Pig Pics

We got some really nice professional pictures from the show. 

Nice picture of Kyle (looking like Jason)

Nice picture of Willie

Kyle with his cheering section in the background. That's me standing up taking a picture. Granny Sherry, nervous, and covering her face.  MawMaw smiling. 

And remember when I told you we were all stunned when he placed so low?  

Yeah, here's the picture of that.

But I can't leave you with such a sad picture.  

Here he is the next day at the auction.  His buddy won grand champion with his table and Kyle was helping hold it up to auction it off. 

2 and 3 of 3

So finishing up Reed's last 2 of 3 meets...

Last Saturday we were at a Varsity meet.  It was so cold and windy! Reed even wore sweatpants to warm up and gloves during the race, so you know it was cold! 

He ran the 1,200 of the distance relay, and they got 6th place. 

By Thursday night the weather was warm, and the gloves were gone. He was running JV for this meet.

 He started out the meet running the 1,200 of the distance relay. 

They won 1st place, and here's his cute little team.

Then he went off to pole vault. 

 He cleared 10 feet which he's been trying to get, so it was very exciting!

He won 3rd place

With very little time to rest, he was off to run the mile. 

I thought I was being slick by going over to the other side of the track to video, but unfortunately for me I forgot how fast they all are, and I couldn't make it back to the finish in time.  All I could see is what looked like a 4-way tie.  His time was 4:54 which was 4th place.  He said if he hadn't had to pole vault until 7:00 he would have won. 

He's headed to compete at state with his BPA group this week, so we'll have a week off from track. 

1st of 3

 Reed has actually had 3 more track meets since the last time I blogged, so I've got a lot of track to cover. 

After his first varsity meet, he then competed in the first JV meet of the season.  He started out the evening pole vaulting and had a height of 9'6" which got him 2nd place.  

He then rested up and was ready for the 1,500.  Which was probably the most fun race I've ever watched him run. 

Here they are at the start so you can see how many kids were racing.

As they came around for the 1st lap you can see he's got 3 kids in front of him.  I know all those kids and was thinking to myself, "oh, he's doing good, he'll probably place 2nd."

Here he comes again, in 2nd place, right where I thought he'd be...but then he passes to get in the lead

His next lap he comes around so far ahead of everyone else you can hear me laughing.  I couldn't believe how fast he was going. 

And here's his big finish.  The kid you see him passing still has another whole lap to go, and if you look on the football field, his cross country friends are going crazy. 

He beat his own best time, finishing with a 4:51.  You don't see a smile this big on Reed's face very often. 

I'll recap his last 2 track meets in the next post. 

Saturday Part 2

 By the time I got to the auction, it was pretty empty, and not many people were left.  I was thinking there's no way he was going to break even.  But in an unexpected turn of events, Willie sold for $200 more than Elvis!  Not only that, but out of 31 pigs, Willie brought in the 6th highest amount of money. 

I was just happy that Kyle had more than "broke even", but then one of the moms stopped me and said, "Everyone knows there were about 5 kids who were misplaced yesterday, and Kyle was one of them." It felt great to have Kyle's hard work validated, and even more so that it was validated at the auction. 

 So after a disappointing Friday night, Saturday turned out to be great.

And if you want to know what Kyle is going to look like in the future, all you have to do is look at this picture, because he is definitely a little Jason and a little Gary. 

Saturday Part 1

I decided to not head over to the FFA auction when it started since Kyle was number 100 out of 104 kids.  Instead, I went over to Reed's track meet where he was running varsity for the 1st time.  He was in the distance medley relay, and he was running the 1200 meter section (that's 3/4 of a mile for us non metric people). 

Here he is finishing his portion.

He ran the 1200 in 3:34 which he was happy about and they finished in 5th place, which was a nice start to Saturday! 

Willie Nelson

 So after diving Thursday night, it was time for Kyle to show Willie on Friday night.  We were all really excited as Willie had qualified for the heavyweight class.  We thought Willie looked great! 

Willie definitely wasn't the showman Elvis was.  But Kyle worked hard to get him where he was more comfortable in the ring.

We had lots of friends and family in the stands to cheer on Kyle and Willie, and we all sat in stunned silence as they finished 2nd to last in their class.  We couldn't believe it.  Nobody knew quite what to say.

Willie was exhausted after his time in the ring, and the rest of us were (emotionally) feeling about the same way.

We all went home sad and defeated....but thankfully Saturday was a different day. 

Region

 It was a very busy week last week, especially for Kyle since he did all his things, so I'm just now getting caught up.

He dove in regionals and was trucking along just fine until all of a sudden he did one of the worst dives I've ever seen him do in competition.  We had no idea what was going on, or why he acted like he was so scared to do it.  With that dive he went from around 7th place to 15th.  When they took a break we found out that his coach put the dive on his list because he wanted him to do the dive.  Not only had he never competed it, he'd never even done it before.  To say I was upset is an understatement.

Kyle recovered (which is super hard to do) and climbed all the way back to finish in 10th.  Had he had a dive on his list that he'd done before, he would have finished on the podium in 6th or 7th.  

Here are some of his dives.  And I don't think Jason and I have any extra commentary in these. 

2 Parades in 2 Days

 So after it rained all morning, the sun came out and the Jeep parade was a go.  So lucky me, I got to have 2 parades in 2 days!

I was sadly very undecorated compared to most everyone else.  But I'll know what to do better next year!  We did, however, get lots of compliments on our gnome blow up. 

The winning jeep just happened to be in front of us, so I did find ourselves in lots of pictures online.

And here's what the parade was like

Change of Plans

 So we came down to Galveston for Mardi Gras to be in the jeep parade.  But after checking the weather, we were worried it was going to rain on Saturday.  I checked on the umbrella parade that I knew was scheduled for Friday night, and it still had room for entries.  So I quick signed us up, and headed out to Walmart to buy umbrellas and supplies.  I started around 12:30 decorating umbrellas and got them done in just enough time to get dressed and head out.

The craft and party sections at Walmart were pretty lacking, but here are the umbrellas I was able to come up with.  I used plastic tablecloths, balloons, and fake flowers. 

I definitely beat Jason in the dress up portion of the night.

We made it to Mardi Gras

I took my mask off before we left, and then forgot it at home. So my umbrella was way more decorated than me!

Here we are right before the parade started.

And here we are on the parade route.

They pushed the jeep parade back by an hour, so we're hoping it will be dry and I'll get to decorate again (and actually wear my mask)! 

Popping Up

 It seems my kids are popping up all over the place this week.

Kyle landed himself on the FFA flyer.

Here's that picture closer up

Reed showed up in our local neighborhood magazine.  

And even JR made an unscheduled appearance on Insta.