Tate's Soccer Pizza Party

Tate finished out his first soccer season in the best way possible, at the pizza parlor!

Clearly Tate had a great time!

 

Some amazing mom made these fabulous cupcakes.

Here is his cool bobble head trophy.

Here is the whole team there are only 2 girls not 3!  Tate just needed a haircut.

Tate and Coach Burns.  The best coach ever!

Yummy Pizza!

Zoe's First 10K

Zoe has always had a very difficult time with running.  Unfortunately she got that from me.  I really hate running.  Ben wanted to help her over the summer by taking her running with him.  After running with her a few times he thought it would help her by setting a goal.  He wanted to plan to run a 5K at the end of the summer.  The only problem was that there were no 5K's around the Wenatchee Valley at the end of the summer so they decided instead to run the Chelan Shore to Shore 10K.  I thought that seemed pretty ambitious but Zoe was excited about it, that is until she ran 3 miles.  After months of training though she was able to run the whole 6 miles.

Here they are lining up with all the other runners.

 

Off they go!  Ben bought them matching t-shirts and promised to stick with her no matter how slow she needed to go.

 

Here they are crossing the finish line about an hour and a half later.  Zoe was the youngest runner in the race.  They ended up coming in last but because Zoe was the youngest she came in first in her age group and still got a prize which was a glass with the race info on it.

 

She looks so tired!

 

They also got these great shirts.

 

Let me just give a shout out to this guy.  He is the most amazing father.  He totally had to put his pride aside in order to make this day all about Zoe.  He said there was one time where an elderly woman was walking faster than them on the sidewalk and he just kept telling himself ...This is all about Zoe!

 

They have tons of yummy snacks for the runners.

 

The race began and ended at Manson Park.  There is a beautiful marina of lake Chelan there so we decided to hang out and have some fun.

 

What better way to cool off after a long race!

Tate's First Day of School and Soccer

Tate started kindergarten this year.  His first day of school came about a week later than Zoe's.  Ben and I met with his teacher the week before and she showed us the curriculum.  I was a little worried because I was pretty sure that he already knew the list of words that he was supposed to know at the end of the year.  His teacher assured us that if he knew all of the words they would just start him on the first grade list.  So that is what they have done.  What happens when he has already learned the first grade list?

Here is my silly man in the morning before school.  He loves his camo backpack.

Here he is out in front of the school.  He was anxious to go and he wanted Ben to leave right away.

Here he is in line telling Ben that he should leave.  And Tate wouldn't even give him a kiss goodbye.

Ben played secret agent and followed him to class to see how he did.  He was just so ready.

Tate has been in his first real soccer league this fall.

A lot of the games look liked this picture at first.  The boys standing around looking at the ball not sure what to do with it.

Now he starts getting into it!

Can't wait for the after party at Abbey's Pizza!

The kids rode the bus for the first time about a week after school started.  Zoe and Tate ride the same bus and best of all it picks them up right in front of our house.

This picture was taken from my front door!

There's my sweet little guy!

Look at this styling guy!

Silver Falls Hike and Welcome Oat!

We have heard so many good things about the Silver Falls hike in Entiat.  We have been wanting to do it fo a while but the 45 minute drive to get there has kept us from being able to go.  Finally Labor Day weekend we were able to go with the Bastian's and the Fry's. 

The great thing about this hike is that you hike along the waterfall the entire time.

The water was so beautiful and clear.

And here is Oat.  Oat is a young man from Thailand.  He came to the U.S. as a foreign exchange student but his host family fell through.  He was going to get sent home.  Our friends told us about him and we decided to let him stay with us since we have a spare room.  So he is the 6th member of our family for the year!  He is a great kid.  Very smart and funny.  

Here we all are.  Zoe, Ben, Grey, Mauvia, Tate, and Oat.
I know Oat looks very serious but he is really very funny.  I asked him why he never smiles in pictures and he told me, "It's not my style."

Here are the Fry's minus Nick.  Kyla, Leslie, Cora and Ava

Greysen's favorite ride!

I love this picture except for the part where the camera looks like a goiter on my neck.  No worries, I do not have any tumors.

Here we are again; Oat, Tate, Ben, Grey, Mauvia and Zoe

Caden, Kyla and Zoe hiking.  There is someone else there too but I can't tell who it is.

Caden Kyla, Zoe, Oat, and Leslie

Caden, Chandler, Leslie's nephew, Zoe and Brooklyn.

Zoe and Brooklyn

It wasn't just the waterfall that was beautiful the views were amazing!

Okay this picture is kind of hillarious.  Ben stayed on one side of the waterfall so that he could get a picture of us across the falls.  So in this picture you can see me holding Tate.  He had just gotten his first bee sting (see below).  Next to me is Jeremy Bastian holding Greysen.  You can also kind of see Oat through the waterfall.  Oat's red shoes had gotten dusty so he washed them off in the waterfall and they turned his fingers red. 

Here is the picture of Tate's first bee sting.  There was a hive right next to the trail.  It is kind of hard to see but there is a pale pink circle just below the knee.

This was his poor sad face.

As if she isn't tall enough already!

Holding a big stick always cheers Tate up.

Look at that big man!