Christmas in Mandan

We had our family Christmas Friday night, since we will be in Park Rapids for Christmas.  It was pretty low key and non fancy.  Eric's first gift opened was a new bathrobe, which he promptly threw over his shoulder Ralphie style.

 Megan playing with the sticker book Jonathan gave her.

 Megan did not get to visit Santa this year.  When we went to see him, the line was horrendously long, so I bribed her with $10 to skip it.  She didn't even have to think about it.  Eric, being the great brother that he is, used Jonathan's Santa suit from the 5K last weekend to surprise her.  She was laughing too hard to tell "Santa" what she wanted.

3rd Place

J's team played Minot Sunday am for 3rd.  The game was close the first half, but the Mavericks were able to win by a safe margin in the end.  The Moorhead team that beat the Mavs won the tournament.

Mandan Tournament

The Mandan Boys club is hosting a tourny this weekend.  J's team played 2 games yesterday.  First game was against the Sheyenne Skyhawks.  This is apparently another WoodLake team.  The monstrously tall boy from the GF tourny was on this team.  I think he's grown since then, too.  The Skyhawks lead early.  One of their players plays in the NBA when he's not attending 6th grade.  Rumor is he was playing with a broken toe.  I'd hate to face him with 10 healthy toes!
 Hard to focus on picture taking when the games are tense.

 Our best strategy was to get #32 to foul out, which he did.  This boy don't need to jump.  He just needs to keep his hands up.   

Kind of a blurry shot, but Jonathan completed a reverse lay up about 1.2 seconds after this shot.  It was cool.

The next game was against a Moorhead team.  They shot and made a ton of 3 pointers.  Swish.  Swish.  Swish.  They are coached by Bismarck native Kevin Feeny, who played QB for the Bison in the mid 90s.  This was during the time that UND prevailed over NDSU, so I will take glory in that, as the Moorhead team but us by 1 lousy point.  The boys were down by as much as 11, but were able to take the lead briefly in the second half by as much as 4.  Our lack of an effective press breaker hurt us bad.  The boys have played from behind quite a bit this year and have kept their cool, but did get frustrated this game and had a harder time settling down.

3rd place game is at 10 am this morning, against the Minot team we beat for 1st at our last tournament.

newsboys

A friend of mine from my St As days had extra tickets for the Newsboys concert tonight and offered them to me.  megan and I had date night!  As with most Christian concerts, there was a message

Along with a charity they were promoting.  This portion was quite lengthy, and Megan was getting restless (it lasted 45 minutes).  We ended up leaving at intermission, as I felt it was better to get her to bed.  Once we got int the car she states : "I'm a Christian and all, but that guy talked way too long about God".

BHS tournament

The Mavs played in the BHS tourny this weekend.  First game was against WoodLake-the team that brought 5th graders with facial hair to the Grand Am last year.  Close game, but Mavs won.  Next up was the Dickinson Heat-the team we beat for 1st place two weeks ago.  The Heat were a bit off their game and Mavs won.  Championship game was against Minot.  They only had 5 players due to a conflicting choir concert.  They were tired because of their previous game.  Mavs won by 25 or so.  Great tourny!

Concert pics from fb

The band has a facebook page, and had more pics from the concert last night

Fall Band Concert

Last Night was the 6th Grade band concert.  Not only is this the largest 6th grade class to go through Mandan , it is the largest 6th grade band.

It was a very good concert!  Yesterday was actually the first day the whole band played together, as band class is typically with just the same instruments.  The shirts are color coded by instrument.  Saxophones are royal blue.  Percussion is black.  I don't think I see Eric is this pic, but Jonathan is in the middle.

This was a joint concert with the high school Jazz Band.  They did a combined song at the end, that was really cool.

There are 2 more concerts this year, and Jonathan will also have 2 choir concerts.

Mandan Marlins

Megan really wants to be an Olympic athlete.  We've tried soccer, basketball, gymnastics, dance, and tennis so far.  Tennis has gone well.  The others......not so much.  She loves the water, and has always been at ease and fearless in the pool, so we thought we'd give the Mandan Marlins swim club a try.  No experience necessary.  Just pay the fee and show up.

They offer a 'free week' in late October to trial the program.  Megan was so excited!  She counted down each day.  She loved it!  I signed her up.  I paid the money.  I went to the parent meeting.

She has cried every single practice since then.

We only go one night a week, because she is only 7 after all.  The tears usually start after supper.  I pump her up and we get to the pool.  The tears start again shortly after leaving the locker room.  Today, they started in the locker room.  I coach and encourage her.  And, yes, I even bribe her.  Tonight, her tears only cost her 5 minutes of warm up drills before she got in the water.  She was all smiles after that.

 That's her arm doing the freestyle

 kick drills

 Resting.  She's on the right, looking at me for reassurance

 Back crawl.  Notice how her thumb is up?  She just rotated her arm.

Her coach is teaching her how to rotate her arm on the crawl, just as she did in the above pic.

There are several swim meets throughout the year that she can register for now.  Right now, our goal is just to learn the strokes.  We hope to at least attend one swim meet.

Mandan Girls' basketball tourney

Another tournament for the Mavericks this weekend.  This one was hosted by the Mandan Girls' basketball club.  The 5th and 6th grade teams were combined in one bracket, as there were only 3 of each registered.  The Mavericks played the Dickinson Press (6th grade team we've played once before) and a 5th grade Mandan team.  I only took pics of the game against the Press.

 Halftime huddle

 J scoring his second of 3 baskets.  He also sunk 2 free throws, so ended up with 8 points in the game.

 He had to guard this kid last year when Jaxon was out one tournament.  Jonathan has grown a little more in the past year.

This was January 2014

 J worked hard to hold his position

 They beat the Press 62-20something.  The score of their next game was 62-4.  This was against 5th graders.  J had 10 points that game.  The championship game was against Rough Justice, one of the Mavericks' most competitive opponents.  Mavs won by 5. It was a very close game.

Next weekend they play a Dickinson Tournament.  Hope to see some different teams than the ones we always play.

Trick or Treat and a few other things

 Uncle Rico, a 4th cat, and Napolean Dynamite getting ready to trick or treat.  It was cold.    We didn't last very long.  The boys stayed with us along our street, then went off on their own.  They said the people the 'got' their costume would give them extra candy.  Sweet.

 Huxley came trick or treating with us, too.  Can you see the intensity in his eyes???  Love this little man.  His parents and baby sister  were with, too.

 Megan loves Hamlet a little more than Hamlet loves her.  He is actually willingly cuddling with her in this picture

First piano recital!  She just started lessons the first week of October, but was able to play a song at the recital.  She was so excited.  Her teacher rocks.

Pumpkin Patch

Way back on October 1, I took the kids to the Pumpkin Patch. The kids aren't so in to picking out pumpkins anymore, but they love all the hay bales and obstacle courses they have set up to run through.

 The lone pic of all 3 kids.  We took it right away when we arrived.  The boys then took off without Megan and me.

 Megan took her job of driving the combine very seriously.  We thought about calling Uncle Jason to ask for some advice on the best corn seed to use for next year's crop.