Tumbling, touchdowns, and T-Rex

September has been busy finding our weekly groove between school and extracurriculars. School is going pretty well for both. To illustrate their personalities a bit, listen to these recent notable quotes. As Owen says, "Trying your best all the time is so tiring!" And when we were discussing college one day, Hadley replied, "I can't wait to go to college. You get to live at school! That's my dream!" That's them in a nutshell. For Hadley, extracurricular means gymnastics! She still loves it.

And for Owen, that means football. He's playing flag football for the Seahawks and they are 2-0 so far! They are pretty fun to watch with minimal practices, so it's great so far!

Owen had quite a second game. He deflected a two-point conversion (and subsequently got tossed high up in the air by the coach), and then he caught the game-winning touchdown in the back of the endzone. Naturally, that was cause for celebratory ice cream afterwards! We will capture one of his moments on film eventually...

In the interim, Owen spent nearly all of his money on a new Lego set. He was obsessed with the construction of this Y-wing for a couple of evenings and considers it a good investment. Nearly 700 pieces and zero questions from this guy.

We also made it to the last day of the neighborhood pool being open, and the kids still remember how to swim! Hurray!

Since it's still 90 degrees, we now have to swim at the neighbors' house! And sometimes a dinosaur stops by...

Banister Makeover

Everyone likes a little color change every once in a while. Since I had some leftover gel stain from the front door job, I figured it would be a good idea to put it toward the staircase banisters. They were low on the priority list, but as you can see, the previous owners replaced the floors and stairs with dark wood, but left the banisters in the classic 90's honey oak finish. Not a big deal, but once it was pointed out to me, it made the list!

Much like the front door, there was lots of cleaning, sanding, taping, staining (3-4 coats with 24-hr dry time), wiping, and top-coating (3-4 coats with 3-hr dry time). At least I didn't have to paint the spindles! But, I did have to try to avoid getting stain on them. It was an involved process, to say the least. No turning back now!

Here's the full before and after of the front; I think it's a good change. Someday we'll get the paint color updated, change the light fixture, and maybe smooth out the hexagonal doorway... There's always something to do!

The back stairs weren't as noticeable because they are carpeted and have different tile near them instead of the dark wood floor. I forgot to get a before picture, so this one is halfway through the first coat, but you get some of the idea. I managed to wipe off less and get by with just two stain coats, which shaved off a couple of days from the nearly two-week project. On to the next!

Horns in Houston

We had the opportunity to drive just half an hour and see the Longhorns play in Houston, so we gathered a group of college buddies and made it a date. They were playing Rice in NRG Stadium, and we thought it might be fun for our future pro-football player to join us and see a real football game in person, too! I think he was pretty impressed with the stadium!

Our seats were up a few levels, but they were on the 20-yard line, so it was a decent perspective of the game. The attendance did not fill the stadium, by any means; I think they were overcharging for the competition. Anyway, someone actually offered us free tickets down low, but they were in the endzone, so we stayed put.

Hadley's level of interest in football did not justify the price of admission, and she was ecstatic to stay home with her beloved baby sitter. Here's our group! Most of the other offspring stayed with grandparents, but one boy made the trip to take it all in with Owen. Hard to believe that we've known most of the group in the left picture for over 20 years!!

Halftime was probably more entertaining than the actual game. The Longhorn Band looked and sounded great, although they were pointed the other direction. And the Marching Owl Band was goofy and offensive, as usual.

It was great to see old friends, and I think the next generation enjoyed it too. They flossed their hearts out trying to get on the dance cam to no avail. Seriously, they did this move for over 5 minutes with the hopes of making it on the big screen! But the cameraman couldn't find us on level 5. Haha!

Ranch Labor Day

Labor Day is the official end of summer. Let's see how we did on Hadley's Summer Bucket List... Pretty good, I'd say! I'm not exactly sure what "beach food" is, but we did eat a lot of popsicles, watermelon, hot dogs, etc., so I'm counting it!

With our extra day off of school, we headed to the ranch to check in with Granna and Grandad. It was too hot for most of our usual, outdoor ranch diversions, but the kids made an exception for their favorite... Uncle Michael's air rifle! However, this was a bit of surprise to me this time!

Hadley enjoyed it as much as Owen did. Both got really close to the bullseye from about 30 feet away. It still makes this momma nervous, but I guess they can put it on their resume someday. Ha!