Fall Fun

In the ballet world, Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP) is a big deal!  It is a ballet specific competition.  Sarah was the only ballet soloist last year at her dance studio, and this year, she is joined by one of the younger dancers she has mentored through her assistant teaching.  The two of them had the opportunity to compete their ballet solos at YAGP in October, becoming the first dancers from their studio to compete in YAGP!

They usually don't start preparing their solos until mid-October or later, but the competition was October 3-4, so they had to start preparing early.  We got Sarah's tutu ordered and she started rehearsals in August, working really hard that month to get her solo competition ready before her teammates even started their solos. 

Sarah and Kensie both did a great job in a environment that is pretty intense compared to the competitions they are used to with the rest of their team.  It was a great experience and they are excited to, hopefully, do it again next year!

One of the vendors grabbed Sarah for a little impromptu photo shoot in the gallery at the Ames Center and we snagged a few gorgeous photos!

Trevor attend a fencing camp put on by Lee Kiefer and Gerek Meinhardt, Notre Dame alumni and Olympic medalists in foil fencing!

Trevor started his local and regional tournament circuits this fall.

Now that he is 13 years old, he is considered an adult in fencing and competes in the upper divisions. This year, he is fencing in Y14 (his age group), Cadet (age 13-16), Junior (age 13-19), and Division 1A, Division 2, and Division 3 (all age 13 and up to and including adults). He is definitely up against older, bigger, more experienced fencers and it is a tough jump.

(He's the one on the left in the photo below. The ref of one of his pools said his lame' was too small, so we had to quickly buy him a new one so he didn't have to scratch the tournament! That was definitely drama we didn't need!)

We got little peeks of Austin in pep band from the parent page groups when people post videos.

We picked apples at a new orchard this year.  We headed to Lakeville and picked a variety of apples. The difference with this orchard was that you don't just buy the bag and then fill the bag. At this orchard, you just grab bags and put as much as you want in them, then checkout by weighing the apples at the end.  The upside of this is that you can try different kinds of apples without having to buy a big bag of them. The downside is that you don't know how much you are picking, and then when you go check out at the end, you have picked 17 pounds of apples for a grand total (with 2 bags of mini donuts for the kids) of $250!

Sarah and Ethan dressed up as the Louvre robbers for Halloween at dance.

Trevor's band concert was full of costumes!

Inspector Gadget on the trombone

Then Sarah's band concert at BSM

Austin played intramural flag football

I had a bunny visitor in the window well!

It is a good thing I work out down there every day, or we wouldn't have known the bunny fell down there.  We borrowed a fishing net from friends and got the bunny scooped out.

We had 2 of Trevor's friends, Malcolm and Dathan, and Sarah's friend Audrey over for Halloween.  They went Trick or Treating and then we watched "Sixth Sense", which none of them had seen before.

A few more pics we caught of Austin in band.

(Yes, they dragged a couch to the football stadium from the saxophone section house and were sitting on the couch during the game!)

They wear silly hats in pep band. Steve got him a Wario hat to wear.

My fat squirrel. So cute! (I have never seen a squirrel this pudgy!)

We celebrated the wedding of Caitlin and Alex and they had a caricature artist there to draw pictures of the guests.  What do you think?

On November 11th, we had the most INCREDIBLE display of the Northern Lights that I have ever seen!  It was vivid and bright even to the naked eye.  It kept shifting and changing and showed bright pinks and greens and blues.  It was GORGEOUS!

More again later that night from my bedroom window...

Ann and I had a mom's night out to see "The Notebook" musical at the Ordway.

We hosted Thanksgiving this year and had the most amazing turkey we've ever eaten!  We cooked it the way my massage therapist Rochelle recommended and it was delicious, tender, juicy, and piping hot when we served it!  Yummm!

We had Austin home for the week (yay!) and he made the mashed potatoes.

Auntie Trish brought her famous pumpkin pie and Sarah made us her peanut butter pie and an apple cake! (Dessert is my favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner!)

Next up...winter arrives, we prepare for Christmas, and Trevor meets a big goal in fencing!