Back to School

10th, 8th, 6th, & 2nd grade! We are so excited for this school year! It's going to be amazing. Let's go Fire Birds and Jack rabbits! here we go wrestling, swim team, choir, dance, piano, orchestra, tumbling, and waterpolo! I am really sad that this will be the last year April will have a sibling at her school. Poor girl will be all by her lonesome the rest of her school days. But I don't worry too much because she has good friends and is crazy popular.

Summer 2022

We survived Summer 2022. I worked 4 days a week (I've never worked that much as a mom but I'm super blessed. My office spoils me and let's me keep a schedule of 8-2pm M, T, W, & F. During the school year I'm home when they get home from school and that's very important to me.) Thankfully I had an amazing sitter lined up for the summer. Lily Johnson took such great care of my kids M, T, and W from 9-1pm. She ran them all over the place and made sure April practiced the piano and did school work with her also. 

Our Typical Summer schedule:

5:30-8am Mason MAC club swim @ Kino pool

6-7am Noah swim team at MHS

7-8am Callie Swim Team @ MHS

8:30-9:30am Callie Synrcho Practice @ MHS

9-10am April Swim Team @ MHS

10-10:45am Callie Orchestra @ Franklin East

Mason had life guard shifts almost daily either from 9-4pm or 1-7pm

Noah was a Jr Guard and had shifts a couple days a week for a few hours, and helped almost every morning during the younger swim team practices AND helped at the swim meets with the Youngers. His best friend Christian was a Jr. Guard with Noah at MHS they signed up for the same shifts and I think had a lot of fun getting service learning hours in together. 

Tuesday Evenings Callie had Synrchonized Swim Meets

Thursday Evenings ALL evening Swim meets Youngers and Older swim meets are back to back. So hot! But April was sure fun to watch! And Noah has really taken off in swim I can tell he is pushing and applying himself. He made every relay race on the A team. (Even when he missed time trials haha!)

M, W, F 6-7:30pm Mason/Noah Water Polo practice

Saturday Mornings 9-10am Water Polo Games

After writing all this down now I'm wondering if we may have overdone it a little with the scheduling but... I think all my kids had a lot of fun. Callie wasn't too thrilled about swim team but I let her pick one morning a week to sleep in and skip practice plus she only had to do one swim meet the whole season. I'm so grateful we had Lily to help drive the kids around and take care of them. She is one amazing young woman and was a blessing to me this summer. 

Mason LOVED working at the pool this Summer. He made lots of new friends and was really happy with his paychecks. I'm so proud of him and his work ethic. We didn't take many family trips this summer mostly because of his job (and FSY) but I'm happy for him to be working so hard and learning life lessons in the working world.

Sea World/La Jolla Family Trip

We haven't been to Sea World in a few years and I decided it was time to go back. We planned an end of summer Family trip. Sadly, Mason chose not to come so he could clock more hours at work before school started back up. We missed Mason but we did have a fun short weekend trip. We got some much needed beach time (including unintended close up encounters with a sea lion) and plenty of playtime at Sea World. Sea World has always had a special place in my heart. We have taken all of our kids there since they were very young. It's just a magical place it has fun for all ages. April's absolute favorite things at sea world was riding the swing ride. 

We played in La Jolla Cove and really enjoyed watching the Se lions be very active jumping and playing with each other in and out of the water. We liked watching until one particular sea lion decided to jump up on the rock we were sitting on and literally kick us off "his spot" Haha Poor Noah got snapped at and with in inches of that sea lions mean mouth. 

The kids were so fun on the beach. At one point they let Ron and I go paddle board in the ocean while they babysat April and played on the shore. I love when my kids hang and play with each other.

Summer REC Water Polo Team

Mason and Noah both got to play together for Mesa High Rec team this summer. I LOVE going to their games and watching them play. We pause club waterpolo so they can participate. Weekly games every Saturday morning is so awesome to watch and participate. During club season we have to travel out of state if we want to watch the boys play in a real a waterpolo match/tournament. And I REALLY enjoyed watching them play together, they definitely had quite a few amazing plays every single game. Mason and Noah are really getting pretty good. I was pleasantly surprised at Noah's skills this season he had a lots of playtime and I think one of the highlights from the summer was when Noah outscored Mason in the Kino game. He texted me and Ron to brag about it haha! All season long at the practices I could hear their coach repeatedly labeling Noah as the favorite. During one of the practices Mesa High Team was scrimmaging against each other my boys were opposing each other and the life guard reffing couldn't figure out who the call was against Mason or Noah. Schuyler the head coach yells from across the pool "It was Mason's fault. Noah is an angel" LOL I thought that was pretty funny.

Mason has crazy endurance on the "field" the entire season he played most games the whole time. I'm not sure how he does that. I would drown for sure. I sure love this sport and I'm so proud of my boys. We went in the the water polo tournament ranked #1. Sadly, Mesa High ended up finishing in 4th place overall. The season didn't end exactly how we expected or wanted but it was really fun and I'm so proud of them.