Catching Up... On Everything!

Ever since school started, I have been extremely busy, exhausted, and I almost completely forgot we even had a family blog. So much for that Young Women project of keeping a blog documenting the family's events haha. Seriously though, our time has been taken up with school, homework, cross country meets, soccer games, church youth activities blah blah blah. But I'm back to update what's been happening in the past couple of months!
School started on August.... 21st? Anyways, Hayley is in 4th grade now, Taylor is in 8th grade (top of the food chain in middle school), and I'm a big bad junior (11th grade). First day of school pictures are below. It looks like Taylor is practically walking out of the shot like, okay Mom... I'm outta here...
A couple of Sundays later we went down to Imperial Beach which is a pretty southern area that's a few miles away from the border. Below is Mom pointing very enthusiastically at a "Tsunami Hazard Zone" sign. Sheesh we totally acted like tourists. After spending some time going down the boardwalk, we went down to the US/Mexico border. It was kind of freaky. You look across some buildings, walls, etc. and way out by some hills absolutely packed with little houses you see this ginormous Mexican flag waving. Somehow, I was getting a little creeped out.

I am not going to lie- junior year is TOUGH. The classes I am in for this term are Photography, AP Calculus, AP U.S. History, and Physics. I am also in the middle of my second cross country season. Things are going well, and I am racing in the varsity team now. The pictures are from a HUGE invitational meet out at Morley Fields by Balboa Park in San Diego. There were a ton of schools, a few out of state, and the starting lines were packed for each race. I raced in the junior race (races for this meet went by what grade you're in) and I ended up medaling in the top 50 places, which I was thrilled about because I have never medaled in a race before, but I have also been two places away from medaling in an invitational the year before.

And yes, those black spandex uniform shorts of ours... they really are that short!

Hayley and Taylor have been playing soccer games every Saturday lately. They are both doing really well and they play pretty intensely. Yesterday, Taylor kicked the ball at some kid's head (who had already been tripped or something and was trying to get up from the ground!) and Hayley has done some knocking down and shoving too. It's too bad we haven't gotten any pictures for soccer yet though.
Hayley ran for secretary for her school's Student Council in the past couple of weeks. This involved writing a minute long speech, making a poster, and spreading the word "Vote for Hayley". Personally, I think she would have been pro at this job, but apparently some 5th grader won. Oh well. Hayley got some cool shots though posing for a picture for her poster.