Allie's 8 Year Old Pictures

There is a beautiful poppy field right behind our house. I wanted to be sure to get some pictures of Allie out there for her 8th birthday before we head to the states. Here are a few of my favorites.

Last Week of School

The last week of school was full of fun activities. Tuesday was field day in the morning and a movie in the afternoon (with popcorn and juice!).

This was the station I was running. Something pretty cute happened here. Avery's class just happened to be at the station right next to this one when Allie's class was there. Avery rallied up almost her entire class to cheer on Allie. "Go All-ie, Go All-ie!!" It was so sweet.

Wednesday-- Avery's class had a birthday celebration for all of the summer birthdays.

Thursday-- was a half day. Both girls were so sad that the school year was over. I'm glad that they like school so much. Avery really, really loved her teacher and didn't want to let her go. Thankfully she didn't cry. I was really worried about that. She seems to think that she is going to be in Ms. Wotring's class again next year. It's true that we may have her repeat Kindergarten next year. We have to see how well she does with reading this summer. We're hopeful that she will improve with reading over the summer though!

1st Day/Last Day of School

Friday, after doing some packing and cleaning, we went to the family fun day at Mildenhall.

water zorbing

human foosball

learning to ride a Segway

And last, a picture of Blake! We have our windows and sometimes even doors open so much now that it's getting warmer. No air conditioning over here! Bad thing is, there are also no screens so we are getting lots of flies and spiders in the house!

Birthday Party

Allie's birthday isn't for another 2 weeks but since we won't be here she really wanted to have a friend party....and a party that Dad could go to as well. We decided to have it this weekend since next weekend will probably be crazy making sure we have everything packed for the trip! It was sort of a last minute decision and we only gave her friends a week notice.....so thankful that a few of her good friends were able to make it. She had such a good time!

 

oops! Trick candles!

 

 

 

Afterwards we let Allie pick a restaurant to go to for dinner. She chose Frankie & Benny's. They do big birthday celebrations there! :)

Footy Stars

Still trying to remember that soccer is called football (aka footy) here. :) The girls were so anxious to play and we were excited to see them play! The season started back in the middle of March and just ended at the end of May. Boy were those couple of months busy! Avery had games on Monday, Allie's games were on Wednesday and she had practice on Thursdays. There were also a few games on Saturday. On practice/game days I would have to pick the girls up from school and go straight to the base that the game was being played at that day......so super long days for the girls! Derek was able to be an assistant coach on both teams. If he wasn't a coach for Avery's team I don't know if she would have played. For as aggressive as she is at home, I was so surprised at how reserved she was on the soccer field! Although when she is playing with us at home she is not like that at all. They both had a great season.....and, of course, amazing coaches. :)

{Red Eagles}

Allie's team was pretty amazing for 7-8 year olds. Both coaches really knew the game and the kids picked up on how to REALLY play as a team really well. There was so much improvement from start to finish. I especially noticed this with Allie. Right in the middle of the season Allie and I worked on shots on goal and staying with the ball. I don't want to take much credit but after that practice is when we really started noticing her MAD skills! :) Allie ended up scoring 3 goals. She scored the first goal and last goal of the season! And then the other goal was actually not for her team. It was during Avery's game and the team that Avery was playing didn't have enough players so she volunteered to play for them and scored right away. I think she gained a lot of confidence after doing that......and that just so happened to be right after her and I had that practice. :) haha. After Allie scored Avery wasn't very happy. She hadn't noticed that Allie was playing for the other team and did not like that her sister scored against her.......so she let her know how she felt and called her a "poopy head." It wasn't too long after that that some more players showed up. Allie was bummed but was happy to have scored on her sister (who was on defense).

 

Parent vs Kid Game

 

 

Celebrating one of her goals!

 

{Red Bulls}

Avery's team was still kind of young....so they were a bit tougher to coach. The head coach did not know much about soccer and was really quiet so Derek pretty much took over. Lots of bumble bee soccer at this age and they had a hard time getting away from that but we really noticed such an improvement especially when going back and watching the video I took of their last game. They stayed in their positions so much better than the other team. So I think the season was a success. Avery, like I said earlier, wasn't very aggressive. It didn't help that she got hit hard in the neck by the ball during the first game. She was so afraid of the ball after that. There were at least 3 games where she got hit by the ball and came off the field crying saying she was never playing again. Luckily she did continue to play and in the 2nd half of the last game she finally agreed to play forward! Before she always wanted to play defense because she thought she didn't have to do anything on defense. I think she realized that there is less chance of getting hit if she's a forward....and more chance to score! Maybe she will still be up for playing next year. We will see.

 

 

 

I can't leave Blake out. Here are some of him and his shenannigans while the girls were playing.