Soccer Camp

Ethan spent this past week at soccer camp.

He was on the Brown Team.  He played hard all week and came home sweaty and dirty every day.

And tired.  Very tired.

This morning, I got to go watch Ethan's team scrimmage against the Green Team.

Afterwards, they held a little ceremony to close out the week.

Ethan was chosen as the Sportsman of the Week for the Brown Team

and was given this cool soccer necklace.  Proud of him for being a good sport!
He had a great week with his coaches and friends.

Marlins Swimming

~ 2013 Moss Bluff Marlins Team Photo ~

Ethan is on the second row, third from the left.

Tristan is on the back row, far left.

What a sweet group of kids!  

Haha!  Maybe not.

Love that Tristan is helping to throw Coach Beth in the pool!!

Girl Scout Camp

Savannah got home this afternoon from Girl Scout Camp.

They went to the camp in Breaux Bridge again this year.

Savannah served as an aide and the teacher for the theater class.

She loves helping with all the skits for the skit night.

She had a great week.  Things she told us she did:

*Made up bunches of awesome, legit skits
*Almost stepped on a snake
*Got a worm in her hair
*Ran over two raccoons at the same time
*Watched five girls tip their canoe and laughed out loud from the safety of the dock
*Came two inches from hitting the bullseye in archery

She always has so much fun being an aide at Girl Scout Camp!

Marlins Swimming

Today was our third swim meet.  

We swam against Lake Charles Country Club and Sulphur.

Ethan taking off in the 25 Free!

He swam the fastest race of his life and got a time of 18.91, 

almost two whole seconds faster than last time.  He ended up placing Fourth.

Tristan swam the 50 Breaststroke in 41.43, a little bit slower than his personal best, 

but good enough for a Third Place finish! 

Ethan swam in the 100 Medley Relay again, but this time they switched him to the Backstroke.

~ Ethan and that old man, Aden, who swam the Fly ~

"Swimmers in the water."

"Go, Ethan!!  Swim fast!!"  Their B Relay Team placed second with a time of 1:30.83.

Tristan swam in the 200 Medley Relay, on the A Relay, Butterfly stroke.

They placed First with a time of 2:23.64.

Tristan with some of his friends, Gavin, Phillip, Kyle, and Mason.

They were all on his relay except for Gavin.  I think he was on the B Relay Team.

Ethan swam Backstroke again.  Of course, it's one of his favorites!

He did awesome, but was unable to take any time off his best, swimming a little under a second slower.

He placed second though, with a time of 25.36.

Ethan swam the Butterfly for third place with a personal best time of 24.72, taking off a second and a half from his previous time.  Here he is lined up, second from the right, and taking off.

Butterfly is quickly becoming a very close second favorite behind the Backstroke for Ethan.  He loves it!

Ethan with his friend, James.

Loving their "cap hair."

Ethan with his Freestyle Relay team, John Robert, Ali-Mae, and Erin.

They swam a 100 Free Lagniappe Relay and placed first with a time of 1:23.80.

Tristan also swam a Freestyle Relay, but I am unsure of their time or place.

Tristan swam the 50 Free with a personal best time of 27.18, placing second.

He also swam the 50 Fly in 35.31, placing first.

Swimmers draw and write all over their bodies for swim meets.

I loved this Marlin on Eli's back!  I can ever convince my boys to decorate themselves up!

Three down and one to go.  Next Saturday is the Championship Meet 

and the End of Season Party and Awards Ceremony.

It has been a busy, but a very fun swim season.

We're Leaving On a Jet Plane

We left on July 4th to fly to Washington.

Our trip to the airport in Houston went fairly smooth.  We did have trouble finding a parking spot and ended up parking in the regular parking garage at the airport, which cost us a small fortune, but oh well.  We checked in our bags and headed to the security line.  Allen and the boys went through the regular metal detector while I got to go through the full body scanner.

When I came out on the other side and was working to gather my things and put my shoes back on, Ethan came to me and in a panicked voice told me that the security man had his backpack and was not giving it back.  I looked up to see that one of the guards had taken Ethan's backpack aside and was thoroughly inspecting it.  It was Ethan's big, orange swim bag and he had packed with all his stuff for the plane.

We did not know what the issue was, so we patiently waited for him to bring Ethan's bag back to us.  After about ten minutes, he came over to ask us if there was a knife in the bag.  We said no, not that we knew of. My mind started racing, thinking that these bags had sat in our living room for about three days, packed and ready to go.  I started to think that one of the little boys had slipped something in there without my knowledge.  After checking each pocket over and over again, the guard emptied some things out of the bag and scanned it again.  He kept saying that there was an image of a pocket knife on the scanner but he could not find where it was in the bag.

He would not let us have the bag so that we could look for it ourselves.  He kept taking more things out of the bag and scanned it over and over again.  Finally the bag was totally empty and he scanned it again.  The image of the knife was still there.  Ethan and I decided that he must have taken a pocket knife to the Mom and Me Camp Out for Cub Scouts and forgotten that it was there.  Finally, with help from another guard, he could feel where the knife was in the bag and the two of them were able to maneuver the pocket knife out of the inner lining of the bag.  Somehow it had slipped in between the lining and we did not know it was there.  

They scanned the bag again and it finally was cleared!  It ended up being one of Tristan's special pocket knives that Uncle Frank gave him when he earned his Eagle Scout.  We did not want to part with it, so the guard asked us if we had a bag that we were willing to check.  I gave him our little suitcase that had a change of clothes in it for everyone and he placed the knife in the bag, closed it, and took it into his possession.

I told Allen that I would go on to the gate with the boys to make sure we would not be late for the plane. We ended up being delayed about a half hour at security trying to find the knife.  Allen followed the security guard and the bag back to the luggage counter and checked the bag.  A most exciting start to our trip!!

Thankfully, we all made it just fine to the plane and were able to load without any other problems.  Holden and Allen sat together on one side of the plane while I sat across the aisle with Ethan and Jackson.

We taxied away from the gate and just a couple minutes later I looked over at them and saw this.  We were not even in the air yet!  I swear, Allen gets all the breaks!!  Haha!  He would not have slept had he been sitting with me.

While meanwhile, on our side, this was happening!

It's alright, because we were having a party!

Ethan took a couple of pictures for me outside the window.  He loved that we were above the clouds!

We had a lay over in Phoenix, Arizona.  Ethan especially, was very nervous about flying, but he really enjoyed it once we got in the air.  I am not a huge fan of flying either, so thank goodness our flights were uneventful.  Holden and Jackson were really bothered by the pressure in their ears.  They could not pop them and the gum I brought for them to chew did not even help a little bit.

As we began to descend towards the airport, Jackson started giggling so loudly.  He said when the airplane dropped it tickled his tummy.  It was pretty funny!

When we got into Seattle, we picked up our rental van and headed to Cheryl's house, where they were having the biggest firework show this side of the Mississippi.

Tristan and Savannah were there with their new friends.  Lots of people from their ward were there.  All our cousins were there, too!

I know we were in Seattle, but this is not a picture of storm clouds.  This is the smoke from all the fireworks from all the houses in the neighborhood.  Everyone around was doing their own fireworks and the sky was black with smoke.

Friday morning was spent cleaning up the mess from all the fireworks.  Jordan, Nathan, Michael, Allen, Tristan, and Grandpa were outside raking and sweeping until it was all cleaned up!

Fourth of July Fun!!

A Little Piece of Paradise

Tristan and Savannah hopped on an Amtrak train on Monday morning to go to Oregon to visit Aunt Afton. They were so excited!  They were there for two days and three nights before they took the train back to Tacoma.

They went swimming and on a hike to the waterfall.  Tristan and Bryce swam across the freezing water to the fall.  They are very brave!  (Don't worry about Tristan's giant leg brace.  He really was not hurt.  He just wanted attention from all the cute girls on the hike!  Haha!!  Just kidding.  He twisted his ankle while he was at Camp Helaman and it was still hurting him a bit when he left for Afton's house.)

 They also went to a place that was made of all trampolines.  They had a blast bouncing all over the place.

Bryce and Tristan seeing who's tallest.

Savannah showed Madison and Kayla all her beauty tricks while Tristan introduced Bryce to Minecraft.
For that, Afton, I am truly sorry!!

On the way to the train station.  Saying goodbye is so hard!

They sure had fun!  Thanks to Brandon, Afton, Bryce, Kayla, Madison, Lukas, and Avery for hosting the crazy, Louisiana cousins for a few days and showing them a great time in Oregon!!

Braggin' On My Baby

On Monday morning, Tristan and Savannah rode the Amtrak train from Tacoma to Portland so that they could visit Afton and Brandon.  We are planning on going down to see them too, but it will have to be while they are at EFY.  We still really wanted them to get to see their cousins, so Afton arranged the train trip.  

The kids enjoyed the trip.  Savannah said she read a little bit and watched out the window, while Tristan surfed the internet and played games on his computer.   

Afton told me about this, but also posted it on my Facebook page.  

Train conductor said, "I just want to let you know that these two right here (talking about Savannah Andrews & Tristan Andrews are the most well behaved teens I have EVER seen!"  

I know I am biased a teeny, tiny bit, but they are some of the most super kids I know!  I am grateful that he took the time to brag to Afton about them.  I'm glad to know they were well behaved and respectful to each other and those around them.