Welsville Mile

The fourth and fifth graders from many schools in the surrounding area participate in the Wellsville Mile each spring.

This is an old tradition dating back even before my days.

I never ran it myself since I had asthma and foot issues in my youth.

Josh didn't run it in fourth grade because of his foot surgeries and for some reason (can't remember what was going on), I was not able to go and watch him in fifth grade.

So I was grateful to be able to go watch Abby this year.

Abby with some of her cute friends :)

I was so zoomed in that I just kind of had to hold the camera up and hope I got Abby in some of the shots since they were moving by so fast.

I caught her in the very back of this one.

On the second lap she was walking by so I was able to get some better shots that time.

After she passed by she started running again :)

Finish Line!

Way to go Abs!  She did super great :)!

Solitaire Soccer Season

Matt was the only one of the kids that did rec soccer this spring.

As much as I love supporting my kids in their activities, I must admit, it was kind of nice only having to worry about one practice and game schedule during the week :)

Matt is a great little player!  It's exciting to watch him play.

He had a great season!

Goodbye Dr. McWhorter

Abby had her final orchestra concert for the year.

She did awesome!

It was a special concert because the director of the county orchestra program was retiring.

Apparently, he is quite a well respected cellist across the country.

As part of the retirement surprise at this last concert there was a cello choir made of of his old students, some of which had traveled quite a way to be there.  Among them were the kids' current private cello teacher, their school orchestra director and a few cello professors from surrounding universities and colleges.

It was pretty neat to watch him as they played.

His wife came up and stood by his side during the performance.

Josh waiting in the wings for the next stage of the surprise...

In advance, an email had gone out asking for past county orchestra participants to come prepared to play the group's theme along with everyone else on stage.

Josh chose to play so it was neat to have both Abby and Josh playing together at a concert...that hasn't happened before.

The kids' teachers

(Matt is included in the "kids" since he talked me into letting him start taking lessons several months ago)  Speaking of Matt, he had pack meeting so that's where he and Andy and Ben were that night.

Grandma and Grandpa were both able to come.

Afterward, we sloshed through a downpour back to our cars and they treated us to ice cream :)

It was quite a special evening.

Josh is 12

Josh was not excited at all about his birthday :)

We are Cardinals fans around here with Andy's St. Louis roots.

I love that Josh gets so excited about books :)

His main gift was a camera.

Dinner at Hu Hot!

Ha!  He was snapping pictures all night long :)

                           

That poor ice cream cake!

Someone accidentally left the freezer door slightly cracked and it melted down quite a bit.

Still tasted great though :)!

Happy Birthday Handsome Man!

Kids' Pics

I was not happy with  our school pictures this year.

It took me a while but I finally got around to taking some pictures of my own.

When Andy and I were dating and early on in our marriage, he worked on the grounds crew at the temple.  During that time, the crew worked on the south side of the grounds and made a pretty little walkway that is kind of hidden down below and not many people are aware of the area.  This has been a favorite spot for family picture taking.

Handsome Josh

Beautiful Abby

We tried some shots without her glasses but she wears them so much that she has quite the tan lines :)

This  specific spot where we took Abby and Matt's pictures is full of sweet william and candytuft.

I kind of like to think of it as the "white way of delight"...like on Anne of Green Gables :)

Sweet Matt

Angel Ben

(Andy was behind me being silly to get these smiles)

Love these precious kids!