to get her black belt. There just aren't enough hours in the week for all the things these girls want to do!!!

Belt Testing

Morgan tested for her next belt at karate last night. She tests every 4 months. Similar to prior tests, they do 4 stations and the spar against each other. Then, they break boards and get their new belts. Morgan moved from brown belt to red/brown. The intermediate belts are striped.

Afterwards, we celebrated with a late dinner at Five Guys.

While we were at karate, Dad and Avery went out to City BBQ for Avery's favorite mac-n-cheese!

Karate Tournament

Morgan went to the Nationals karate tournament today. She competed in Weapons (staff), Forms and Sparring. She got a 1st place in sparring!

All ready to go!

The kids are put in groups based on their belt level, gender and age. Morgan's belt level is 4th Gup. The belt levels go down as you go higher, so her next belt will be 3rd Gup. The group she was in was for 9-10 year olds in 4th to 2nd Gups. Some of the kids had to be just turned 9, because there were a couple of small kiddos in her group.

Lizzie was at the tournament, too!

During the opening ceremonies, they all did a form together.

 

Morgan's 1st sparring partner
She was tiny and Morgan kept hitting her too high, close to the neck/head and even got a warning!

Championship match - it was good match!
They were tied 2-2 and had a few "non-points", but Morgan pulled it out in the end!

Getting her medal

With her "gold" medal!

The judges and the winners with their medals

One of the judges took a selfie!

Lizzie and Morgan with Miss Loula, their karate instructor

Grand Master Strong was signing medals/uniforms

Lizzie and Morgan

We celebrated with ice cream of course!

Avery was a good cheerleader for her sister
Dad treated her to Culver's before the tournament

Karate fun

They did an obstacle course at karate today. Fun!

Another fun summer break week

At karate, they were working on their accuracy and control. So, they had to kick a Dixie cup without smashing it or hitting it out of their partner's hand. Morgan got to be the demonstration helper with Miss Loula.

Then, she and Rachel paired up to practice.

A beautiful day for a walk with her favorite dog!

Volleyball with Emily... the girls jumped on the bench and said "take a picture" - ha!

I feel like the summer is flying by! It's already the middle of July! The girls have been having a great time at Avery Coonley summer camp. They are sad that next week is the last week of it. The fire alarm went off yesterday and the kids had to evacuate, fire trucks came, the whole thing! Morgan was texting me from camp to let me know what was going on. Luckily, it was just a false alarm!

3rd week of summer break

We started off the week with volleyball on Monday night.

Sister vs sister!

Emily and Avery made up a handshake/dance

The girls are going to Avery Coonley summer camp for the next four weeks. This is a favorite camp of ours. The girls like it because they have some fun classes and activities and they see some of the same counselors and friends each year. We like it because it is a very well run camp and runs from 8:45 to 3:00 each day. Each session is two weeks long. We missed the first session this year due to the other camps the girls wanted to sign up for. This session, Avery is doing archery and Morgan is doing Author, Author (a writing class). They are both doing a Theater Arts class.

Camp hair

With their camp shirts

This week, unfortunately, smoke rolled in from the Canadian wildfires, which really affected our air quality. The girls' camp is at a school with classrooms, so they were able to go inside for the week and stay out of the nastiness. Of course, it was a bummer they couldn't be playing outside and swimming like they normally would be able to do.

This wasn't even as high as it got!

At karate, they had "beach" week, so Morgan wore a "beach vibes" shirt and a lei to class!

June is Dad's month, so Matt went with Morgan to class and earned his "camo" belt! May was mom's month and I earned a "pink" belt, but I didn't get a picture.

The girls chilling out on the couch after camp one day... and Milo finding his spot right in the middle! He's such a baby!

Staff Form #1

Now that Morgan is a brown belt at TBK, she got to learn a form using a staff! Look out!

Karate Kid

Morgan took Beckett with her to karate tonight as her "buddy". He had a blast and Morgan had fun helping him out!