State Geography Bee

After winning his school's geography bee, Cade had to take another geography test to qualify for the state competition. When he found out he qualified for state, we had to convince him to take the day off from school to attend the competition at Western Oregon University. I think he was glad he did it. The day actually started with a radio interview about the competition on KPNW news radio. The interview lasted nearly 10 minutes and Cade had the radio hosts laughing numerous times just being Cade. He struggled a bit with the hosts' geography questions but maybe it prepared him for the real thing later in the day! He did great! We then headed up to Monmouth where the 100 kids who qualified were separated into groups of 20. In his group of 20, each kid was asked nine questions. Cade did very well, answering the first five questions correctly, including a few really tough ones such as "What is the current name of the country off the coast of Senegal that was important in the slave trade in the 1500's?" I had NO clue. But Cade whipped out the answer, "Cape Verde". He ended up answering seven out of nine correctly which was not enough to be top two in his group and advance to the finals but he sure impressed me :). I so enjoyed just spending the day with him too; love that he's our boy! 

Here's Cade's radio interview:

Cade standing up to answer a question

Had to include this picture too as it shows just how little most of the contestants were. Cade was the tallest of his group and towered over many of the kids (contestants were mostly middle schoolers though there were some 5th graders as well) It was definitely a different group of kids than his usual sports-related extracurricular activities! 

 After the competition, Cade met up with Grandma to volunteer at the Habitat for Humanity garage sale (as part of his required community service for his school). Love these pictures I got of the two of them.

All About Genevieve

I have so many extra and fun pictures of Genevieve over the past month. Here they all are in one post. I think it captures her big, sweet and spunky personality!

Gabrielle's class has visited Genevieve's class to read to them a couple times lately and Genevieve absolutely loves it and it always excited that Gabrielle gets to be her partner. The teacher shared some pictures with me that I just love...

Nev loves going to the park across from Oakway Center and, with the nice weather, we've gone a few times lately...

Nev is excited she can 'pump' on her own when she swings

Genevieve finally got to ride her new bike outside (she got it for Christmas). It was a little tough for her to steer but she'll be a pro by this summer I'm sure...

 

Just some sweet Instagram shots...

Chad, Nev and I have also gotten in 3 or 4 evening walks on the dairy already! I love that it's been dry enough and warm enough to do this so early in the spring...

Nev ran all the way to the lagoon. She's pretty fast and has some endurance...when she wants to!

 

Nev's been such a Daddy's girl lately. So sweet to see them together!

  

 

Genevieve loves hanging out with her sister and her friends. And they are so good to her...

Nev LOVES it when Davida visits us. She often plays really silly with Davida making Davida laugh and smile. We usually get a few good pics of both of them...

 

 

Genevieve is always playing with my phone and when I look at the pictures on it I find lots of silly ones like this of her...

Gabrielle and Nev were alone for an afternoon and Elle sent me these pictures of Nev after they played dress-up and Elle did Nev's hair. I love how good Elle is to Nev...

Genevieve is always stopping to pick flowers for me. Here she is at it again...

Nev also is really into drawing people and painting pictures of the sun, water, flowers, rainbows, etc. She draws most every day and often scribbles something on it and tells me she wrote a story and then tells me all about it. Or she tells me it says, 'I love you Mommy and Daddy'. Here she is at CrossFit showing off her drawing to me...

Willem's Winter Basketball

It's hard to know when to post about Willem's basketball because, like soccer, it feels like it it never-ending! Willem starting practicing with his AAU/tournament team called Triple Threat which is comprised the five best St. Paul School 3rd grade boys and five top O'Hara boys in October. Triple Threat started playing in tournaments in December and continued through March. Willem also played on his class YMCA team in January and February. And, he just started playing with Triple Threat for the spring YMCA league (all the while he has been playing soccer with his club team as well). Willem's YMCA team (comprised of Willem plus 10 of his classmates) played in the 3rd grade league and went about 5-3. Willem was able to score quite a bit in this league, often more than 10 points a game and sometimes 20 points. He also got lots of rebounds and assists. On the AAU team, the boys played in tournaments against 4th and sometimes 5th grade club players which was a challenge. They played in four tournaments consisting of 3-4 games each and won just 2 or 3 games total. Willem was able to score baskets in most all of the tournament games with his game-high for the tournaments being 12 but often he scored just 2-4 points and the game score was often around 45-15 (with Will's team on the losing end) when they played the good 4th/5th grade club teams. But, we saw tons of improvement in the boys and in Willem too. Most importantly, Willem really enjoyed playing. Luckily, his coaches, Christy and Donnie Hakala, are our friends, are great coaches and they worked around Willem's soccer schedule without making Willem feel torn between the sports. 

The winter season concluded with the AAU state tournament in Cottage Grove in mid-March. Will's Triple Threat team was able to play in a 3rd grade division (much better than playing AAU 4th graders!). They went 2-2 in the tournament, beating a select Sheldon Irish team in a very exciting come-from-behind game for the 4th place finish (out of 8 teams). Earlier in the tourney they lost to the eventual champions and another top team, both from Washington (not sure how they are in the Oregon state tournament, but that's AAU basketball :). Despite having ten kids on the team, Willem played a lot of minutes in all the state games including almost all of the final game. He and his team were a lot of fun to watch. Here is a quick video of Willem making a lay-in in a YMCA game and then lots of pictures from throughout the winter season from both teams...

Dribbling around a player to the basket

Going in for a lay-in

A fun sequence showing Willem drive to the hoop for a basket

Making a nice pass

Willem did a great job finding his teammates like in this bounce pass 

Focused and ready to drive to the hoop :)

No stopping him :)

Ryan and Willem

Coach Donnie talking to the Triple Threat team after a game

Some of the YMCA/class team before a game

AAU tournament

Love the middle picture in this sequence

And finally one of Genevieve shooting hoops. All our kids have spent a fair amount of time playing on our little basketball court this winter.