The kids are growing up

Phoenix has the privilege of taking ceramics as her elective this semester. She absolutely loves it. Her first projects were by hand, but her recent projects involve using the spinning wheel. She is very excited to show me her finished bowls once they are complete and ready to bring home.  

Her first project, "friendship mugs" is on display at school. The were assigned to make two mugs in order to enjoy a hot beverage with one of their friends. I believe Phoenix made "Phoenix wings". 

Here second project is this cute turtle. She was going to keep this for herself, but lovingly gave it to her swim coach for her 76th birthday!

Back on Sept. 25th Phoenix had her 3rd cross country meet.  They had "time trials" at school. Here is a picture of her with her 6th grade team mates waiting to start. Keith and I were both able to swing by the school to watch her run the 1.2 mile course. 

On Friday, Sept. 30th, the kids had the day off. I took Axel and Phoenix to the Crystal Springs running course where Axel had an optional practice and Phoenix ran to prepare for her WBAL final cross country meet that was to take place on Oct. 7th. After, I took Rubix to his friend, Ryan's house for a playdate. Ryan is the friend who has the pool and full size basketball court in his backyard, along with this ping pong table that him and Noah's dad, Dong are playing on. Rubix's friends were being somewhat dangerous in the pool, so he decided to stay safe. I was charmed that Dong was playing with Rubix. Dong coaches the soccer team with Keith, so Rubix is very comfortable around him. Noah, happens to be one of his closest friends too. 

Phoenix has decided to have fun while putting on sun screen before practice and swim meets. I thought I would include a couple of her photos. 

We had a 3 day swim meet Oct. 4-6th. Phoenix swam the mile and dropped more than 30 seconds to get a 19:09.72. She is only 19 seconds from a AAAA time, which is quite amazing. She is ranked 22nd in the U.S. for 11/12 year old girls. She had a big schedule with the 200 IM, 100 Free, 100 back and 500 free on Saturday and the 50 back, 200 back, 50 free and 400 IM on Sunday. She managed to finish all of her races with about the same time as she previously had with a good drop in the 100 free to a 101.67, just .28 off a AA time. Here she is with Catherine and Stella, two Quick Silver girls who joined during the summer break. 

Phoenix's 50 back

Phoenix's 100 Free, PR

Rubix had an amazing swim meet. He dropped in every race and managed to get the Far Western short course cut in every event he had in long course. He did the 500 free on Friday in 6:18.87. On Saturday he did the 200 IM, the 50 breast, the 100 Free and the 50 Fly. On Sunday he completed the 200 Free, the 50 back, the 100 IM and the 50 Free. This is after he played soccer Saturday afternoon, after racing 4 events in the morning. He was tired on Sunday but managed to finish off the weekend with a 50 free of 32.25. This is almost a one second drop and puts him just .26 seconds away from an age group time cut, which is a huge improvement! Here he is with his friend Daniel Li, who also just joined from Quick Silver. I think we are up to about 30 swimmers that came over from Quick Silver.

It was cold in the morning for the swimmers, but nice and warm/ hot in the 90's in the afternoon. 

Rubix's 50 Breast

Rubix's 50 Free

After all of the mileage racing over the 3 day swim meet, Phoenix had her WBAL cross country championship meet on Monday, Oct. 7th. It was 100 degrees out and she was quite tired from the long weekend of racing. 

She wasn't able to race as well as she had during the 1st WBAL race at Crystal Springs. She added a minute, but was glad to finish. She managed 14th out of the 60+ girls, but she wasn't happy as you can see from the picture below. She skipped swim practice after so she could rest. 

On Wednesday, Oct. 9th, Axel had his first WBAL cross country meet at Crystal Springs. He ran well and finished 8th overall. He took off more than 30 seconds from his last years time.

He lucked out and had much cooler weather than Phoenix had, with temperatures in the high 70's/low 80's. 

You can watch the videos Keith captured of him racing here:

The start

Cardiac Hill

The finish

Phoenix and Rubix received their new Santa Clara t-shirts. I thought it was cute how Phoenix tied a knot in her shirt because it was big. I had her roll up the sleeves so make it an official "flash back" to my childhood style. 

On Saturday last week the team had a birthday celebration for Coach Luba. It is crazy to think that she is 76 years old! Phoenix gave her the cute turtle that she made and made a turtle card to go along with it. I did not get a picture of the turtle she painted, but it looked exactly like the ceramic turtle she made in class. 

Last Sunday, we were given tickets to go to the Warriors pre- season game. I thought Keith was taking the 3 kids, but Axel kind of freaked out at the last minute and said he had too much homework and stuff to do. 

So instead, I went and Axel stayed home. We absolutely love going. The seats are incredible, the Warriors, even their preseason team is incredible and the food is delicious!

The team played great and I was really impressed that their non starters play such a fast fun game. They crushed the Pistons. 

Rubix brought this home finally. I love how cute he is in this picture of himself!

This past Friday, Axel went with his team on a road trip to Fresno! They ran in the Rough Rider Invitational on the state championship course. Here he is with the team. 

Axel managed to finish 38th out of 297 runners in the Varsity small school category. He said he felt pretty bad with allergy stuff, but I think he ran well overall. We weren't able to attend, but our friend Albert (the one who gave us the Warrior's tickets) was there watching his daughter. He kindly took these two photos and sent them to us. 

Rubix has just a few more weeks of soccer. They won this past Saturday, so the team went to DQ for ice cream!!

Here is Rubix's goal!

Rubix's goal

Yesterday Axel also had the homecoming dance. He was asked to attend the dance by a girl in his English Honors class. Her name is Liya. He decided to make her corsage and his boutonniere by folding origami flowers! I absolutely love how they turned out!

He is so incredibly talented! It took him a couple of hours, but he did it!

I ordered him a new suit. He is officially an xsmall men's size!!!

Axel with Phoenix!

Axel, Phoenix, and Rubix.....cute boy looking through the door?!

I love these kids!

Let's not forget Daddy-O!

Axel and Liya. She was a bit awkward and nervous, but Axel and her had a good time together. 

Her beautiful corsage!!!

Flowers she brought for Axel....so funny!!!!

 Tomorrow, Phoenix leaves for her 5 day class trip to Camp Neuman. It is going to be a little odd to only have 2 kiddos for the week, but that means I have more time to exercise and cook dinner. I only made a meal for tomorrow so that I can go for a bike ride after work. Yeah for me!!!

Axel has his 2nd WBAL cross country meet on Thursday and the little ones have a 3 day swim meet starting Friday. Phoenix's neck hurt today and she has been fighting a cold, so we are unsure if she will end up swimming Friday, or next weekend at all. I am hoping she is all better. She has the 400 IM on Friday. She is suppose to get back at 3:30pm and race at 5 pm, so we will see. 

The other big news is that Axel is getting his driver's permit, so make sure to check back in a few weeks for more fun Szolusha updates and photos!