Lego Store and Golf Tournament

Ok so I haven't been the best about keeping my blog up lately. Following this post I have updated events from the last few months.
Caleb earned a trip to the Lego Store after a month long incentive I did with him. One of the areas he needs to work on in gymnastics is his flexibility which is holding him back in other areas. He never wanted to stretch at home so we made a chart to put stars on for working hard at gymnastics and stretching when he wasn't there. He not only earned going, but he could bring a friend and we contributed money for him to buy something. The nearest Lego store is 45 minutes away so he has never been and was very excited. It happened that we could go the weekend Grammy and Grampa came to visit so it made for a fun day.
Caleb's best friend Trevor came with us and he was just as excited. When we first got into the store Caleb spent a lot of time trying to figure out what he wanted. At first he picked out some Star Wars box sets but I convinced him to take advantage of the special things you can only get from the Lego store.
Elizabeth was even excited to be there. She decided to build three minifigures because she always wants to play with Caleb's and sometimes he doesn't exactly want to share. She had fun making girl figures with Grammy! Caleb also ended up making 3 minifigures.
Caleb also decided to do the pick a brick wall where he could fill a bucket with all the bricks he wanted. He wasn't sure about it at first but when he got home he played for hours with them. He was able to get some specialty legos that he wouldn't normally have. Afterwards we had lunch at Burger King and headed home to enjoy some Alabama football and celebrate Heath's birthday.

As many of you know, Caleb is on Team Cypress at Cypress Academy of Gymnastics and will start competing in January. Each year the booster club for gymnastics, GHGF, (Greater Houston Gymnastics Foundation) holds a golf tournament to help raise money to offset the expenses of competition. We spent months getting ready for it, getting sponsors, donations, and golfers, and Monday, November 9th was the big day. My dad was able to play as well as some good friends from church. Heath and I volunteered all day helping with set up, drinks, lunch, the silent auction, and then clean up when it was all over. It was a perfect day weather wise after rain had been forecast, and we had a great time as well as did all the golfers.
Each gymnast had their picture displayed on a table in the clubhouse where the golfers ate. This was Caleb's picture of him on high bar with his coach.
We set up the pictures of all the individual levels of both the girls' team and the boys' team.
This is a picture of the level 5 boys' team with Caleb on the right.
Each golf cart had a picture of a gymnast with some personal information about each kid. We found Caleb's picture and put it in Grampa's golf cart so he knew who he was playing for all day.
This was a picture of all the golf carts lined up ready for the shotgun start at 9:00. We had over 130 golfers there!
This was Grampa practicing on the putting green before it was time to start.
This was our team of golfers: from left to right, my day (aka Grampa), TJ, Kelly, Kyle, and Billy. Kelly and Kyle are friends from church, and TJ is Kelly's son and Billy is Kelly's brother. A portion of the money that they paid to play will help Caleb compete, so they were very special to us and it meant so much that they contributed. Plus they had a great time golfing!
The best part of the whole day was that they won second place after hitting a 55! Kelly also won a golf bag for winning closest to the pin! Any of you out there reading this, we would love for you to join them next year!

Super Hero Night and Halloween

Many of you may remember my post about VBS this summer. If not, you can read here. Well, ever since, the kids have been anticipating the return of the Super Heroes when they defeat Zander Von Zoom. Super Hero night was the Friday before Halloween so the kids were excited all week about the big weekend. We went as soon as Caleb was home from school because they were serving Chick-Fil-A beforehand for dinner and then it was on to the big show.
The kids were wearing their VBS shirts. They could have come in costume but I thought they would enjoy it more if they weren't dragged down by their costumes. Elizabeth did wear her hair like her favorite Super Hero, Zap (the yellow one).

The show was a lot of fun with all the music from VBS and the funny antics of the Super Heroes.

After the show they had more music in the gym and bags of candy and popcorn for the kids. It is always fun when we have a church event at the main campus because we can catch up with friends we don't see very often or even haven't seen in years. We ran into a friend I graduated from college with whom I haven't seen since I was pregnant with Caleb. All in all it was a great night and the kids got in the car saying it was the best night ever!

Of course the next night was Halloween and Elizabeth spent the day asking how much longer until she could put her costume on? Caleb went as a Texans football player and Elizabeth went as Belle from Beauty and the Beast. It was a nice cool night which doesn't often happen for Halloween here and the kids enjoyed hanging out with all their friends from the street.

Before we went out trick-or-treating we went by to see some good friends that wanted to see the kids in their costumes. The kids love Kody and Corby (and so do we!) and it was a treat to go to their house and of course they got the first pick of the candy.

It was a great weekend and now the focus turns to the next holidays!

Oil Ranch and Fun Run

Elizabeth is an animal lover. I have said many times that we just need to live on a farm and she would be in heaven. Our playgroup from church went to the Oil Ranch a few weeks ago and she was totally in her element. It is a working ranch with horseriding, a petting zoo, a hay ride to feed the cows in the pasture, a chance to milk a cow, and a train ride to name a few activities. It was the first cool fall day which made it quite enjoyable. When we got there that morning, she knew that we were there to see animals and she was chomping at the bit (pun intended!) to get inside, but we had to wait for the rest of the group. Once we got inside she didn't want to mess with waiting on the strollers or stopping for pictures. She headed straight for the animals.She was extremely excited to find that they had a donkey. It is one of her favorite animals. We pass one everytime we go to gymnastics and she always has her eyes peeled for him.

We went on the hayride back to the pasture to feed the cows. This is one of my favorite parts because all the cows come running because they know we are going to feed them. Elizabeth loved seeing the cows but did not want to feed them directly.

She also didn't want to milk the cow but certainly wanted to pet it. We saw one of the school kids get pooped on while he was milking it which gave us a chuckle but made us glad it wasn't us.

The highlight of the day was horseback riding. When she saw that she could ride a horse she went straight for it and declared, "I want the biggest one!" Sure enough she got the biggest one and loved it. Later in the day when more of the school kids were heading out we got to do it again. She would have stayed there all day if I had let her!

It was a great day and unfortunately I had somewhere to go that afternoon or I would have stayed longer. I left for a retreat and the following day Caleb had a Fun Run for school which Heath took them too. Each grade runs a certain distance around the track and they give ribbons to all the kids and award the top finishers. Caleb did it last year and had a great time and wanted to do it again this year. The second graders ran half a mile and Caleb did great. Heath said in the final sprint for the finish, Caleb passed a lot of kids. It is a great experience for him to do and know it is not about winning. In the picture below Caleb is the third runner from the left.

We are enjoying the fact the weather has finally become somewhat fall-like. The afternoons are warm but the mornings and evenings are definitely chilly. It makes for lots of great time outdoors! But it is also getting me into the holiday spirit and I am looking forward to the months ahead.