Pat on the Back

I have to pat myself on the back. For the past year? Our wifi router has been driving us nuts! It would take forever to connect and then it would stop wifi every 10-15 minutes. It was so annoying.

I had investigated into what was going on and why it was doing that but nothing was working.

I finally came across a blog where there was a mention of having to "update the firmware" of the router. It was scary because the router kept giving me "if you screw up it will kill your router" earnings but I did it. 

Now our router works beautifully and it has even started filter webpages like it was supposed to do. So I am pretty happy that I a) didn't kill the wifi router and b) figured it out and fixed it!!

Smelly Boys!

Ethan had a Flying Monkeys mountain biking practice Thursday night.  There was also a dance that night to celebrate the beginning of school.  I told Ethan he didn't have to go if he didn't want to.  He had decided he didn't want to go, which was just fine.  But in the carpool on the way to practice his friend worked hard to convince Ethan to go to the last 30 minutes of the dance.  They could finish practice, run home, shower and then go back to the dance.  Ethan was holding out but his friend was persuasive.

When I picked them up from practice, we loaded the bikes on the truck and started for home.  They were smelly, muddy and really sweaty.  I asked if Ethan's friend wanted me to drop him off at the dance and Ethan got the idea that they should go as they were...without showers!  I laughed so hard.  Ethan said it would serve all his friends right for pressuring him into going.  So on the way home I dropped them off at the school.  They hoped to get to their PE lockers to get deodorant but I didn't know if they would make it.

Because they didn't have to go home to shower, they were at the dance for a full hour.  I picked them up afterward and they had fun.  Crazy boys!

Party Time!

Grandma Oman's birthday was on Sunday so we had a family party for Courtney and her.  I made a cake with candles for 70 and 11.  We had a roast dinner and then had cake and ice cream.

Courtney and Grandma opened presents.  It was a great celebration!

Scrimmage

Courtney's soccer team had a scrimmage the day after her birthday.  It was against a team called Rage.  They are everyone's biggest rivals because they are a good team but, it is alleged, they don't play fair.  So if you can beat Rage, it means you are a good team.

There was a bit of drama surrounding Courtney's team at the end of last season.  The coach asked the team to let him know if they were going to be trying out for another team so he could make sure he would have a team in the fall.  The league changed the age requirements for the teams so it was going to shake things up.  Instead of the cut off date being August 1st the league changed it so teams would be formed with girls born in the same year.  So Courtney went from a U11 team (because she was under 11 years of age) to a 2005 team (because she was born in 2005).

Even with the age requirement change the coach thought he would still have 2 girls teams.  Well, the day before the final registration closed, he was informed that half of his former U11 team would be moving to other teams.  He sent out an email letting us know that Courtney didn't have a team to play on anymore.  It was so frustrating.

But, with the new change in age requirement also came a benefit.  Our soccer team had enough girls that could double roster.  That meant that, if Courtney wanted to play up to a 2004 team, she would be able to stay on the team.  We readily agreed and she was set!

I was nervous about her playing with girls born a year before she was, especially since she was born in August of 2005, but her coach assured me that she would be fine.  She had played well in the tournament and he was impressed with her.  He said she would be fine.

So now she is on a 2004 team with girls that are between 11-13.

Back to the scrimmage with Rage.  Their team played really well together and they ended up blowing Rage out of the water!  It was a great game!

Friend Party

Courtney had her friend party that afternoon.  She wanted a Harry Potter party because he gets his letter to Hogwarts on his 11th birthday.  We had cupcakes, butter beer (made with cream soda)...

 made wands....

 were sorted into houses....

 and played Berty Botts Every Flavored Bean game (like bean boozled).

 EXCEPT....I couldn't find the bean boozled game so I bought some Jelly Bellys and made up a "Legend" telling what beans could be.  For example: black could be licorice or skunk flavored.  Actually, all of them were good flavored.  When it came time to introduce the game they were really excited to play.  It wasn't long before they started tasting horrible flavored beans.  In fact, they were tasting things that weren't even on the legend.  It was hilarious.  Ethan and I were having so much fun listening to them squeal and spit out the beans they claimed tasted so bad.

The kids went outside and played freeze tag.  I needed some time to clean up and get things ready to open gifts.  Then it was time for cupcakes and ice cream cones.  Courtney wanted red velvet cake so we did that for the cupcakes.

Traditionally people sing "Happy Birthday" VERY slowly.  Courtney had her friends sing it faster.

Courtney opened gifts and thanked everyone.  By this time we were out of activities so the party ended a bit early.

Courtney had a great birthday!!

Riding to School

After her busy birthday morning it was time for Courtney to ride her bike to school for the first time.  The girls were all so excited.  There is a large group of them that are riding together so it's going to be a lot of fun.  She has a basket for her backpack and then she will wear her violin on her back because it has straps to be a backpack.

There they go to meet the others to ride together!

Courtney's Birthday!!!

Courtney's birthday was the 2nd day of school.  Kind of crazy but that's how it is.  She got the usually huge Texas donut for her breakfast.

She loves making a face as she eats it.  It took her a couple days but she got it finished!

Then she opened family gifts.  Ethan gave her the new Harry Potter book which she really wanted!

See what I mean.

We gave her a Chromebook so she can do her homework.  The schools here are going to BYOD (bring your own device) so we are testing out how this would work.

Grandma and Grandpa Pack gave her a locket and a water bottle.  She was pretty excited about her morning haul.