Grandpa and Grandma come to visit- Part 1

The girls had off from school for a few days last week due to Parent/Teacher Conferences and Veterans Day. It was the perfect opportunity for Grandpa and Grandma to come for a visit. 

On the first day, we headed up to Canada and checked out the Bloedel Conservatory. It's a small bird sanctuary with over 100 birds, incredible flowers, and a lot of mice!

We went to a vegan restaurant for lunch where the hamburgers were 'okay' at best and we never did figure out what they were made of! We were hoping to do some five-pin bowling after lunch, but the bowling alley didn't open until later in the evening so we headed back home. Thankfully, we had very quick border crossings!

Friday had discussed going on a hike, but Annaliese convinced us that it would be better to do that on Saturday when the sun was supposed to be shining and that we should stay indoors instead. We played some games, ate an early lunch, and then went to the local bowling alley. 

Saturday did turn out to be a much prettier day, so we packed lunches and hiked Vedder Mountain. It's a pretty steep climb, but we made it to the top in just over an hour and had spectacular views of Mt. Baker! It was still pretty chilly out, and there was snow on the ground in places.

Soccer

 Both Annaliese and Lydia were very excited to play soccer this fall. They were initially both signed up to play with Lynden Action which practices in Lynden and then has Saturday games at the Northwest Fields. However, they weren't able to pull together a team for Annaliese's age group so she ended up playing with Lynden Youth Sports at Bender Field.

Lydia's age group played 3-on-3 and each week they played four 15 min games. They rarely had more than 3 girls show up, so Lydia always got a lot of playing time! From a parenting perspective, this season has been very frustrating- there have been days when no one has shown up to play, not even the coach.  And there is one girl that I've never seen (and I've been to every practice and all but 2 games.) Lydia, however, is still having fun, has scored quite a few goals, and does wonder why nobody else wanted to play!

These two were the only ones who showed up for the last game!

Looking cute and ready to play (except none of her teammates showed up this day so she and Kyle just came back home)

Annaliese is playing with LYS and has had a great season. Her coach has been great and Annaliese has learned a lot about the importance of practicing in order to get better. She plays two 36-min games each Saturday and has scored several goals each game! There were only three teams in her age group, and the season wrapped up last weekend with a tournament. They ended up finishing second.

It was a smoky day for soccer!

We were very grateful that we had beautiful weather all season. I think we only had one practice where it rained! 

October

 Here's a summary of the month of October in pictures.

Playing games on a rainy afternoon.

School pictures!

I found this in our mailbox at church...Haleigh wrote it one night while we were at Bible Study!

Annaliese practicing her saxophone.

Giant cardboard cut-out of Kyle's book!

The neighbors are having lots of construction done...so we asked them to pull out the giant stump leftover from a maple tree!

Building our new shed. It looks so much nicer than the old one!

Ice cream date!

Annaliese and I went to a 'True Girl' event at a local church- it was a fun night out together.

We wrapped up the month with trick-or-treating with Kim and Thane. Our church had a trunk-or-treat set up, so we we used church as our starting point and then went around the neighborhood by church. 

A couple of superheroes, a Minecraft character, and Rinaldo (a famous soccer player)

It's no surprise that this month passed quickly. I love looking back at pictures and reminding myself of all the fun things we pack into each week. 

Pumpkins

 We went over to Kim and Thane's house last weekend for a little 'Harvest Party.' It consisted of carving pumpkins, roasting pumpkin seeds, eating pumpkin bars, and eating some warm soup. Grandpa and Grandma joined in on the fun.

The kids all had their own ideas of what they wanted their pumpkins to look like and each year they are able to do just a little bit more of it on their own! I'd say they all did a great job!