Volleyball Tournaments

 Damon and Tristan are doing an academy team with Salt City Boys. It's a club team, but at this age, you don't have to try out. The academy teams are for learning the game.

They play in tournaments so they can get as much practice and "real-game experience" as they can. This league is very different than the rec leagues they've played in. There are new positions and rotations that took some learning, but Damon's getting the hang of it.

His overhand serves have gotten really good!

He loves when he gets an "Ace" on his serves!

The first tournament was in North Salt Lake, and he was there from 7:30 am until about 2:00 pm. He absolutely loved it, and he was pooped on the way home. 

Their team is the newest, smallest team in these tournaments. They look pretty tiny next to the other teams. Damon and Shin are their team captains and it's really cute to watch them go shake hands with the other team captains to start the games.

Damon's working hard to learn and improve. He loves his coach, his team, and playing volleyball.

You're doing great Damon!!

Around Our House

The Carr's and Loosli's came over for a game night. The kids had a great time playing together and us adults had fun learning how to play Splendor.  

Katie and I went to a sourdough bread class. It's a new hobby that the family is very happy about. :) We've all enjoyed eating delicious fresh bread regularly now.

Tessa went to Finlee's birthday party and they decorated cakes before watching a movie. Tessa made a Lorax cake. It turned out great!

Rockwell's quorum had a sushi-making night. 

Brother Tanner also made steaks to pay up for biking challenges on their Moab trip from this past summer. Rockwell loved that activity!

Tessa's class had a service activity one Saturday. They started with brunch at Shiree's house.

Then they raked leaves for people in the neighborhood.

Emily and Evelyn came with Sister Kaylor, and Tessa loved having them there! They're the cutest little girls!!

Paul went to breakfast with his cohort from his Master's program. They always enjoy catching up on how everyone's career is going.

Sadie's

 Abby Woahn asked Rockwell to the Sadie's dance.

Tessa loved the dinosaur theme :)

They carved pumpkins for their day-date.

Joe carved his pumpkin to look like Rockwell, and Rockwell carved his pumpkin to look like Joe. Haha.

Rockwell loved the group. Most of them are friends from our old ward, and he said they were a blast.

He looked so cute!

We all love Abby!

The theme was Stranger Things. I'm not sure what the couple in the middle is dressed as. 

They went to dinner at Costa Vida, went to the dance, and then watched K-Pop Demon Hunters at Millie's house. Rockwell had a great time!!

Divisionals & State

Rockwell got to run at Divisionals. Ben injured his foot, so Rockwell ran in his place. It was at Lakeside Park in Orem. 

He ran well and was able to finish right behind the other boys on the team. I thought he did awesome, but apparently he had cramps the whole race and his time was one of his worst this season. I assumed he had killed it since he was right there with the Varsity boys. After looking at the times, everyone had a slower time than they're used to.

He finished 25th with a time of 17:54. Those are slower times for a Varsity race, so I'm not sure what it was about this course. The team just needed to finish in the top 10 teams to qualify for State though, and they did that easily.

Ben wanted to run at his last State meet, so he ran on his injured foot. Rockwell was an alternate at Varsity State, so he got the swag bags and decorations and everything on the bus. He and Joel were talking about how nice it was to be alternates there as they spent the day building a bridge across the river at the park and eating their snacks from the swag bags, instead of stressing about the race. Haha!

JV State was the next weekend. Rockwell cared a lot about this race. He said he had unfinished business with this course. This was the first race where Rockwell had an asthma attack last year. He was determined to have a better race this year.

Emilie came to watch him run. I didn't get any pictures of her there, but it was sure nice of her to come support him.

He started out great. He was able to get out in the front pack, but not go out too fast.

He looked strong for the first half of the race, but we started to see the pain on his face after about a mile and a half.

The pain was written all across his face in the final stretch. He couldn't push it and was clearly struggling.

It just breaks your heart to watch. Ben rushed right over to him once he crossed the finish line.

We hung back while Ben talked to him.

He finished 14th place with a time of 17:17.50. It was definitely a way better finish time than last year, but Rockwell said he wasn't worried about the time. He wanted to FEEL better this year and to be able to run his best. His breathing was okay, but he had a cramp in his stomach. Ben Carr was over at our house that night and said that his coaches from his cross country days told him that cramps are often caused by a lack of enough oxygen. I sure hope that the pulmonologist can help us get this all figured out!

I made sure to get Levi Blumer's name on this picture. Levi is Rockwell's really good friend, and he had a breakout race. He ran sub-17. When Rockwell heard that he said, "Yes! That's the one thing I'm happy about at this race." I thought that was very awesome that he was so happy for his friend's success, especially when he was so frustrated with his own struggles.

Halloween

 Halloween was very different this year. Grandma and Grandpa Ham used to come eat dinner with us before trick or treating around our neighborhood. Grandpa decided to stay home and hand out candy at his house this year. We had our Halloween dinner the night before Halloween because Rockwell had his State XC meet the morning after Halloween. Mummies, pumpkins, ghosts, and witch fingers aren't the best pre-race food. :)

Paul's new assistant in the library is named Brita. She's really into Halloween and came up with some costume ideas for her and Paul. They had the students vote, and Vector and Agnes from Despicable Me won. Paul made a great Vector!!!

I got one of the candy toilets from the gas station and painted it white. It was the best to hear Paul yell, "Curse you tiny toilet!"

He also reenacted the keyboard control scene for just our family. ;)

Vector and a cute Minion!

Damon was King Bob this year. It's from one of the Minion movies.

Tessa was a dinosaur.

And Rockwell was a Super Sophomore.

It was fun to watch Damon in his school parade.

Greg Park dressed up as Gru from Despicable Me, so they needed a picture all together.

There were a few kids who dressed up as Vector and they all came in the library to get a picture with the other Vector. :)

The cross country team does their costumes with the rest of the kids from their same year. Last year they were the Fat Freshman, and this year they were Super Sophomores.

Tessa went trick-or-treating with Hallee and Finlee in both our neighborhood and Finlee's. They were all dinosaurs. So cute!

Damon went trick-or-treating with Cody in his neighborhood. It was the first year we haven't taken anyone trick-or-treating, it was very strange. We missed having Grandma, Grandpa, and Al here with us. We always got good visiting time while we walked around the whole neighborhood. It was quite an adjustment this year. Rockwell wanted to stay home and eat well and sleep well before his race. Paul, Rockwell and I watched Hot Rod while Tessa and Damon were out trick-or-treating. It was nice to have that time with Rockwell at least.