Nate's Brazilian jiu jitsu

Nate decided about the same time as Adam started jiu jitsu that he would do it too.  Nate loves to fight with Joe and he's a natural at it.  He got back into a class that was at his age level.  He had to relearn a few things, but overall he remembered a lot of what he had been taught before.  Then he went to a couple of competitions.  He did great!  Since there are not a lot of kids that compete at his age/size, sometimes he would be matched with a kid that was significantly larger than him, and that made the match difficult.  

 He did really well, winning medals at both of the competitions he went to.  He progressed nicely in his class, moving up to a grey and white belt while he was there.  After he had been doing it for a year, he decided that he wanted to do water polo, so he quit jiu jitsu to pursue water polo.  Once the pandemic hit, he didn't do any sports for a while.

New Floors, Fireplace and backsplash

 After 11 years, we decided it was time to change our flooring in our house.  Since we were doing that, Joe thought it might be the right time to change the fireplace and I thought it was time to change the backsplash.  It took a while to figure out what we wanted, especially around the fireplace.  Joe wanted stone around it, but it was hard to find the right colors and where to get it.  We did find the perfect stone however.  It was  quite the process for the workers to put it in, but they did a fantastic job.

The living room all done.

It also gave me the push I needed to restyle above the cabinets.  Before they looked like this: you can also see the new backsplash in this picture.

After they looked like this

and this.  I found a blog post on pinterest that showed me that it looks good to group like things together.  Decorating does not come naturally to me, so it is nice to be able to find directions for how to do things online.

Close up of the backsplash.

We made sure to be thorough and do all of the rooms that connected, so we did the laundry room too.  Then, to make the laundry room look better, I painted the wood shelf in there white (its to the right in this picture).  It had been pine wood color since we bought for Adam's clothes when he was a baby.

This is how the living room ended up looking. We switched out all over carpet for the wood look tile and then added a shag area rug.  We switched the fireplace to be a stone covered wall with a wooden mantel that Joe made.  We added a wood top to the kennel that we made into a table (that's behind the couch). I love how it all turned out.

Homecoming 2020

 Homecoming was early this year.  They did it a few weeks into the season in case sports had to be shut down due to a coronavirus outbreak.  They also canceled any parade and any dance.  Instead they had an outdoor socially distanced movie, which was very poorly attended.  Ellie decided just to get dressed up with her friends and have a fun night.  Since she didn't have a date, I made a mum for her.  She also decorated a denim jacket that she wore to school and the game that day.  I made the mum with Grace's mom, Jennifer, and she showed me all sorts of tricks of things to put into the mum including hiding candy in it.  

The day of homecoming, the girls went to Bella's house and got dressed up.  Then they went to the Woodlands Waterway to take pictures.  Next they went to dinner at the Grotto Italian Restaurant.  Everyone else but Ellie in the group had a date, but Ellie just wanted to be with her friends.  After dinner, they came to our house and changed and then they met the boys at a haunted house.  The haunted house was so so busy, and the line was 2 hours long.  Then they went back to Bella's house and watched a movie and spent the night.  

Michael also did homecoming activities, although he also didn't go to the dance. He and a bunch of friends had a group date.  They started out by going to Ikea and playing hide and seek in the store.  Then they went to the West's house and ate dinner. Then they painted as couples. Finally, they went to the Myers' house and made smoothies and watched a movie.  I think he had a fantastic time as well.

Freshmen Cheer Pictures

Its fun to take pictures with friends while you're waiting to take the professional pictures for cheer.

 

First day of School 2020

Michael, Ellie and Nate started back to school on August 12.  Unfortunately, they had to start back virtually, doing all their work online.  Even seminary was a zoom call at 5:50 in the morning.  It was a lot less work for Michael and Ellie, but the first day Nate had to be on a class meeting for every class for the whole day--it was exhausting.  Ellie didn't like the idea of me taking a picture of her for the first day of virtual school. Nate used a table that was set up in the guest room so that he could be downstairs away from the distractions of the other kids. Adam left for college the day after they started online school.  His first day was about 5 days later, but most of his classes were online.  Online school went fine for Michael and Ellie, although it was not at all enjoyable, but it was a disaster for Nate.  He had a hard time (and apparently his teachers did too) knowing where assignments were and when they were due.  

The week before school started, they had a ramp up day where every day for 4 days, they let 1/4 of the students come to campus and learn the new covid rules and where their classrooms were. These were pictures on the ramp up day.  Lily came and took Ellie to seminary with her.  All the kids had to wear masks all of the time while they were at school except when they were eating lunch.  This made it so if a student was diagnosed with Covid in their class, unless they sat really close to them or ate lunch near them, they didn't have to quarantine.  With Ellie and Michael at a school with 3,000+ students, that makes a big difference.  (Nate's school has over 1200). They had a 3rd first day of school- the day when everyone went back to school.  I didn't take a picture that day, but it was most like the first day of school in past years.