2 or 3 things about everyone!

Time for an update for everyone!

Ivy: She started kindergarten 2.0 we're calling it. She struggled leading up to it, but hasn't said a word about it being a repeat year since! She doesn't say much about her days except that she loves center time and recess the best. She talks about lots of kids and seemed very social at family fun night last week. She's exhausted at the end of the day and even worse at the end of the week. We have to be very diligent to put her to bed early every night because this all day school thing has been hard on her. One morning she was crying asking me why I signed her up for this!

She is loving the chickens at our friends the Fry's house. She was meant to grow up on a farm I think! She's the only person in our family who will freely catch them, cuddle them, etc. We watched the little chicks one weekend when they were out of town and she was in heaven. Marie bought her a chicken that she named Nicki Minaj Unfortunately Nicki did not make it...some animal must have gotten her!

Ivers is also doing some private swimming lessons right now and also playing soccer once a week. She is loving swimming lessons. She can swim front crawl and backstroke the length of the pool and even does the breathing correctly! She is going to be on the swim team this winter!

Mya

Mya has decided to take a step back from gymnastics. She had a great experience in Edmonton, but it took over her life and she didn't have any time for other sports. She is doing gymnastics once a week for an hour compared to 10.5 hours last year. She is also doing travel soccer and loving it. They practice 2x/week for an hour and a half. She has had two games and did great in both of them. This last week she started basketball too and the jury is still out on that:) I'm happy she's getting to try all of these things. Who knows...she may go back to gymnastics someday!

School is off to a great start for her. She has another male teacher this year named Mr. Pfaff. He's awesome and she loves school (except she thinks math class is too long) I'm anxious to hear more about it at conferences in a couple weeks. She seems to be enjoying reading a little more now. My friend Marie ordered her the tree house (not magic tree house but another one) series and she blew through them in a few days. Hopefully it continues!


Maxwell

Max's school year got off to a good, but not great start. His teacher was gone the first 2 1/2 weeks as she was taking care of her sister who was very sick. They tried their best to have consistent subs, but it was still hard. He seems to be happy now that his teacher has been back a couple weeks. He has to work a little harder here than he did in Edmonton which will be good for him. His class went on a super fun field trip last week to Four Mounds team building adventure park.

He is also playing soccer on a travel team and doing well. We've had some ups and downs with kids/parents on his team, but overall he is learning a ton and getting better! He's super pumped because they just started a chess club at his school. He has been swimming a bit too and is going to try out for the swim team next week! There are a bunch of really nice boys on the team so it would be good for him to be around them.


Beth

I'm adjusting to life back in Dubuque and it often feels like we never left! My friend Chelsea from Edmonton equated it to the same feeling you get when you've just been on a really amazing vacation and within 2 days, you're back in your old routine and people don't care about your vacation anymore! I'm missing my friends in Edmonton, but I'm so thankful that I have some great friendships here so I didn't have to focus so much time on making friends.

I'm working twice a week for NICC teaching English to non-English speakers. I'm getting to use my Spanish which has been awesome. I wasn't sure if I would ever get to use it again if I didn't go back to the classroom so it has been a great experience and I love my students. Adults who are motivated to learn are so easy to teach!

I'm getting our house in order as much as I can. Somedays I feel like I accomplish nothing and other days tons! We still need to get pictures on the wall and spend a few days on our basement storage room. We have rugs coming this week, a buffet for the dining room in a few weeks and then we just need to touch up some walls and build a mud room type storage thing in the garage before the snow falls. As of now there is no place to hang ski pants and put boots! It will drive me crazy if I have to live with it for a winter so Chris has it drawn up and hopefully we can get it done in the next month or so! All in all, we are very happy with our house and welcome company anytime!

Chris

Chris is enjoying his new job. He's feeling a little like he has no home base since he travels to Davenport two days a week, but so far the drive isn't bothering him too much. He can sometimes schedule a call during the trip or else he listens to podcasts and the trip goes by quickly. There's a new road being put in that will cut down the trip by 15 mintues or so. It looks like it will be ready by 2019 which will be great!

He has been taking care of lots of stuff around the house....it's weird being a home owner again! It takes a lot of maintenance even in a fairly new home. He's liking his time on his John Deere riding lawn mower and a couple weekends ago he power washed the deck which started as a little project and turned into 6 hours of work!