2nd soccer star

The big girl!  So far this season, she has been the starting goalie.  She's doing an awesome job.

Stopping balls...

Quickly kicking them back into play...

And always being ready...

Then for the second half she gets to be out in the field, running hard...

Dribbling around people...

And hopefully, soon, scoring goals! :)

She met her match

Little miss goal scoring cookie hit a team last Saturday that she just couldn't work her way through to get those goals like she's used to. She was quite disappointed.

She still hustled and tried her hardest, time after time...

She worked her way past a group of girls that looked about a foot taller than her...

It was a good lesson, but we'll hope for a better result next week :)

Two games, 6 goals

She's a fierce cookie!  Brooke is having a great soccer season so far.  Her team has scored 7 goals, 6 were all Brooke.  I got lucky yesterday and caught all three goals on video on my phone.

Here she goes for goal #1 (She's #4):



Here comes goal #2:



And a third!



Go Brooke GO!

Beach bash for Brooke

This kid insisted on a beach party this year.  She just loves the beach.  My first thought was no way, my second thought was how about painting pottery?  My third thought, ok, I guess we can do this.  And, we did!  And it was fun.

Of all the crazy things, in the middle of a serious drought, in August, we had rain!  On our beach party!  It only added to the fun though, the kids were thrilled and it didn't stop them.

We had cake.

We had crazy cute kids.

And we had a pinata.  We didn't have a ton of pics, at the beach, in the rain, but we got enough to remember the fun we had.

And with that, we are done with parties for another year - WHEW!  Next year - no parties ;).

Such an amazing experience!

Syd just completed an unbelievable two-week time of her life camp.  It was a whirlwind adventure, meeting the mayor of San Diego, hall of fame astronauts, eating lunch in the Qualcomm executive boardroom, getting behind the scenes tours at the Zoo and in the UCSD engineering labs.  It was just SO cool!  She learned how to write Android apps, she wired circuits, she programmed micro-computers, she built a light-up jewelry box, and a robotic hat!!

She was on the 5pm news...

She was in the newspaper...

And she was filmed for a documentary for the Clinton global initiative!

Yesterday we got to be treated like royalty at the official graduation ceremony. Sydney walked the red carpet runway to demonstrate her tropical island robotic hat, complete with an LED light, and spinning turtles.  She and her partner did all the wiring, programmed the micro-computer, and of course decorated the hat with tons of glitter, all on their own.  It was so impressive.

They had an official graduation ceremony, and acknowledged each girl.

Then we got to go outside for brunch, and see the hats up close.  Here is Syds:

I got to test out the hat.

Love these 4 girls who were selected from our school for the camp, who we had the best carpool with.

And, Syd's posterboard of selfies through out the week.  SO fun!

Best part of the whole experience, was hearing that they plan to have this 'pioneer group' back next year, and again the following year, and then they'd like to have them mentor younger girls going to Qcamp in the future - wow!  

A super fun campout party

I was really excited when we came up with this theme for Sydney's 11th Birthday - a backyard campout!  She had so much fun camping on her ride across California, and at her week long Girl Scout camp, and we have a firepit know, so why not!

We made a super cute campfire cake! 

The girls all got canteens...

They got to prep their own trail mix...

We had a scavenger hunt...

Most importantly, we had the best group of girls ever!

They roasted their own hot dogs...

And ate a yummy dinner...

The tight rope is always a fun activity to help fill time.  They played a bit after having performed campfire skits for us.

We had our tent out back, so the girls worked on their shadow puppets...

Syd showed off her monkey skills...

And lastly, I think the highlight of the night was Syd teaching all the girls one of the campfire games she learned this year.  They were so into it that they didn't want to stop for cake, and we ran out of time for s'mores.  I'd say it was a succesful party!

A full weekend!

Friday night pool Birthday party.

Saturday morning/afternoon Waterpark fun with our Girl Scout troop...

Then an evening softball pool party.

Today, the beach for another party!

More pics to come soon...