Track Season and Girls on the Run

Track season has come to an end and this year all of our kids were running! The boys are all doing sprints and Layla is going the distance.

The first home meet at Mount Si was cold, wet and uncomfortable! Here’s some pics of Avery racing.And




And here are some from Kieron’s races

Love these posters for the Seniors!

At Senior Night

Layla did Girls on the Run, which is an  international elementary program for 3rd-5th graders. It became apparent the first day that she was at the head of the pack at her school. She just doesn’t seem to run out of energy!

GOTR Puget Sound  culminates in a 5k, with roughly 1800 girls participating, each with an adult buddy. Layla was excited to have Avery run as her buddy, and the two decided to give it their all – and they were the first to finish! Layla ran a 23.45, impressive for an eight-year-old! But what really made us proud was watching our babies enjoy the race together!


Here they come!



Melt my heart!

With her friend, Lily

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Dance Recital

It was dance recital weekend for Layla, and this year she had four routines in three different shows. Saturday was a full day, dress rehearsals and pictures in the morning, followed by three of her routines. Sunday she only had one left to go, but it was after doing the Girls of the Run 5k. We were all tired by Sunday evening! I’ll break the pictures down into dance styles.

Tap


With Ms. Alison




Ballet







With Mrs. Brittany

Lyrical



Layla loves getting to do lifts like this


Layla’s kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Croft, and her daughter, Blake, came to watch her performance. She’s such an amazing teacher!


Hip hop


That’s Layla doing the handstand…

…and then flip!


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Mother’s Day Vacay

This year a few friends and I celebrated Mother’s Day with a girls trip to Scottsdale. We spent two nights in a beautiful, roomy suite and came back late Saturday night to spend Sunday with our families. We had an amazing time relaxing during the day and whooping it up at night!





The first night we met up with a college friend of Becky and her husband’s and he showed us the good spots to go downtown.




We went to a really cool espresso martini bar

Then we headed to Old Scottsdale for some dancing


We had a laugh the next morning about misbuttoned pajamas

The second day we got some spa treatments and spent the afternoon at the rooftop spa pool


Before heading out for night two.

Yajaira met up with her cousins for dinner while the rest of us met up with Niki, who moved to Arizona last year.


After dinner it was the four us again until I came down with food poisoning shortly after arriving at the first bar we went to. I Ubered back to the hotel and went to bed while these three lived it up. Fortunately, I woke up feeling well again.

Poolside, on our last day


Homeward bound

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Main Floor Remodel

When we bought our house there were a few things on our list of improvements we’d like to make in the coming years. Near the top of the list were removing the pillars on the main floor, moving the awkward corner fireplace and replacing the hardwoods with something lighter.

In October during cheer carpool, I learned from Layla’s friend, Olivia, that their family (who lives two doors down in the same model home) had done just that before we moved into the neighborhood. That was all I needed to get the ball rolling!

Here’s a before pic. Notice the four pillars.

Within a week or two these were the first to go. We have a great demo crew at the house who were eager to earn some cash. We were still in the process of having things engineered (notice the holes in the drywall in the upper right), but we’d established these were not load-bearing, so away they went.

Well shoot. Look what we discovered in one of the pillars! Why would they run this right here?! Guess it saved a couple bucks to go straight down.

Next to go was the wall dividing the dining room and family room. This would open things up a lot! But these pillars are load bearing, so we had to have a longer beam installed, along with a couple more studs in the basement, and the two remaining pillars would become a small L-shaped corner. Also, look what was in the wall! HVAC! Bummer, now we needed to reroute it.

Getting closer! But now we decided to replace the fireplace rather than just move it. The expense wasn’t much more and we weren’t sure how much life the old one had left in it.

Before the new beam and wall removal… 

And after! Also, I taped off where the new corner wall would go.

Now it’s time to prepare for the new fireplace. We were lucky and got a deal on a floor model.

My electrician

Mantle arrived, fireplace in, drywall and Duraboard up next. Just in time for Christmas!

Making sure the mantle goes in straight

Yay! We can get the TV up off the floor. This is Christmas Eve morning!

Tile is going up soon!

Meanwhile, we measured everyone and left an Easter Egg behind the new corner wall.

     

A perk of getting new floors – you can rollerblade in the house!

Hard at work. These kids did so much demo!

Kieron did almost the whole kitchen by himself!


The pets love the new fireplace

All subfloor!

New floors going in…


And here they are!

I’m SO glad we decided to get rid of the carpet in the office!

Since we had to empty the pantry to do the floors in there anyway, we decided to redo it too. Here’s before…

And after! We love the counter and room for appliances. Quartz will go in eventually, but you get the idea.

Last step was putting up the last of the crown molding and the board and batten!

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Kieron turns Fifteen

Kieron turned fifteen this year, which means we’ll have another driver in the house soon! In just a couple months he starts driver’s ed. I’m not sure where the time is going. Our kids are growing up SO fast!

At fifteen, Kieron is nearly 6’2″, has really leaned out, is quite strong and could easily be mistaken for seventeen. Overall, he is a pretty quiet and mellow guy. He kept busy with athletics this year, and although school is not his favorite thing, Kieron is a hard worker. He enjoys swimming, cooking and baking (even made his own birthday ice cream cake) and hanging out outside with friends.

Happy birthday, Kieron Scott! We love you to the moon and back!

Kieron had a birthday sleepover. He and his friends played ping pong and video games, watched The Exorcist and roasted s’mores.

Birthday  dinner request – smash burgers!

Birthday gifts – an iWatch and Ice Cube concert tickets

Cheesecake

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