Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Nov. 7 - Nov 12, Field Trip, Dog & Cat, Skits, Caramel Popcorn & Giant Chess

Monday, November 7-  Natasha had a band field trip so she missed school on Monday. They had lunch at the university of Oregon and played music (the choir sang also) at some convalescent centers.


November 8
Election Day - There has been much discussion, arguments and name-calling along with the campaigns for this presidential election.  I can't say I like either of the top candidates and didn't feel good about voting for either, so Jake and I voted third party.  It has been such an ugly election.  Trump won the electoral votes and is now the presidential elect.  There has been rioting in Portland and other parts of the country. Hopefully the next 4 years don't continue to be as ugly as the year leading up to them.

These two --



Tasha's new converse




Nov 10th - It was finally announced that Dantley got 3rd in the Goodwill Costume contest.  We got a $50 Goodwill Gift card for the prize.

Our power went out at about 4:30 pm and was out until 9 or so.  For a large part of that time we were out the church for activity days, scouts and mutual.


The Beehives were in charge of the combined activity.  They planned a "Mormon Message" activity.  Each group was assigned a theme, given a box of props and 30 minutes to come up with a skit about that message.  The group I was assigned to only had one boy, and our theme was dating, so Dantley ended up acting in the skit. He was pretty cute.  Jen was the narrator and talked about the do's and don'ts of dating, while the kids acted it out.  At the very end she said -"Do wait until you're 16," and Dantley shrugged as everyone else shook their finger at him.




In the above picture they were demonstrating being creative and having inexpensive dates.



Natasha's group was assigned the theme - Family History.  They pretended Tasha was in an accident and while she was out cold some of her ancestors came to her and asked her to do their family history work.  It was pretty funny when Eric Firl pretended he was a cowboy who was struck by lightning--twice.




The third group was assigned something to do with social media maybe?  It wasn't too clear.  I know they had one girl dress like a grandma and come and scold everyone for being on their phones.


I guess I should learn to not leave my phone sitting around--






















Nov. 11 - There was no school on Friday because it was Veteran's Day.  We had some friends over and made caramel popcorn to take to a few Veterans.  Meagan's family came and Erin brought a few of her kids over, but they had to leave earlier than the Allen's because her kids had art lessons.  After making caramel popcorn we walked to Haapa boat launch and gathered a few river rocks Meagan wanted for her kids to paint. Then we played freeze tag and walked home.



My kids made a card for our neighbor Dennis and delivered some popcorn to him to thank him for his service.
There was a playoff game for state football that evening in Woodland. La Center won and is now in the top 8 teams in their division in the state tournament.  Natasha had to go to the game to play in the band.  When Jake went in to pick her up, he also picked up Deonna Grove whose parents are on an anniversary trip to Hawaii for the week.  She is going to be with us all week.

November 12- We had a pretty open day which is quite unusual around here.  It opened up even more when Dantley woke up sick and couldn't go to his friend Soren's birthday party.  He had a headache, fever and stomach ache and started throwing up about the time we would have left for the party.  He stayed in bed most of the day and the rest of us went up to the gym addition to install the tiles we had picked out to make the giant chess board.  We decided to go with more marbled black and white tiles rather than just pure black and white and it looks really nice.










Monday, November 14, 2016

XC Articles and Posts

  •  Jenna Talarico, Hockinson girls soccer (40%, 2,670 Votes)
  •  Tessa Doerfler, Prairie volleyball (33%, 2,210 Votes)
  •  Natasha Lewis, La Center girls cross country (11%, 703 Votes)
  •  Gunner Harlan, Battle Ground tennis (8%, 549 Votes)
  •  Silas Griffith, Ridgefield boys cross country (8%, 543 Votes)
Total Voters: 6,675

video - Natasha talks about her 9th place finish at state

1A Trico League girls cross country all-league team

MVP: Natasha Lewis, fr., La Center
FIRST TEAM
Haley Blair, jr., Columbia-White Salmon
Roselynn Martin, fr., La Center
Joules Hope, fr., Columbia-White Salmon
Emily Graham, so., La Center
Bethany Whitten, jr., La Center
Rachel Luther, jr., Columbia-White Salmon
Lillian Nelson, fr., Columbia-White Salmon
SECOND TEAM
Sierra Harris, so., La Center; Makenna Olson, so., La Center; Elena Carrion, jr., Seton Catholic; Andrea Ochoa, jr., Columbia-White Salmon; Kimberly Chestnut, fr., Stevenson; Katelynn Hurley, fr., La Center; Gabriella Defilippis, sr., Seton Catholic
HONORABLE MENTION
Hannah Leon, fr., Columbia-White Salmon; Cristina Vidales, sr., Seton Catholic; Yuvia Marquez, sr., Stevenson
Coach of the year: Jill Cole, Columbia-White Salmon


The Columbian

Girls State Cross Country: 


La Center freshman Natasha Lewis ran the best race of her young cross country career thus far. She finished ninth in the 1A race in 19:24, a personal best by 11 seconds.
“I wasn’t expecting to get top ten,” Lewis said. “I was so nervous. I didn’t know what to expect, so I just went out and ran my race and acted like it was any other race.”
The La Center girls placed fourth in the 1A team race.

November 4th and 5th - State Cross Country

November 4th - Alyce rode with me to drop the kids off at school and then I got out at the high school to help load the van that I was driving to state cross country.  We took 3 vans.  Coach Helm drove one, I drove one and Dunkle drove the other.

We stopped at Multnomah falls for a bathroom break and for the kids to stretch their legs.





My van had Bethany, Mackenna, Sierra, Emily and Natasha in it.


When we made it Pasco we went straight to the course and walked/jogged it.







That evening everyone had a couple hours to go eat and walk around the mall.  Most of the girls bought socks and some of the boys bought hackey sacks.  I sat with Dunkle and Sean Murray and visited and ate pizza.

That evening there was a team meeting in Coach Helm's room.  He talked about the race and had Bethany lead everyone through a visualization of the race and course. She did a really good job.  I thought she was reading something but she was making it up as she went.



Jake and Alyce and the kids drove up after school was out.  They met grandpa Bill in Pasco where Jake had reserved a hotel room.  Since I had my own room, Jake came and stayed with me and the kids stayed with Alyce and Bill.

The next morning the team got up and had breakfast and we headed to the course.  It was a super foggy morning.  Tasha took this picture as we crossed the bridge heading into Pasco.


Before the race the girls brought back to life an old tradition of ripping a stuffed monkey apart -- I guess it is symbolic of them "getting the monkey off their back" and just running a good race.







Joy sent the blue and white hat with Sierra to give to me.  I was glad I had it because it was a lot colder than I was expecting.  I thought the fog would burn off before 10am, but it was more like 1pm before it was burning off.




Run outs

Tasha got a great start and moved up to the top 10 in the first mile.



When she came past us after the 2 mile mark she was in 7th, but there was a pack of 4 or 5 girls just behind her.  Towards the last 300 meters that pack surged and most of them passed Natasha and the 6th place girl.  Natasha passed several them back and ended up in 9th.  Top 10 at state her freshman year is awesome!

Her official time was 19:24.2





Official Team Scores

1.Northwest79
2.Deer Park95
3.Riverside134
4.La Center151
5.Zillah168
6.Colville191
7.Meridian215
8.Bear Creek217
9.King's256
10.Columbia (White Salmon)263
11.Charles Wright Academy267
12.Royal275
13.Nooksack Valley277
14.Cascade (Leavenworth)281
15.Wahluke312
16.Forks331


1.12Erin Mullins
18:05.20Cascade (Leavenworth)
2.10Libby Michael
18:30.80Deer Park
3.11Isa Meyers
18:37.50Northwest
4.10Macenna Hansen
18:41.70Northwest
5.9Lizzy Shaw
19:05.90Riverside
6.10Olivia Markezich
19:20.20Bear Creek
7.11Morgan Hall
19:21.70 PRColville
8.11Kalen Johnson
19:21.90Zillah
9.9Natasha Lewis
19:24.20 PRLa Center
10.10Sage Gibson
19:24.70Seattle Christian
11.12Moriah Duenich
19:25.30Deer Park
12.9Alaina Stone
19:28.70 PRColville
13.9Elsa Longhurst
19:29.20 PRFreeman
14.11Ashlee VanDenTop
19:29.60 PRMeridian
15.10Ela Nickels
19:37.10Bush
16.11Becky George
19:38.00 PRDeer Park
17.11Alyce Harlan
19:41.20Nooksack Valley
18.12Angela Tzen
19:57.30 PRBear Creek
19.12Alice Burchett
19:59.70Riverside
20.11Hallie Jensen
20:00.10Lakeside (Nine Mile)
21.11Haley Blair
20:01.00 PRColumbia (White Salm...






31.9Roselynn Martin
20:26.20 PRLa Center






54.10Emily Graham
21:05.20La Center






61.11Bethany Whitten
21:09.80La Center






65.10Makenna Olson
21:11.50 PRLa Center






74.10Sierra Harris
21:23.60La Center






124.9Katelynn Hurley
22:52.60 PRLa Center





The girls were super supportive of Natasha making it up on the podium and made sure to be there to see her get her medal.






At this point we still hadn't heard the team results.  We knew we were either 4th or 5th but weren't sure.  Only the top 4 teams make the podium so everyone was super excited when La Center was announced as 4th place.







The boys didn't run as well this week as they had the week before at districts.  They got 15th out of 17 teams.

Something I posted with a picture on FB --
Now that the season has come to an end I am feeling so thankful that I got to be a volunteer coach for the LCXC team this season. What a blessing to witness all the hard work, hills, long runs and speed work-- and get to spend time with a great bunch of kids. Plus see Natasha's dedication and training pay off firsthand.

It really was amazing to get to see how hard the kids work and know how much Natasha put into each practice and see her succeed at state.  I'm already excited for next year.