More Science City

 The day before Thanksgiving Justin had to work.  But the kids and I had a day off!  I needed to go to Costco and pick up packets for the boys' turkey trot run, which were all in KC, so we stopped to play at Science City.  I also took the Cotovsky girls.  We were going to have Thanksgiving at their house so I wanted to give Catherine some kid-free time to prep.  Plus, her 3 girls are just easy to have around.  I picked them up at 10am and I took 5 kids to Costco and had lunch there.  I got some strange looks with all the blonde children I had following me around!
Then it was on to play at Science City for a few hours.
They all really enjoyed it!

 Grace,4, loved the air blower.  She didn't want to let the ball float in the air stream.  She thought it was much more enjoyable to cover the air flow and make the ball fall!  The older kids did not think this was fun.

 Goofy kids

 They really enjoyed the zip line. Grace is below.

 Caroline C below.  With the 2 oldest in the family both named Caroline it makes for a lot of my Caroline clarifications.

 climbing to the top of the pringle chip looking like thing.

 These chair were lots of fun too!  As is everything there.  They were all moving so fast I didn't get too many picots.  Nevermind the fact that I was trying to keep up with 5 kids by myself!  Mad props to my cousin Laura!!!

 I could always find my group!  All those blondes.  And you can see why people think they are all related.

 And after all the excitement of the day, Grace was out within 5 mins of getting in the car!  I dropped them off around 4:30pm.

It was a full fun day!!

Rock the Track

The weekend after Eric's birthday we were back in Lawrence.  We like hanging out in that town but as Justin says it's too liberal to live there! Ha!  But we went to sell some bicycles at a place called the Recyclery, had lunch at Chick-fil-a, went into PetSmart (bad idea), and then headed to the indoor training facility for some fun.

Chick-fil-a is always a favorite, but Will fake pouted when he couldn't trade in his kid's meal toy for an ice cream cone.  Then the kids enjoyed dipping their fries in the ice cream reminding me of my Papa and how he would always do that with a Wendy's frosty!  Good memories!

 The KU track team runs this free event and it was better than last year.  They had fewer stations so each group got the opportunity to try them all out.  Just like last year Caroline was too old to participate.  But the boys had a blast again.  Will loved the pole vault the best.  I think Eric liked the hurdles best.
Below Eric was stretching with the leader of his group, a guy also named Eric!

 Look at that crazy hurdle!

 Goofy, happy, grinning boy!

 Eric on the pole vault!  I want to try it.

 Later that afternoon Justin and I headed to downtown KC to go to a famous BBQ place.  We got there at 5:30pm and there was already an 1.5 hour wait for 2 people!  So we walked to the back and ordered it to go and sat in the van to eat.  Perfect solution!  Then we went to Union Station to the big screen movie theater to watch Forrest Gump!  It was fun to see it on the big screen.  It's is Justin's favorite movie and it was a fun date night!

5th Grade Musical

Tuesday night the whole 5th grade had a musical performance.  Will told me he had a speaking part and that his teacher had his costume already.  But I wasn't so sure as all the notes and reminders that came home said if your child has a speaking part that the parents are responsible for making their costume.  But, I reluctantly trusted that he had this.  Will is on the top row second from the left.

 And this was his costume!  He was a shark!!  Should have known he would be a shark.

We really enjoyed the performance!!

Eric's birthday

 After Will's game we drove another hour back to Lawrence to spend the night.  We got tucked in around 10.  Thankfully the kids all fell asleep in the car!  Plus it was the end of daylight savings so we were able to sleep an extra hour (ha!).  Just kidding we had to get up, eat, and get Justin to the starting line for his race!!
We dropped Justin off and then went to park.  The race wasn't a huge event so it was easy to find a spot.  Then we walked to the start to watch him get going.

 And off he goes!!

 The race route was set up where we could see him come by at mile 6 and 10, really close to the finish line.  Very nice!  Looking good and staying with the pacer at mile 6.

 And here at mile 10.  Just to the left about 300 yards is the finish line area.

 And then Justin's in blue running down to the finish.  Having the finish line come down a slight incline made it easy to spot him way out there so I could get the camera ready!

 And he had his best time ever!  Beat his previous best by 10 minutes!  Incredible!

We didn't stay around too long after he finished.  He got chilled.  Then it was back to the hotel to get packed up and head home.  One the drive home the boys had to go!  My van has lane changing camera so when I put my blinker on to pull over they got caught!!

 Then we celebrated Eric's birthday!!  He opened presents.

And snuggles with Dad while watching football!

Happy birthday sweet boy!  We love you dearly!

More Football

So after the KU game we drove back to Leavenworth to get our overnight bags, Miles, and pack a picnic dinner.  Will had warm-ups for his championship game in town.  Then we had to drive almost an hour to Effingham, KS.  It's way out in the boonies and it was COLD.   His game didn't start until 8pm.  Way to late if you ask me, but of course no one did!!

 Will out there warming up some more.  He has red long sleeves.  It was helpful in locating him on the field.

 Miles watching the game!  He seemed to enjoy it and always loves the attention.

 Half time.

 More warm up pictures.  Will's on the end.

 It was a pretty dominate game.  42-0!  They only allowed 6 points the entire season and were undefeated.  At the awards banquet the coach told the team that the president of the league told him that in his 30+ years this was the most dominate team ever.
Will was pretty pumped!

Way to go Pioneers!!!

A football kinda day

Saturday, Nov. 4 we got up and headed to Lawrence to go to the KU game.  We were staying in Lawrence that night because Justin was running a half marathon there Sunday morning.  One of my friends was also running the half and we invited them to come with us to the game.

I decided not to buy tickets online or over the phone because they both charged a $3 service fee per ticket and I'm cheap.  So as I was walking up to the ticket window a gentleman asked if I wanted 2 tickets.  I said sure, thanks.  Then before I got all the way to the ticket counter he gave me his other 2 tickets!!  So with those 4 tickets, the free kids tickets my kids get for being Juinor Jayhawks (thanks Mimi and Gdaddy!), I only had to buy 2 for the 9 people I had with me!  Justin just shook his head.  The Crissman ticket magic continues!!

It was their salute to service game.  There was a Bradley fighting vehicle that the kids enjoyed climbing in it.  See Will's head sticking out up there?

 We got there early enough that the kids could play in the kid zone.  Eric had his class pet for the weekend, and was required to take Stitch with him and document what we did.

 Caroline sitting down (or maybe she fell out?!) waiting for Paige to push through.

 Not a large crowd.  The blue are stadium seats that aren't all full.  This is what happens when your team stinks!

 The kids made the jumbo-tron!  They are behind the front three kids.

 Baby Jay rocked Stitch!

 Stitch even rode in the tank!

 The kids with the Jayhawk.

Even though KU lost, again, we had a great time watching the band, the cheerleaders, and eating junk!

Halloween

Well, halloween wasn't what we expected, at least weather wise.  It snowed for several hours!  It wasn't in the forecast and it caused quite a ruckus at school.  Not only was it halloween, but it started snowing during recess.  Double whammy!!  It was pretty but it made for a cold night sitting outside and handing out candy.  Thankfully just had the fire pit all set and ready for me to light.  So Grandma and I sat in the driveway by the fire handing out candy and some leftover beer!  We had several people come and stay for a few minutes to warm up by the fire.

This year the kids re-used costumes from last year.  I was fine with that!

 We also continued with a tradition we started last year by coming down to the Cotovsky's house for chili.  It was nice to warm up before heading out.
You can see that a little bit of snow dusted the grass.  It didn't stay long but I'm hoping it doesn't mean a snowy winter is in store.

I didn't get any pictures of the kids with their haul of candy.  But they each had a full gallon size ziplock bag.