Turkey Trot 5K/Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year, we drove down to Ponte Vedra on Wednesday and came back to Atlanta late Friday. Though the temperatures were unusually cold, we made the most of our time with the Carroll family.

At 8am Thanksgiving morning, we participated in the annual 5k Turkey Trot on the beach. The 5k was targeted for the walking crowd, but Eleanor and Hayes took off running. I left the pack as well just to keep up with them.  Eleanor kept the lead the entire race with Hayes just at her heels. When she stopped for a quick breather, Hayes would stop too. They both sprinted at the end and put their mom to shame! We finished 1, 2 and 3 and all earned medals for winning our age groups. (Wages won his age group for the 5 miler.)

We think Ben should have won a medal for the "Youngest Competitor" as he and Thomas finished the 5K in a nice jog.

Later Thanksgiving day, we captured some family shots

 

before we sat down to the obligatory Thanksgiving feast. 

For documentation sake, Yahtzee hit it big with the kids this visit.  I'm not sure why the game has not been discovered in prior trips, but they all quickly took a liking to it.  A game was always going on on the family room floor.

 

It will be interesting to see if the kids pick it right back up this summer. 

E's Veterans Day Program

In celebration of Veteran's Day each year, the Westminster 5th graders host an hour and a half long Veterans Day program.

 

The students can invite any and all veterans they know so Eleanor asked her grandfather, a Vietnam Vet, to the program.

 

For the hour and a half, the students sang numerous patriotic songs including "God Bless America", "In Flanders Fields", "Taps" and "America the Beautiful".  Interspersed between the songs were readings from a variety of poems, historical stories and papers about war and the life of one in the service.  The program also honored all five branches of the service by singing each of their songs (i.e. "The Army Goes Rolling Along", "Anchors Aweigh", "The Marines Hymn", "The Army Air Corp Song" and "Semper Paradus") and then having representatives present from each branch to stand and be recognized while their song was song.

 

Each fifth grader had individual time at the microphone, flawlessly reciting their memorized lines to the program.  Eleanor spoke about the flowers left on kitchen tables at the homes of servicemen and women in their honor while they are off at war. 

 

Eleanor recited the following, "The blue flower represents all of the men and women who are currently serving our nation on foreign soil.  The red flower pays heartfelt tribute to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice by giving their lives."

When it was all over and done, I doubt there was a dry eye in the house!  Granddaddy turned to us and said, "Wow!  That program was worth the annual tuition you pay for Eleanor to attend this school!" 

Holiday Lights at the ABG

Since we have never been to the prior two year's showings of the Atlanta Botanical Garden's "Garden Lights Holiday Nights" extravagance as a family, I bought tickets a few weeks ago for us to attend this past Tuesday night before we headed to Ponte Vedra the next morning for Thanksgiving.  At that point in November when I purchased the tickets, the Tuesday night Thanksgiving week sounded like the perfect time as I thought we were getting a head start on the rest of Atlanta in seeing this quickly becoming a Christmas tradition.  I could never have predicted that Atlanta would be hit with 100% rain all day long and that the temperatures would never rise above 40 degrees . . . not exactly the ideal weather to be walking outdoors for an hour or two!

The ABG has a "no rain check" policy so we knew we would need to attend in our best spirits but also come prepared for the elements.  We put on rain boots, multiple layers of shirts and pants, gloves and hats and grabbed an umbrella before we drove to the garden.  Once there, the rain relented for an hour or so, and we took full advantage of the lull. 

 

We knew hot chocolate was on order and found a hot chocolate bar in the edible garden.  

There we also met some electric dragonflies and butterflies.  

Though we found many lights that were not working as we walked throughout the different decorated areas of the garden (such as the second cobra that is across the sidewalk from this bright one and the Garden Goddess),

 

the kids seemed excited to be out in the elements with colorful lights,

 

as they seemed to signal the imminent arrival of the holiday season. 

Hayes's First Soccer Tournament

At the culmination of Hayes's fall soccer season, his Northside Academy team participated in its first weekend soccer tournament. 

 

The tournament took place in Newnan with a game at 12:00pm and 4:00pm last Saturday and then a 9:20am game on Sunday. If the boys won their bracket, they would then play in the final at 1:00pm Sunday.  Since the tournament took place the weekend before Thanksgiving, the team battled abnormally low temperatures (low 40s and even colder when considering the wind chill) and fatigue as a few teammates had conflicting holiday schedules. 

For the first game, the boys played with no subs and ended up winning 3-1 with Hayes scoring one of the team's three goals. 

 

 

 

For the second Saturday game, 

 

Northside lucked out and played with one sub giving the team enough energy to pull through with a 10-2 victory. 

Thomas and Hayes drove down to Newnan early Sunday for the third game while the rest of us attended Sunday School. I think the temperatures were reportedly in the mid 30s before considering the wind chill. The boys were grateful to have one sub, and they played hard to win 8-2 with Hayes scoring a goal in this game as well. 

 

Since the team was undefeated in their bracket, they played in the championship game later that day. 

 

Unfortunately with no subs and having exerted so much effort in the other three games, the boys were exhausted. The other teams had fresh legs while our legs looked like they were stuck in concrete! Hayes's team ended up losing 6-0 after our team pushed up in the second half down 3-0 to try to score.  The boys still earned second place medals for their hard play.

Needless to say, the tournament experience was a very positive one, and I think both Coach Clayton and Coach Alex were impressed by the boys' play. With the weather becoming too cold outside for soccer, Hayes begins his first experience of indoor soccer next week. 

Hayes's Backpack Load

Last week when Friday afternoon finally arrived, we were all excited about Thanksgiving break. Immediately after school, Hayes had a birthday party to attend so I decided to unpack his backpack. I had no idea that I would find this stack of books inside.

 

At least Hayes didn't have to worry about running out of reading materials at school!

Ben's Letter Search and Find

A few weeks ago, Ben created this "Letter Search and Find" for me to do.  He had all 26 letters hidden somewhere on his page.  Can you find them all? 

Some letters were trickier than others so Ben was kind enough to give me a few hints to help me find all 26. 

Post-Halloween Art

Ben did not have school the day after Halloween.  How did he spend much of his morning?  Creating one-of-a-kind candy designs on the living room floor. 

Happy Halloween!

Once Halloween afternoon finally rolled around, the kids were more than ready to head down the street to our annual Beaverbrook gathering.  Before I allowed them to go on ahead, they had to oblige me with some Halloween photos.  This year, Ben was Batman, Eleanor was a flapper, and Hayes dressed up as a Georgia Tech football player. 

 

 

Later, while at the street gathering, I captured them with their "peeps".   Francie, Eleanor, Leslie and Maddy have been buddies for years. 

 

 Hayes and Graham are two peas in a pod.

Finally, we have the third children (minus Marsh Woocher) who love to pal around.  

 

Interesting fact:  Three of the four third children were dressed up as some sort of police office/traffic cop.  Ben chose to go the super hero route but one could argue that Batman served in law enforcement as well.  

Once it was time for the trick-or-treating to commence, the Selle and Mary Chandler James, in Halloween tradition, joined the girls for some trick-or-treating in the 'hood.  (MC is not in the photo as she was adjusting her costume.) 

I was lucky enough to chaperone Ben down to see the Troll, a well-known neighborhood Halloween character.  People drive from other neighborhoods just to see if their kids will be brave enough to cross the Troll's bridge and get candy at his house.  Ben was petrified, and I mean petrified, but he walked across the bridge holding my hand and received candy at the front door of the Troll's house from the Troll's wife.  We had to take a picture to mark this accomplishment. 

With school coming early the next morning, the night came to a close around nine but not before we got one more picture of Selle and Eleanor, friends who shared a nanny each and every day for their first year of life!  

 

Happy Halloween!

Hayes's Favorite Halloween Candy

After Halloween, school teachers find unique ways to incorporate candy into their lessons.  I'm betting that Hayes's class was working on handwriting, sentence structure and punctuation when he came home with this statement . . .

Westminster Halloween Parade

Each year on Halloween morning, the pre-first through second graders at Westminster parade through the Upper Campus to showcase their Halloween costumes.  Since Eleanor's cousin Cate is a first grader at the school, Eleanor was allowed to escort Cate's class along the parade route.  First, before the parade time, a teacher friend captured these shots of Eleanor and friends on the fifth grade hall.

Mimi and Ben came along to see the parade as well. Ben dressed up as Jango Fett from the Star Wars Attack of the Clones movie.  We quickly found our friends the Watsons and Ben paired up with his buddy and classmate Andrew immediately. 

We also ran into Grandmommy, Uncle Michael and cousin Everly.

The parade began shortly thereafter.  We watched the pre-first students walk through and then it was time for the first graders and Cate's class. 

After the parade, we asked Jabba the Hutt for a picture, and we were grateful he obliged. 

We did not talk about it on Halloween, but this year is the last year Eleanor gets to dress up for Halloween at school.  Next year, they are all business so I hope E cherished her final school-day in a Halloween costume.