Tor's First Soccer Practice

Tor had his first soccer practice today, and he played hard. His coach turned out to be one of Daddy's former club volleyball players: Nicole (Bowen) Graichen.

They worked on dribbling and shooting, then played Sharks & Minnows. Tor was really aggressive when stealing the ball, and controlled it well when keeping it away from the others.

Strike, Sick Boy

 The kids went down to Longview to support Tierney on her strike. They watched for awhile and Bridget even held the sign and waved when cars honked at them. Later they even saw their past teachers and waved and we honked at them when we were driving past.

Tor had a low fever on and off. Here he had laid down voluntarily. I thought it was so nice of Jillian and Bridget to sit with him to watch a show.

School Visit, Cousins, Cornhole

 On Friday we stopped at Tierney's new room at Cascade Middle School.  She has it really fixed up nice and the kids had fun playing with all the teacher tools that they normally wouldn't get to use.

 This morning Brock and Kaylee came down to play with the kids.  They were at the play fort for awhile and then came the competitive scooter races. 

Soon they were also joined by Ty and Deborah.  Jillian, Bridget, and Tor were super happy having  fun with them.  Ty is showing off his expertise with the Rip-stick.

This picture has Tor in it as he always looks up to Ty and Brock.

Then it was on to the Corn Hole competition in Castle Rock. Jillian entered the 9-11 kids category. She was against a boy first and she was ahead most of the game and lost it at the end.  Then she won her next contest against this girl. Then she went against a boy who kept putting the bags in the hole a lot but Jillian kept right with him most of the way, but lost at the end. She competed very well.

Builders, Day 1

Since I threw away (with their permission) the large cardboard box they had fixed up, they decided to do the building panels this time.  They all got the hang of it, even Tor, and spent a lot of time building.

 Bridget wasn't as inspired so she made this 3 box place to read in which was fine with her.

 Jillian went all out and hers was pretty deluxe and Tor's was about half this size.  This took up the whole afternoon and evening.

Then it was nice enough to eat dinner outside and they were happy when Brock came down to eat with them.

Free Swim

Swim lessons ended today with a free swim, and Daddy joined them in the pool. The kids did well this session, with Bridget moving up to Level 4 (jumping up 2 in just this one session) and Tor being assigned to Level 1 next time (NO FLOATIES!). Jillian was a little bummed not moving up from Level 6, but there's not much left for her to do. We'll be back in the spring.

Hoopin' with Brock

It started with the kids shagging balls for Brock while he practiced shooting. Then, they played defense on him. Then, they played 2 on 2 with him. It ended when it just got silly.

Bubbles and Cousin Fun

 They hadn't played with bubbles much until they got a new bubble gun that had little bubbles in a big bubble. They made a lot of big bubbles and Tor had a great time using the squirt gun to pop the bubbles.

 This is the second installment of working on some new rock houses.  We had some interesting shapes in cardboard pieces that they made into some fancy houses with some neat furniture, rugs, and beds inside.

 They came upstairs laughing to show me how they had dressed up Jillian.  Jillian was a good sport to go along with their silliness.

Ava and Harper got into the house business too.  Bridget put the finishing touches on her barn for all her rock animals.  There was a lot of painting and glittering going on.  Ava made a neat slide for her rock to enter it's house. Harper's house was pretty fancy.

Beach, Day 2

The weather was on and off all day, so we adjusted as necessary. We started with some board games, like Ghost Fightin' Treasure Hunters and UNO.


We went to the beach for about an hour before the tide got too high.



This was followed by the usual ice cream at Adelaide's.

After some time at the cabin, there was another break in the weather, so we biked to the park and library.

Hot Dogs & S'mores

Andy and Karlie showed up at the cabin just in time to eat hot dogs and s'mores. Then they all took off and played "war" around the neighborhood.

August Swim Lessons

Not many kids at the 9 am session, so the kids are getting lots of instruction and reps. Jillian is still in Level 6 (fitness, or in other words, lots of laps). Bridget got to move up to Level 3 (she was so excited!). And Tor moved out of armbands to Level 1-1/2 (swimming on his own and also putting his face down in the water).

Yard Sale Fundraisers

Both Jillian and Bridget set up shops to earn money at the annual Castle Rock Yard Sale. Bridget had a portrait drawing stand where people could have their likeness captured.


Jillian sold her coasters and laminated pictures of photographs that she had taken herself.



They made a few dollars from their efforts (it was donation only). After an hour or so, they lost interest and went to playing.

Longest. Train. Ride. Ever

Actually, the train ride home tied with the trip to ND. They both ended up being about 9 hours delayed. This pic shows us waiting at the Whitefish depot at midnight -- there was a derailment in Shelby, MT, so we were transferred by bus (2+ hours of terror on the winding roads of Glacier) to Whitefish, and once on the train, it was 3 more hours (4 am) before it finally departed.

Throughout both trips, there were hours of delays caused by waiting for the freight trains. We got out and walked at all the stations whenever we could.

Last Day in ND

It was our last day in North Dakota. We started by going to cousin Ashley's Main Street Boutique in downtown Rugby, where the girls picked up some new bracelets.

Tor got to pick up a toy tractor at the John Deere dealership.

We also went to the Knox cemetery to visit Grandma Karlene's resting place.

Wee wrapped up the day traveling to Minot to go out to dinner with Ron and Jenny.