Friday May 7th, 2010 Baseball game in Sandy

Friday Gresham played a practice game against Sandy High School. The same team they had played 3 times this week. Cole had a good game. He got a single off a nice bunt.
Cole played right field. Several balls were hit out to him.

He caught every one!

Thank goodness!

It had rained the night before and the ground was still wet in areas. There was a steep hill to come down to get to the field and Presley was running. Her feet went right out from under her and she slid down on her bumm. She was none to happy. It knocked the wind out of her.

It was hard not to laugh, it looked so comical but she was in tears so I had to refrain. Sydnee however did not. She laughed and laughed. That didn't go over well with Presley.

Thank goodness for spray and wash and oxy-clean!

Thursday May 6th, 2010 Maddy's 4th Track Meet

On Thursday May 6th, Maddy had her 4th track meet. As you can see the sun actually came out and it was a gorgeous afternoon. Perfect for a Track Meet.Maddy ran the final leg of the 4X100M relay. They took 1st!

200M: 30.2 sec. 1st place

100M: 14 sec. 1st place

long jump: 13 ft. 1 in. 1st place

We all enjoyed watching her compete.
Maddy hung with us inbetween her events!

Sierra had my camera for a bit... this is a few pics I found!

Peace Bra!!!

Thumbs up!

Okay, They were teasing Syd that she was a bully, then Presley came up and they started teasing her that she was a bully too. Presley Did not take that well at all. She ran off pouting! When she saw me take a picture of her she ran and bulled me down. LOL

Sitting in the grass at the school there were weeds growing up thru the grass. Syd starts picking them and asks if it is wheat. I decided to take a picture of her wheat and she tried grabbing it from me before I could. Syd comes up with the most comical things. I just love that girl!

Portland Air National Guard Tour

For our joint activity Wednesday night we took the youth to The Portland Air National Guard. Thanks to Bro. Haner having connections and hooking us up. What an experience to get to go inside the hangars and see where they work on the engines that power the F-15's. We learned that each of the engines are valued at an estimated $1.2 million dollars. And there are 2 engines on each F-15. Oh my!!!Our tour was guided by Master Sergeant Brockman. He went into detail of the genetics of the engines and the power each one has.
Our Young Women and Young Men were very intuitive and asked alot of questions.
We were going to be going out on the Tarmac and the temperature outside was about 44 degrees so we had the youth bring jackets to stay warm. Well we were in the hangars for awhile first so they began to shed their layers and of course when they do this they want someone else to hold their stuff. Being that Myself and Jo-Lynn, my 1st councilor had kids there naturally they come to us to dump their stuff off with. Jo-Lynn's daughter was first to bring her heavy coat for her mommy to hold. After about 10 minutes Jo-Lynn commented on how heavy it was and I stated how my daughter brought her large bag in and was surprised she hadn't asked me to hold it yet. I look over at her and she does not have her bag. Puzzled I began to look around to see where she put it.

This is where I found it. She had asked the YM's President Jared Mueller to hold it for her. He even posed for a picture. What a nice guy and a good sport.
Next we got to go out on the Flight Line to watch 3 of the F-15's take off.

Master Sergeant Brockman gave each person ear plugs and off we went.

We got to see how they do all of the routine checks on the jets before they go up. They spare no little detail.

Maddy out on the tarmac waiting to see them take off.

Sierra, Macie, Maddy (in the background is Nick and Travis)

We also got to see the cockpit of the F-15

What an amazing piece of equipment, everything at the fingertip of the pilot. The F-15 carries 30,000 lbs of fuel. Shoots rounds of 940 bullets in less than 10 seconds and the bullets weigh approximately 1 lb. each. We were given so much information in such a short amount of time that I cannot remember all of it.

The only picture that I have gotten of Cole in forever. This guy just won't let me take his picture.

Macie, Sierra and Maddy in the Hangar
Our Group...

from front left: Caleb, Lance, Laurissa, Maddy, Me & Heidi

2nd row: Morgan, Brianna, Travis, Nick, Madison, Madison, Macie, Sierra, Jo-Lynn, Kiara

top row: Bishop McGill, Cole, Jeremy Frey, Master Sergeant Brockman, Don Haner, Jared Mueller, Kelvin Brown & Cavan Dover

Thanks again to Don Haner for arranging this tour. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Maddy's academics get her the Gold

At Clear Creek Middle School the Principal has always honored the students that do well on their state testing and class GPA. There are three levels of awards. Bronze; awarded to those who improved their state testing scores and their GPA by .5 and having at least a 2.5 GPA, and no more than 2 office referrals. Silver; meeting state testing scores and maintaining a 3.5 GPA or higher, and no more than 1 office referal. Gold; exceeding the state testing scores in all subjects, maintaining a 3.5 GPA or higher for all grading periods of the school year, and no office referrals.

Maddy has maintained a 4.0 GPA the whole year and exceeded on all her state tests. I am very proud of her and her efforts in the classroom as well as her efforts at home with homework. She is one that does not put off an assignment. As soon as she receives a big project that she has 3-4 weeks to complete she gets it done in the first week. At the beginning of the year she would turn her projects in right away. Unfortunatley she learned from that, that some other students are not always honest and copy your finished project. The Teachers knowing she turned hers in first have given her credit but have warned her that in the future she needs to protect her work from other dishonest students. So since then she has still completed her projects way ahead of schedule but has waitied to turn them in so no one could copy. Here is the principal of Clear Creek Middle school, John koch ( pronounced cook)

On Monday of this week he was announced as the new Gresham High School Principal as of July 1, 2010. So my older 2 will get their old principal back and my younger kids will have to wait and see who will be their principal for the upcoming school year. John Koch is very good with students. He interacts well with them, has a great sense of humor and has possitive advice to give. He was named Oregons Principal of the year in 2008. A very top honor.
Also in the photo, next to my Maddy is Maddie Huff. Happy 12th Birthday! Then Maddie Sheehan, Maddy Halberg and Delaney Jackson. Congrats girls on your academic achievements!

Two 3rd place finishes at 12U Tournaments in Newberg, OR

Maddy's fastpitch softball team had 2 tournaments back to back. April 24-25th & May 1-2nd, 2010. They finished 3rd both weekends. The girls played well and just came up a few runs short to make it to the championship games. Maddy got to be the first girl to take the trophy home.
Team photo after winning 3rd place!
Starting from the bottom left: Coach Tricia Huff, Sara, Allison, Ashley, Maddy L., Emily, Arika
2nd row: Autumn, Bethaney, Nichole, Maddie H. ,Trisha, Maddie G.
top row: coaches Tom Rombach, Kelly Woodard, Joe Stanfill and Travis Wilson

The girls after winning 3 games in a row on may 1-2nd, scoring 50 runs and only allowing 3 from their opponents. Maddy hit a triple in one of the games and a homerun in the 3rd game.
Steven borrowed his mom's camera and took pictures of the tournaments. over 1000 pictures between the 2 tourneys.

Maddy plays catcher usually about 4-6 innings per tournament. She does a great job of protecting home plate and catching pop up foul balls.

I seriously have not gotten a full face shot picture of Cole for over 6 months. This kid will not look at me. So I have to settle for the side shots.

Presley and Syd actually getting along, trying to stay warm is more like it!

Maddy up to bat. Look in the back ground, you can see Presley, Me, Syd, Sierra (yes, shocker! Sierra actually came to one of Maddy's tournaments) & Cole

Here she is sliding into 3rd base. Maddy is so quick, she has yet to get picked off on a steal!(Steven had just put the camera down when she hit her homerun, so we did not get a picture of that :( bummer)

Maddy made 4 double plays during the April 24-25th tournament. During the game deciding the 3rd place winner we were up 3-2, bottom of the 7th inning. Maddy is playing 2nd base. The opposing team is up to bat, first girl hits a ball to pitcher she throws her out at first but the retarded ump called her safe. Next batter comes up.. hits the ball, it is over first basemans head, Maddy is in a full run... she catches it about 20 feet behind first base, the runner from first is already at 2nd, coach sent her thinking there was no way someone could catch the hit ball. Maddy runs up and steps on first base 2 outs. 3rd batter gets up and hits a line drive right back to our pitcher, Emily, she catches it! Game over!

After a long day of softball games, This is Cole on the drive home( probably from boredom)And Presley! This girl plays so hard at the tournaments. She literally wears herself out playing with a few of the other kids siblings from the team.

I LOVE IT!!

Cole Baseball

Isn't this a great picture through the fence! I asked Syd to take a picture of Cole batting and that she needed to get up tight to the fence and take it through the slot. Hey, at least it focused in on Cole and not the fence. Cole has played 3 games a week for the past 4 weeks. I have taken very few pictures because when I take out the camera Cole asks me to put it away. So I do because I don't want to make him nervous when he is up to bat. 2 weeks ago during a game aginst Barlow High he took a pitch in the ribs. OUCH! It left the perfect imprint of the ball including the threads on his side. He got to take his base and stole each base all the way home. He scored the only run for Gresham that game. They played in Hood River on April 7th. The town has actually grown in population since Steven lived there back in '86.
Another picture through the fence line by Syd. Cole hit a nice bunt and ran to first base before they even got to the ball. This was during an away game against Sandy High School. Gresham won 6 to 4. Cole played left field and made 2 amazing catches.

We lucked out at this game and did not get rained on. It was sure cold though.

Sydnee and Presley all bundled up and it is April 30th! You would think by now we could be shedding the blankets and heavy jackets.

Cole is the fastest runner on the team, so when one of the pitchers gets on base Cole is the designated runner for them. He has safely stole every base thus far. There is only 3 weeks left of their baseball season. Fingers crossed they get to play today. We have had a mixed bag of weather... hail, heavy rain, sun breaks and high winds 20+ MPH. Game is in Canby, they tend to have better weather down there. I hope so.

Track Meets

So here it is another 2 1/2 weeks have passed since I have updated my blog. I just can't seem to stay caught up. Maddy Has had 2 more track meets. On April 15th Clear Creek went to Barlow High school to compete against Orient/Damascus. Steven atttended her meet. (I was at Cole's Baseball game) Maddy ran the 4X100M relay. They took 1st place. She ran the 200M in 30.02 seconds and got 1st place. She ran the 100M in 14 seconds and took 1st place. Jumped 12 ft. 5 inches in the long jump and took 1st place. The sun was actually shinning for this meet. YAY!!

So next meet was April 29th, 2010 (they had a bye week) At Floyd Light Middle School. The weather is back to rainy conditions with a few sun breaks. Maddy lucked out, it was not pouring when she did her first 2 jumps. She jumped 11 ft. 10 inches, got 1st place again. Ran the 100M and took 1st

Had to throw these pictures in. That morning she put on my shoes and was walking around the house. She joked about trying to run in them. HA Ha

I think she is much faster in her spikes(track spikes that is)

But she looks HOT!!!

Maddy also ran the 200M and got 1st. It is fun to watch her run! She is posting times faster than most of the 7th and 8th grade girls. Go Maddy!