Pink Skygirls Soccer

Soccer began today! Just when you thought we couldn't add another activity to our already growing list, here we are. Sarah was very excited to start again. She took the spring off, not by choice, so she was glad to get back at it. It helped too that there was a girl from her class on her team and that the uniforms were pink. Not sure how the group came to the decision of the name The Skygirls, but it is cute! Us moms think it has something to do with all the pink sunsets we have had lately. Hermosa Beach is truly a beautiful place to live.



So today was their first game. Although they played good and hard, they still got beat by the Teal Dragons 3-0. Sarah started out as goalie and gave up 2 goals, but she saved a lot more. When it was her turn on offense, she almost scored 2 herself, but just no luck today. The main thing is she had fun and it was a great day for soccer. Looking forward to a great season!



Oh yea...the girls also started dance this week. Hip Hop for Sarah and Ballet/Tap for Lauren.



Since I didn't post about their recitals this summer here are some photos from that. They both did awesome and put on great shows.

So if you are keeping score:
Lauren: gymnastics & ballet/tap
Sarah: Art, Hip Hop, Soccer, ice skating, and Irish Dance (3 times a week)
Did I mention I am trying to get her on a Brownie troop, too?? Thursday is our only open day, so if they don't meet on Thursday, we are out!

Back to Blogging

So, If I have anybody left who still checks to see if I am blogging, I am back! I decided to take the summer off. I have not been busy every single second and could have found the time to blog, but just didn't feel like it. I was having such a great time just enjoying life. Something about sitting down at the computer almost every night to journal my day, sort of felt like homework to me! However, I started this blog to be a memory book of sorts for our family and my kids to have one day. SO I find that I NEED to get back to blogging.

So what did we do all summer?? As for our family, we didn't do the vacation thing this year. Instead, Charlie's family came out to visit us for the 4th of July week. We had a wonderful time visiting, eating, playing games, going to the beach, sight-seeing, etc...Here are some pics from the week.

Lobster Dinner rooftop

The McDonald Family in Palos Verdes

4th of July

Sarah was busy doing camps and Irish dance competitions. Sarah started her camps with a dance (all-in-one) camp. It was basically hip-hop, jazz, yoga, musical theater, cheerleading, and music everyday. She then did a couple of weeks of beach camp, an Irish dance camp, and soccer camp. Amidst all that, she continued to do her art classes, ice skating classes, and upped her Irish dance classes to 2 days a week. She also competed in 3 competitions this summer and did well in all of them. So a lazy summer she did not have, but a fun one for sure.

Sarah's 1st Feis

2nd Feis medals

Soccer Camp

Her team (U.S.A.) won the mock tournament

Lauren continued to do gymnastics and asked me weekly when she would start ballet up again. She is excited for next week! She spent most of her days at the summer camp at her daycare, however, we did pull her out some to do some fun activities. She had some play dates with friends, we went to the Aquarium of the Pacific and the Natural History Museum.

Ready for Pirate Fest at the Aquarium

Natural History Museum

Charlie has been a busy, busy worker bee. He has worked 2 bike races (Tour of France and Tour of Colorado) and has been hard at work prepping for his new gig as the producer of the weekly college football game on FX. This is the FOX network's 1st year of doing college football and Charlie was picked to be the producer. It is sort of a big deal and a big promotion for him. It has been a lot of hard work, but it has taken him all over the country for press and media days, he has had some fancy dinners out (which is the part I am jealous of), and has been on the phone or computer about 99% of the summer. A restful summer at the beach he did not have, but he loves what he does.

I have been busy carting kids around to play dates, camps and competitions, as you can imagine. On July 22nd, I became the primary care giver extraordinaire to our dog Peaches. She decided to jump off our tall bed and dislocated her hip and had to have emergency surgery to keep it back in place. I do love my sweet old dog to death, but a good patient she is not. She is supposed to rest and recuperate and she has done everything in her power to be nothing put active and disobedient. We are in the last 2 weeks of this healing period where I have to carry her up and down the stairs (we live in a 3 story house) and I am not allowed to let her jump on anything. (Mind you her favorite place to be is on the couch). I will be so glad when she is back to "normal".... And somewhere between being mom and dog nurse, I have been working at my new business of being a Stella & Dot Stylist. I LOVE this job and have had great success my first 3 months in business. Every month has been better than the one before. If you are not familiar with this product, you need to go check it out and fall in love with it like I did!

www.stelladot.com/tamaramcdonald

Poor Peaches

So there is our summer, busy, but fun! The fall looks to be even busier and even more fun. I love that we decided to move to Hermosa Beach. I think it is suiting us well.

I will be back to blogging more frequently now, in fact, I will post tomorrow about 1st Day of School and next week about our girls weekend to San Diego for Labor Day.

Let the activities commence...

School is back in session...therefore...the activities are back in session. This in turn makes me a busy mom and leaves even less time for blogging. Love it though, and I encourage my girls to be involved and seek to find what it is they really love. Otherwise we would all be sitting at home watching Nick Jr. and staring at the computer...so this is good for us all!

So what is on tap for the Fall???

Sarah: Gymnastics, Girl Scouts, Irish Dancing, Hip/Hop and Soccer
Lauren: Gymnastics, Music, and Ballet/Tap

Luckily for me they have gymnastics on the same day at the same time and when Lauren has ballet/tap, Sarah has hip hop.

Lauren is loving her ballet/tap class. She is in there with her BFF Addison and she really gets so excited to dress up like a ballerina.



Today she took her first gymnastics class at a real gym and she was FANTASTIC. I should have taken my camera. She was so cute in her little leotard with chubby legs, she followed instruction, tried everything, and really loved it. She was even really good at everything. So much so....visions of Mary Lou were dancing in my head and I was thinking "Is it wrong to sign my 2 year-old up for gymnastics twice a week. Do I need to write Bela and starting planning a move to Houston? Does Bela even still have his ranch and still coach? Does Mary Lou coach?" Anyway...I hope she keeps it up!

As for Sarah...She is loving Hip Hop and being in a class with all 4 of her longtime BFF's.

She officially starts Girls Scouts back up next week and Irish Dancing in a couple of days. She took her 1st gymnastics class at a new gym today and loved it. Soccer is in full swing. They played their first game this last weekend. They now get to play goalie which was a highlight for Sarah. It is going to be a busy, but super fun fall!

Go Hurricanes!

Sarah's Super Fun Weekend

What a great weekend this was. It finally looked liked a normal February day in Texas outside. We have had more winter than we know what to do with this year, so 60 degrees and sunshine felt like heaven! Sarah had a big weekend. It was the start of soccer and we couldn't have asked for better weather. Sarah has surprisingly been looking forward to soccer and her coach even commented after practice the other night that "Sarah was Back!" SO I am super excited for this. Last winter she was soccer star and then sort of didn't do much but look cute on the field in the fall, so I am glad she is getting back into it! Her team tied their first game. Sarah did score a goal, but it was called back due to being right on the line. Bummer! So she had fun and enjoyed it. Go Hurricanes!

Pre-game phone call from Daddy in Vancouver

Give me a five- Great job Sarah

Today, was the Alpha Chi Omega Fashion show. It is a yearly tradition for Sarah and her friend Audrey to participate in the show as future legacies! Click here to see them last year! Me and Audrey's mom joke all the time that they plan to room together at the Alpha Chi house when they attend TCU. I think as they get older we may not want to push this thought so much. TCU is on a current path to making it near impossible for anyone to afford to go. But I digress.... Back to the fashion show. The TCU chapter of Iota Lambda puts on a fashion show every year at the Ft. Worth Club to raise money for victims of domestic violence. This year I am proud to announce that they were able to give $3800 to the Alpha Chi Omega Foundation and $34, 304 to the Tarrant County Women's Center. Since the TCU Alpha Chi's started doing this fashion show 18 years ago, they (we) have donated over $300,000 to aid the victims of domestic violence. We are very proud! So not only a proud day for me to see my sweet walking down the runway, but proud to be an Alpha Chi and an alumnae of this chapter that has done so much for such an important cause.

Perfect display of my wonderful photographic skills. I can never get a non-blurry picture. It was even on the sports setting!