Josh - Jag award Oct. 6, 2008

Last year, as a senior, Josh had a gym class that also consisted of a freshman boy that had Down's Syndrome. Josh's teacher, who had known him since freshman year, told me that he saw such growth in Josh and was impressed when he saw Josh take that boy under his wing and encourage and help that boy each day in class. That teacher nominated Josh for the school's Jaguar Award that month and he was picked as the winner. This is a picture of him after the assembly where he was presented with that award and at which a speech was read from his teacher and also the man who had been his basketball coach since freshman year. (He shaved before the official picture was taken the next day that was put up at the school for the month.)

A visit to the Staniaks 7/24/08

Eileen and Ron

Avery and Josh

Reese and Carissa

Avery and Mark

Sammy and Noah

July 2008 - A visit to Jonathan and Jen's

Jessie, Reese and Josh

Nathan and Bella

Sammy and Noah

Alex

Avery

Some of my favorite pics from Life Can Be 2008.

I am going to play catch-up now with pictures starting from June 2008.

Here are pics from Carissa and Dave's visit.

Winter Formal '07

I'm a little late but here are some pictures from the beginning of December '07.





Nathan, Sammy, Jessie and Alex.
Nathan, Jessie, Aaron, Sammy, Alex, Brandon, Kasey, Justine, Lyndsie and Kerry.



Josh and Lexi after the dance!

Easter 2008

What lovely girls! (I may be a little prejudiced.)
Still taking pics with the Easter Bunny.
Our friends Gary & Deb joined us again this year..
..along with their sons Spencer and Drake.

Spring Sports

Alex is finishing up with volleyball and will have her last tournament the last weekend in April.
Sammy and Jessie are enjoying school soccer and usually play left or right midfield.

Nathan is "team manager" for the school's JV girls soccer team but also helps out with the Fresh/Soph team. (That's him out there with the khaki shorts on.)

Of course, Josh is still doing basketball and has practice twice a week but hasn't played any tournaments yet since ending his school season.

Ok, here is my surprise picture! Josh was amazed at how much this pic of mom looked like ???? Can you guess? When asked, without hearing what Josh had said, all the other kids had the same answer.

It was family picture time again and the kids handled it like troopers -- 173 pictures in 25 minutes! Here are some you probably won't see in the pictures we hand out.

We don't take pictures as often as we used to when the kids were little so I thought I'd post an older one. This is last Christmas when we visited Eileen and Jenny and Megan were there too. (Look at how little Reesey is.) We get to see Megan (and sometimes Jason) more regularly now that they are in Colorado and it is nice to have some family around. If anyone else wants to come out we'd love to have you for a visit or to stay!!!!

Homecoming 2007

The three girls getting ready to go to meet up with their friends.

Josh and Lexie 'How do you get this thing on?'

Josh and Lexie all dressed up and ready to go.

Lucky Nathan among all those beauties. L to R: Jessie, Nicole, Sammy, Kerry, Nathan, Casey, Alex, Lyndsie, and Bree.

Sammy, Alex, Jessie and Nathan

My friend Katie, from Chicago, came to visit and we got to spend more than just an evening together (which we haven't gotten to do in years). It was wonderful. We took her to our club for brunch and since everyone was dressed so nice (or as nice as it ususally gets) I thought I'd take some pictures. Now I'm sharing them with you.

Back to school -- High School that is!

Four new freshman taking off for their first day of high school.

Second day for the freshman, first day for Josh, the junior. (He thinks I'm lame still taking my pictures but it's a mothers right!)

What a good looking pirate wench!Bob was hanging out with Madisyn Berggren for awhile.
I guess that's how you can sleep when you don't have a care in the world.

We were lucky enough at the beginning of August to be home when Jonathan and Jen came to visit (Bob, Josh and I missed their first stop). We also got to spend some time with Jen's sister and parents and yes, even the little dog, Bailey. We enjoyed seeing everyone and especially the sushi with Jen and her sister -- sorry Jonathan.