NWC Bound!

Congratulations to our Emily on her acceptance to Northwest Catholic!  Based on her entrance exam scores and grades at JPII, Emily was selected as a Green & White Scholar and invited to join NWC's Honors Program.  She was also awarded a renewable academic scholarship.  We are so proud of her!!

JPII Basketball

Emily is having a great basketball season for JPII.  Although the team is struggling mightily, she is playing every minute of every game and absolutely loving it.  She's scored at least one three pointer in just about every game and the work that she is putting in at practice on foul shots is starting to pay off.  She loves to score but much more than that, she loves to play good defense - steals and blocking shots make her particularly happy!  Although she's not a very good technical basketball player, we are hoping that she is a good enough athlete to play for at least a year or two in high school.

NWC Winter Track

Elizabeth is absolutely loving indoor track this year.  There was a big coaching shake up and, in addition, she decided to do sprinting this year instead of distance.  She loves running the 55 (and is currently less than .1 from qualifying for states) and she and her teammates are having great success in the 4x200 relay.  Elizabeth was also named as one of the captains for the girls' team, a huge honor for a sophomore and something she is very, very proud of achieving.  We could not be more proud of her.

New pullovers for winter - you can see "Captain" on the sleeve.

55 dash at the Coxe Cage at Yale University.  Last place in her heat but a big PR for Elizabeth in this race.

4x200 relay.  Elizabeth is running the second  leg here - she takes the baton in 4th place and gets them to first, and they end up winning their heat.

December Odds and Ends

Photos that didn't make the cut in December:

When you have gossip to tell and know better than to text it.....

Julia danced in the Nutcracker.

Love Elizabeth's friends

Roaring Twenties

Elizabeth went to a Roaring Twenties party to ring in the new year!

Winters Wrath Update

Christmas Day 2019

For the first time ever, we spent Christmas Day together, just the four of us.  Although I thought that it would be lonely, we'd had an exhausting couple of days before that, so it was actually wonderful and relaxing.  Everyone slept in late (perks of having teenagers and the dogs being kenneled) and we lazily opened gifts together and then spent the rest of the day reading and watching movies.

Even though they are teenagers, they still wait at the top of the stairs for the okay to come downstairs.    Second year in a row that we've opened presents with daylight.  

The most important present under the tree - her acceptance letter to NWC. 

Hedgehog slippers 

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve with Lee's family, at his Aunt Margie's house, as we do every year.  I have to say, this was the most fun I've ever had at this event.  The girls are old enough to keep track of their own gifts so it was just fun to watch them and all of the little ones tear through their gifts.  Watching Alison's kids and Matt's kids was especially exciting as they are all at that prime age for Christmas excitement.

We took a few photos before we headed out to the festivities!

Emily is the selfie queen (above and two below)

Legend has it that there used to be even more gifts under the tree on Christmas Eve but this is the most I've ever seen.

As Alison said, the kids were "vibrating with excitement".