Adelie at 11(and a half)

I know, I know.  Adelie turned 11 more than 6 months ago, but at least I'm getting this done before she turns 12.  Adelie at 11 is 4'10" (55th percentile) and weighs 67 lbs (9th percentile).  She wears primarily size 10/12 shirts and size 12 pants, although it is still hard to find pants that fit her long legs without being too big in the waist.  Adelie wears size 3 shoes.

Long and lean and still as flexible as ever.

Adelie is currently in 6th grade with Mrs. Blunier as her homeroom teacher.  For activities over this past year, Adelie participated in NTA shows, Rising Stars, and Broadway Dance.  She plays the clarinet in band, takes singing lessons, played volleyball last winter, did swim team over the summer, participated in EMS Drama Club, ran a few road races, and is now participating in Penguin Project.  Adelie is supposed to go to bed around 9:30, although her piddly getting-to-bed ways generally make it closer to 10:00.  On week-ends she'll sleep in until 9ish, but will typically get up for school around 7:15 with her alarm.  Getting up and moving in the morning is still not her strong suit, but she's getting better about it.

She's not always quite this perky in the mornings.

Likes:  Adelie has lots of things that she likes.  She enjoys singing, dancing, and acting.  Doing lifts and choreographing dances in the basement is one of her favorite activities that she does with Staley.  Adelie is a fantastic writer and enjoys creative writing, having self-published one book already and getting ready to self-publish a second one.

Adelie did a 'book talk' about her first book at the Eureka Public Library.  Her book has been at the library for almost a year now, and it is NEVER available.  There has been a waiting list for the book since she donated it to the library, and there have even been people who have asked about purchasing a copy.

Adelie LOVES to read with The Keeper of the Lost Cities series and the Vanderbeekers series as current favorites.  Adelie continues to enjoy creating and crafting with clay bead bracelets and perler beads being current favorite craft activities.  Adelie does not taking tumbling anymore, but will still do tricks around the house and uses her flexibility and tumbling moves in the dances that she does with Staley.

Time flies when you are reading a good book!

Adelie is a lover of all living things.  Her room houses her plants and the fish tank, and she is always good about making sure her plants are watered and the fish are fed.  (When I had flowers outside on the porch this spring and summer, I put Adelie in charge of keeping them alive as she is way better about that than I am.)  Adelie is also the kid most attached to Frisco, and when Zach had his back surgery, Adelie took over the care of the cat as well.  Manatees and sea life are her favorites (and she still LOVES mermaids), but her current obsession is asking for guinea pigs. Her mother will not be getting on board with that idea.

Although I will not be agreeing to guinea pigs as pets, Adelie and her friend Sadie made this guinea pig house and a family of guinea pigs out of paper.  They shared custody of this shoebox of guinea pigs, trading it back and forth every week at church.  I was totally fine with these guinea pigs...although they did seem to be multiplying at an alarmingly fast rate.

Adelie is pretty easy going when it comes to movies, television shows, and games we play as a family.  She is generally pretty agreeable to whatever everyone else wants to watch or play.  Bluey is a family favorite television show.  Adelie is getting a little more adventurous with her eating, but fruit remains her very favorite thing to eat.  She also loves breads and sweet things.  As far as clothing, Adelie is now more often wearing jeans and sweaters or sweatshirts or jean shorts and t-shirts, but likes dresses for church and "cozy" pants for bedtime.  She still prefers to be barefoot and would wear flip flops or crocs all year long if I'd let her.

She also loves the mermaid tail she got for Christmas last year.

Adelie's friend group has grown quite a bit since starting middle school, incorporating more kids from Goodfield and Congerville.  Adelie's best friend is still Stella, but she has been excited that her friends Sadie and Melody are going to our church now.  Adelie still plays with Briggs, although this has become a little less as she is spending more time reading, crafting in her room, and doing dances with Staley.  She loves spending time with Staley!  Adelie gets along well with everyone.  She is great with little kids, interacts well with older kids and adults, and has a special place in her heart for individuals with special needs.  She has been loving her time with the Penguin Project.

Rory is one of Adelie's good friends from school.  She was his running "buddy" during the Red Devil Racers running camp over the summer.

Adelie and Caroline have also developed a very close cousin friendship.

Adelie's sweet nature helps her get along with anyone of any age.

Dislikes:  Adelie does not like disappointing people, getting in trouble, hurting people's feelings, or being left out.  She is also a rule follower, so she worries about breaking rules or doing something that she isn't sure is allowed.  Adelie does not like feeling like she's missing out on something as she always wants to be included.  She does not like pants that are too low or too big in the waist, wearing socks, ordering off the kid's menu, and swimming in murky water.

Now ordering ice cream off the adult menu...that she can get on board with!

Strengths:  As I've mentioned previously in this post, there are many things that Adelie is good at.  She is flexible and good at doing her tumbling tricks, as well as learning dance routines and lifts that she and Staley do together.  She has good balance and is really good at riding her hover board and her scooter.  Although she isn't my most competitive child, Adelie improved with her swimming skills during swim team and is able to run 5K road races without having to walk.  Her creative writing skills are a strength!  Adelie also continues to improve with her singing and acting skills, performing solos with Rising Stars and getting larger roles in some of the recent productions that she has been in.

Balance and coordination continue to be strengths for Adelie.

Adelie is bright and does really well in school.  She has gotten straight A's throughout her entire middle school career so far.  On her last standardized tests, she scored in the 87th percentile for math and the 96th percentile for reading.  Adelie was the 5th grade ELA student of the year last year.  Adelie has a good memory and does well memorizing all her lines (and other people's lines) for her plays.  She also likes to help Staley practice quizzing, and she memorizes many of Staley's quizzing Bible verses as well.  Adelie is excited about being old enough to do quizzing next year.

Adelie loves school and does very well in all her school subjects.

Personality:  Adelie has so many parts to her personality.  She is kind, generous, thoughtful, empathetic, sweet, and sensitive.  She is an excellent friend, always wanting to make sure people feel included and get to do what they want to do.  She is very in-tune to other people's feelings, but is learning to navigate more dramatic or big personalities in her friend circle that can make friendships a little trickier.  Adelie is quick to give a sincere compliment, loves to give gifts to others, generously donates her money or uses it to buy things for others, and is very willing to give or share what she has with others.  We sometimes joke that Adelie will always be poor because she is so quick to give what she has to others.

Even at camp, Adelie and Stella wanted to make sure that the other person got the bed in the cabin that they wanted.  Adelie has such sweet friends.  I appreciate that she has surrounded herself with people who share many of her same traits so that they are not taking advantage of her kindness and selflessness.

For as sweet and kind as Adelie is, she also has a very quirky, silly, and goofy side.  As she has gotten older, Adelie has embraced this part of her personality more.  She is genuinely funny and enjoys making us laugh with her antics and quirks.  My phone is full of random Adelie selfies and goofy Adelie pictures and videos.  Adelie will make up silly songs, develops her own words/languages, sends random text messages filled with emojis, makes goofy videos and cat memes, talks in funny accents, and has silly things that she does like acting like an old lady trying to find her way to a Wal-Mart.  Adelie definitely marches to the beat of her own drum.

This goofy girl...

keeps us laughing...

with the random and silly things that she does.

With the sweet and silly, Adelie is also very sincere.  She has a deep faith and solid convictions.  When she takes notes during the sermon at church, she really grasps the deeper points and meanings behind what she is learning.  She asks good questions and is interested in discussions related to religion and faith.

There are so many things that make Adelie who she is.  And although it took me way longer than it should have to write her 11 year old post, it makes me happy to think through all the things that make Adelie uniquely her.  I love to see her confidence grow as she embraces all the things that make her truly her.  I like seeing her leave behind some of the strange anxieties and uncertainties that previously bothered her.  I am so thankful for the friend group she has found who accept her as she is.  I feel blessed to watch her grow in her faith.  I love all the little pieces that make Adelie who she is...so uniquely and wonderfully made!

Love this 11 (and a half) year old!

She truly is one of a kind!!

Columbus Day Adventure

As the kids' schedules get busier, the long week-ends away that we get to take as a family have become less and less.  With Columbus Day sneaking up on us the beginning of October, I realized that we might be able to take advantage of a day off school to go somewhere fun as a family.  Staley had a cross country meet on Saturday morning and Zach wanted to be back for work on Monday as he had just started working in a new department, so we shoehorned a quick trip away into the 24 hours or so that we had available.

And it was great!!

After getting home from Staley's cross country meet, we all packed super quickly, loaded in the car, ate cold leftover pizza and snacks for lunch as we drove, and made it to our destination by later afternoon.  We went straight to our first destination...the 3 Dune Challenge.

Although one of our purposes for this destination was to mark another National Park off our list, the 3 Dune Challenge was actually in the State Park.  According to the gate attendant charging us the State Park entrance fee, the State Park was established first and is separate from the National Park surrounding it.  So the State Park is surrounded by National Park land but is not actually part of the National Park.  I think it's just a hustle to charge people with a National Park Pass an extra $12.

The 3 Dune Challenge is a 1.5 mile hike that takes you up the three tallest sand dunes of the Indiana Dunes.

The scenery was really pretty, the sand was plentiful, and we had to stop regularly to dump out our shoes, but we made it to the top of Mt. Jackson (176 feet above Lake Michigan)...

Mt Holden (184 feet above Lake Michigan)...

and Mt Tom (192 feet above Lake Michigan).

We also added on a little extra distance since I can't be that close to a Lake Michigan beach around sunset and not visit it.

It was also cool as we could look across Lake Michigan and see the Chicago skyline in the distance.

After enjoying a little beach time and finishing our hike, we headed to Octave Grill in Chesterton for dinner.  It was a cute little restaurant.  We were all famished (I guess our car snacky lunch didn't satisfy), but the 20 minute wait for a table was worth it as the food was really good.  The taco tots as an appetizer were a surprising highlight, and the homemade brownie/ice cream dessert was an unsurprising highlight.  After dinner, we checked into our hotel.  The girls and I settled in, showered, and read for a bit while Zach took Briggs down to the hotel pool.   Briggs was the only member of the family interested in a little night time swim before bed, but he enjoyed getting the pool all to himself.

After sleeping in a bit, we enjoyed our hotel breakfast and then started our day at the Washington Park Zoo in Michigan City.  It was a great little zoo!

They had lots of our favorite animals-big cats, monkeys, reptiles, bears, otters, zebras...

but they also had some more novel animals like emus, kookaburras, capybaras, and the Patagonian mara (which we decided is like a cross between a rabbit and a capybara).

The zoo was built on a hillside, so we got our hilly leg work out in as we made our way around the zoo.  At the top, there was an observation tower that you could climb to the top of.  From there, it was a beautiful view of Lake Michigan.  

It was a really nice little zoo, and we enjoyed the few hours we spent there.  We are a zoo family, so it was fun to add another one to our list of zoos we have visited.

We then headed into the National Park (not the State Park this time) and hiked the 4.7 mile Cowles Bog Trail.

Hiking at Indiana Dunes added another National Park hiking experience.  We were primarily hiking on sandy trails, but still in wooded areas...

until you reach the beach.

We spent some time enjoying the beach.  Adelie and Briggs got a little wet (of course) and very sandy (of course), but enjoyed drawing and digging in the sand.

The day was sunny and beautiful...just enough sun to take the edge off the crispness of the fall weather.

Staley needed to get her mile streak-keeper in, so all 3 kids ran part of the way back on the trail to help Staley keep her streak alive.

After we finished our hike, we loaded back into the car and headed for home with a quick Culver's stop for dinner and dessert.  We enjoyed our short little get-away.  Although Indiana Dunes National Park won't make any top 10 National Park's lists, it was perfect for the short amount of time we had.  We enjoyed the fall colors and the fall weather.  We appreciated the beach and the sunset.  The little zoo and our dinner restaurant were both winners.  And having some family time away from the busy-ness of our fall and the to-do lists at home was a nice little reprieve. 

Our little Columbus Day adventure was just what we needed.

September???

Yes, I believe we did experience September.  It was a blur of cross country and activities and making sure the kids were where they needed to be at the times they needed to be there.  September flew by, and here are the highlights...

Cross country!  This filled the most time throughout the month of September.  With Staley running and me coaching, many hours were spent preparing workouts and getting things ready for practice, practicing, going to cross country meets, and spending time with the cross country kids at team dinners and other events.  Cross country will have its own post after our end-of-the-season banquet this week-end, but a post about September would be incomplete without mentioning cross country.  And to tack on to the EMS cross country season, Zach was busy helping coach the Eureka College Cross Country team and timing the EMS and EHS home cross country meets, along with a few other road races.

Cross country filled much of Staley's free time, but she was kept even busier with her NTA classes, Bible quizzing, and the start of EMS Drama Club.  Drama Club is doing Peter Pan, Jr.  Staley got cast as Peter Pan!  And Adelie is the Small Brave Girl!!

The girls also had a few performances for their Rising Stars group.

Adelie stayed busy with her NTA classes, Drama Club, and going to her fair share of cross country meets.  She also had a few fun opportunities to hang out with friends and enjoyed a couple of birthday parties.

One of the cross country highlights of the season for Adelie was riding in the gator with Uncle Michael at the EPG Invitational.  She enjoyed rubbing it in that she was ahead of Staley in the race!

Briggs had his own things to keep him busy.  He kept the halls safe at school doing Safety Patrol for the first quarter.  He joined 4th grade Drama Club and had practices 3 days every week after school.  And he also had weekly rehearsals for his NTA show.  (He also got to make pizza continents as a fun finale to his continent unit in Social Studies.)

Briggs also finished off his soccer season.  He played in the 4th-6th grade league, so there were many older kids on his team and the teams they were playing.  He sometimes found that a little intimidating.

He improved throughout the season and, as mentioned in a previous post, scored his first not-really-official-but-we're-counting-it goal of his soccer career.

Briggs hustled well and got in the action in every game.  He is not the most aggressive kid on the field, but he continues to learn the rules, knows where he should be, and plays hard.  He enjoyed his season, and we enjoyed watching him grow.

We had a little time to do some other fun September activities.  Zach took Adelie, Briggs, and 2 of their friends (Stella and George) to Tanner's Orchard for the free family night put on by our orthodontist.  Apparently it was hot and crowded, but they still had a good time.

The girls and I went to see NTA's Stage Teen show "Peter and Wendy."  The girls enjoyed watching their friends perform, although the show itself wasn't our favorite.

We got to help Zach's cousin, Emma, celebrate her destination wedding at the reception they held.  The kids had never been to a wedding or a reception. My younger two especially enjoyed the disposable cameras, the reception favors, and the photo booth.  We all enjoyed the cake and the meal.  And although no one else joined us on the dance floor, Adelie and I got our groove on for a little bit before it was time to leave.

Our September was busy, but the busy was good.