Kingwood Strutters - Babe Platinum

Marlie had such a wonderful year on her Strutter team. She made the Babe Platinum team again this year and had Mrs. Jordan again as her instructor. She was blessed to be on a team with a group of sweet and very talented girls. 

Marlie did 3 team dances this year, plus one team/elite dance.  My 2 favorite dances were their jazz dance - Lights, Camera, Action and their small group open dance - Bathing Beauties. Both dances placed 1st at Nationals. Some of my favorite pics this year are from their jazz dance. Marlie does a ring leap in this dance and I'm so thankful we had several people capture this in action! 

Bathing Beauties is a group of about half of the team. Mrs. Jordan did an amazing job with the choreography and costumes. The girls had SO much fun doing this dance and I loved watching it over and over! The girls are competing with this dance at Elite Nationals in early July so I will post a video after. 

Marlie got picked to do a solo for their lyrical and she was SUPER exited about that! This dance, America the Beautiful, placed 2nd at Nationals. What I loved about this dance is watching the girls expressions which are much different than their other dances. They all looked so sweet. 

Last but not least was their novelty to Jet Set! This dance too was so fun and another crowd favorite.  They all looked cute in their flight attendant costumes. They placed 2nd at Nationals. Yes that is a giant airplane as their prop!

I love watching Marlie dance but she loves all the silly moments with her friends. I just love all these girls!

Next year Marlie will graduate to the junior team which is 4th-6th graders! I can't thank Mrs. Jordan enough for all the time, love and patience she gave these girls. It was a great year!

 

C2 Baseball Wins Again!

These boys had a great tournament a few weekends ago in good ole Beaumont, Texas.  They won 2 games on Saturday and came back Sunday to win 3 more including the championship.  Matt did great and this was his tournament of triples!! He hit really well and was so excited.  The hitting lessons with Uncle Jay are helping him improve a ton! 

Here are some happy boys with their brothers after their 2 wins Saturday. And here's how Marlie entertains herself during the games. She worked on this scorpion for awhile and finally got it! The siblings seem to have just as much fun as the ball players!

Sunday started like this...

 ...and ended with an 11-3 victory in the championship game at about 10:00pm!

 These people were all super proud of Matt.  Especially the red head!

And here's Matt with the team's biggest fan. This is Nicholas, Andrew's big brother. Nicholas has cerebral palsy and only misses a game if he is playing with his baseball team on Sunday.  We all love Nicholas...parents and boys. He's always cheering them on and sometime coaches from the stands. We love having him on the team!

Steamboat - Spring Break 16!

As you all know I only like to ski when the temperature is above 30, their is plenty of snow on the ground, (powder please), the sun is out and there are no crowds! So ski trips aren't always my favorite but the rest of my family absolutely loves to ski and Papa & Nona Lisa invited us...so off I go! 

The first 2 days were beautiful!! We got the kids up and running in ski school and enjoyed a day of skiing to ourselves. 

Then it got cold and snowed, and snowed and snowed!! The kids loved it.  They played in the snow for hours and built this cute little snowman named Jim. 

Doug and Matt were so excited to get up super early and ski First Tracks on the fresh powder.  The rest of joined later but it was SO cold!

The morning of our last day was cold but after lunch it was beautiful! We skied a ton on the backside of the mountain until the lifts closed.  The temperature was great, the sun was out and there was tons of snow on our favorite runs. We skied so late that we were one of the few left on the mountain. 

The plan was to ski the top of the mountain until our legs felt like they were going to fall off and then ride the lift back down to the base. But after the picture was taken above, everyone talked me into skiing all the way down. I figured it would be great since no one was on the mountain and we'd just take our time.  Well a normal blue run we had skied earlier had turned into moguls! Matt made it down in about 10 seconds, Marlie about 20 and I feel like it took me 2 minutes! I made Doug go behind me in case I wiped out.  I'm pretty sure he laughed all the way down!

When we got to the bottom we were all completely exhausted!! I could barely walk and the kids were pretty wore out too!

It was a really nice trip and I'm so proud of the kids for skiing so well.  Matt's favorite run was a black called Rolex.  I was too scared to even get close to the edge of that run!  He has no fear and tries so hard!  Marlie was a little more timid on this trip but man the last day she out skied me by far.  She was following Matt through the trees and flying down the hill. 

Thank you Papa & Nona Lisa for taking us.  We always have such a great time with you and it was sad to leave.  Lots of great memories!