Soccer

Tonight Meg and I went to the first round of girls high school sectionals.  Doug's team drew Plymouth in the first round.  It had been awhile since we caught a varsity game.  It looked like we might not get to see this one as it poured down rain the entire time we were driving to Warsaw.  The weather cleared, however, right as we arrived.

Meg and I sat together the first half of the game, a little away from the crowd.  Several of Doug's parents were extremely loud.  We finally had to move completely away from them as they were screaming at the girls.  I don't like loud parents, especially if what they are yelling isn't what I know Doug wants his girls to do.  They seemed to quiet down or I just got used to it after awhile.  The first half was exciting and Wawasee played some great defense.  The score was 0-0 at the break.

There was a controversial call at the beginning of the second half which gave Plymouth a goal.  From our angle it sure looked like the goalie saved the goal, but the sideline judge did not agree.  The girls did not fold, however, and played very well.  One missed trap led to a second Plymouth goal and that is where the score ended.  Meg and I had a lot of fun.  She hung out with Olivia and I sat with the Schwartz family.

Although tonight's loss ended the girls season, Doug was very happy with this evening.  The girls improved greatly and he has a lot of interest for indoor soccer this winter.  I was very proud of him tonight.  He has worked hard to develop this program and it is definitely starting to show.  Next year he has all of his starters back except for one plus there are at least five eighth graders interested in playing.  I am sad that they lost as it would have been an awesome upset.  I am, however, glad to have him home a little more for now.

Halloween

Tonight I decided to decorate for Halloween.  We had bought a new skeleton candy dish from Yankee Candle on Saturday and a pumpkin ginger candle which put me in the mood for fall.  Cam and Meg had talked about helping, but weren't overly interested until I got out the vinyl clings and the ghosts for the tree.  They both helped with those and we were mostly decorated by the time Doug got home from sectional dinner.

I found a couple of decorations that Jeanette had made for us - wooden pumpkins and a table runner.  It made me sad to think that not so long ago she was feeling well enough to carve and sew.  I am glad that we have these to remember her by.  Both Meg and Cameron recognized them right away.

Once the decorating was done Doug and Cam started on the candy wrapper puzzle we bought at IU this weekend.  We all watched "Something Wicked This Way Comes" while they worked away.  It definitely feels like fall today and looks like Halloween in our home.

Bloomington

Doug and Cam had talked about golfing this morning, but it had frosted so they changed their minds.  Doug took a walk through campus while we all got ready.  Parce was heading to North Carolina so we said our goodbyes as we left.  First on our agenda was Oliver Winery.  It was warmer today.  Thus, we were able to sit outside for a picnic.  One nice part of cooler weather is the lack of bees.  We had a lot of fun and a great visit with Brett.

After lunch we toured campus and shopped at several bookstores.  Each of the Heinisch children found something they wanted.  I also bought two books and Doug added football helmets to his Big Ten collection.  Brett decided to leave us at this point as he had several homework items on his agenda.  We walked through campus and found a couple of new fountains and sculptors that we hadn't seen before.  Just as we got to Showalter Fountain it started to sprinkle.  Thus, we headed to the van with Meg and Cam remarking - "How come everytime we leave someplace it starts to rain."

Luckily, this rain was pretty mild and we were able to make it to Warsaw in about three hours.  We had dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings.  It was a great way to end a fantastic weekend.

Tailgating

We headed to Bloomington after Doug's JV soccer game in Warsaw this morning.  Our plan was to pick up Brett and head to Memorial stadium to tailgate with Parce.  Cam, Meg and Doug talked about going into the game.  Once we got there, however, our plans changed slightly.  The wind was blowing pretty fierce and the temperature was in the fifties most of the afternoon.  Thus, we only made it through half of the tailgate and a lot of that was spent sitting in the van to stay warm.  We all still had fun, though.  Brett and Meg argued about songs and Cam and Doug played washers.  We finally decided to head to the mall, all of us except Doug.  He braved the cold with Parce and Chokey and by the time we were done shopping he was able to meet us at Brett's dorm.

Brett was more than ready to show us how clean his room was.  He had picked up, vacuumed and made the bed.  Of course I gave him a hard time about his method for storing water bottles, but other than that we couldn't really pick on him too much.  He was happy to have his fall clothes as the weather has definitely been cool this week.  Once we left his dorm we headed to the IMU for a game of Glow Bowl.  I am happy to say that I was the big winner, but Cam almost got me.

After bowling we walked down to Buffalouies.  They were quite busy, but we found a table.  The food took longer than usual, but we didn't mind.  After dinner we dropped Brett off and picked up some breadsticks for a late night snack at Parce's.  Thankfully, Parce had room for us once again and we set up air mattresses on the floor.  Doug fell asleep early, but the rest of us stayed up talking with Parce and listening to his tale entitled "Death by Beanbag."

 

Sewing Projects

This has been by far the busiest week of the school year.  With tennis sectionals, soccer games, conferences and library board meetings I was completely wiped out by the time today came to an end.  Without thinking about it I also scheduled my students sewing projects to take place this week as well.  It worked out great for the conferences as parents could check out their students progress or take home the completed project.  My favorite moment tonight was when one student's grandparents realized that he had made a body pillow well over six feet long.  They weren't sure how they were going to get it home, but my student was all smiles.  This year I added pajama pants as one of the options.  Only four students took me up on the offer to try them.  It has been a slow go, but hopefully, they will turn out as well as I had imagined.

We will finish up our projects next week and return to our regular routine.  I am always excited to start the projects, but am also equally happy to put away the machines for the trimester.  We still have our laundry unit to do and kitchen safety videos to make.  The trimester is going by fast.  I hope I can keep up.

Student Led Conferences

Our school switched a couple years ago to student led conferences.  During this time the students takes their parents to classes and show them the work that they have done so far this trimester.  They do receive a grade report, and in previous years there has been an out of school incentive for coming - roller skating, bowling, etc.

This year the school tried a different approach and students that made it to their classes received ice cream as a treat.  I noticed that numbers were down as only about half of my students came in when before I would get about 80%.  I don't know if the incentive made the difference or if parents are ready to go back to a more traditional approach to conferences.  I made sure I talked with the parents that wanted to talk to me or that I wanted to reach.  Meg had fun helping at the conference table and handing out ice cream tickets.  Overall, it was a long night, but productive.

So Disappointing

Cal's tennis team drew Whitko in the first round of the secontionals tonight.  They were all really happy as they had beaten them early in the season 5-0.  It definitely looked as though they had an easy path to the sectional finals as their next opponent would be Columbia City.  They only could field three courts, so technically only one of our courts would need to win for us to beat them.

One thought that crossed Doug and my mind was that the team has had a different lineup since they beat Whitko a month ago and hadn't won a match since then.  I don't know if the coach thought about that, but it became obvious that their lineup wouldn't be the one to beat Whitko tonight.  Cal was put in the number 3 singles position and beat his opponent in less than 30 minutes 6-1, 6-0.  The number one doubles won their first set, but ended up losing the second.  By the time they took the court for the deciding set it did not matter as far as the team was concerned.  One singles and two doubles lost almost as quickly as Cal won.  Number two singles went longer, but still never provided much of a challenge losing both sets 6-2, 6-2.

I was disappointed for the boys and especially Cal.  He had beaten Whitko's number one player twice before and fairly easily the last time.  His only chance of moving on was to go as a team or play the number one position.  He played well this season and had the best winning record on his team.  I know he was disappointed, but it must have been short lived as the first question out of his mouth when he got home was, "Mom, can you take me in at 6:30 a.m. tomorrow for basketball?"  Guess we are moving on.