Happy 12th Birthday Grace

Dear Grace,

We can't believe our baby girl is 12 years old already!  You are blossoming into such a lovely young lady, we could not be more proud of you!  You have eased right into middle school with no problem and are continuing to make straight A's.  You still love school - both the learning and the social aspect.  You are a great friend, making friends everywhere you go - school, swim club, running club, etc.  You have really come into your own in the swimming and running arenas too - you love both sports and are very competitive in both as well.  You are doing one or the other sport 6 days a week all year round so you are a healthy, and very tall, beautiful young lady.  You are not frilly and will choose shorts and t shirt any day over dresses or "stylish" clothes.  You are starting to borrow some of mom's shoes though!  You are playing the clarinet in 6th grade band this year, are active in Challenge Club, and are in musical theatre (the school play - Frozen Jr) this school year!  You joined the church youth group and are really enjoying that so far.  You LOVE to cook and bake and also craft very thoughtful gifts for people. So you are well rounded for sure!  Most importantly, your character is one of a strong, compassionate, hard working, helpful, kind, Christlike girl.  We can always count on you to help around the house or do a random kind act for a friend.  You just keep being you Grace!  You are beautiful inside and out and we love you through and through!!

Happy Birthday!

All Our Love,

Mom and Dad

GRACE'S FAVORITES AT AGE 12

Stuffed Animal - my new squishamellow octopus named Bubbles

Food - Vietnamese food

Movie - The Greatest Showman

Show - Kids Baking Championship

Clothes to Wear - shorts and t shirt

Game - Twister

Snack - animal crackers

Animal - penguin and elephant

Song - Symphony by Switch

Book - Percy Jackson series

Friends - Natalie, Brooklyn, Lyla, Anna, Maren, Kate, Ella, Jillian, Cici, Peachy

Drink - any soda

Outside Activity - running

Sport - swimming, running and flag football

Park Activity - monkey bars

Inside Activity - baking

Place to go - the Zoo

Fruit - strawberries

Vegetable - celery

What do you want to be when you grown up?  Scientist

What brings you joy?   being with my friends

What makes you sad?   my brothers calling me names

What do you think heaven is like?  bright gardens and flowers

This year we celebrated Grace's birthday as a family at home.  She wanted to bake her own cake - from scratch she made a tie dye lemon flavored cake with cream cheese frosting with Baby Yoda on it.  Shawn made her favorite lemon sorbet to go with it.  

Grace wanted to get her ears pierced for her birthday so we had a girls afternoon at the Avalon and she had them pierced at Rowan.  She's really growing up!!

September 2022

September was full of lots of cross country and baseball!  Nicholas, Grace and Henry all ran cross country for Alpha Crush again this season - they practice 3 nights a week and have meets 2-3 x's per month on Saturdays.  They all love the sport and are really growing in it,  and have each become great runners!  Samuel played fall rec baseball through Roswell and also participated in a Sunday Select league where he learned and grew a lot as well as a baseball player.  Also this fall, Nicholas and Grace both joined the youth group at our parish, St Peter Chanel, for the first time.  The middle and high schoolers meet on Sunday nights have a great mix of bible study and faith formation along with varied fun activities.  Also a highlight this month for Shawn was a trip Blacksburg with all his college buddies from VA Tech German Club.  It had been many years since Shawn got together with them so it was a great reunion.  They went to the Thursday night football game and also played some golf and had a great time.  It was a great month for everyone! 

Youth Group Kick off event - The Color Run!!

Shawn's Encounter Group, led by expert cook Joe Travato, has made it their service project to feed the youth group a home cooked meal every Sunday night to start their meeting.  Henry was excited to be also included as an official chef helping cook the meals!!

Sunday Select

Samuel's Rec Team - The Roswell Braves

The day he played against his buddies from school.

Another of Samuel's custom dessert specialties :-)

Grace is in Challenge Club again his year - 5-8th grade Catholic girls group that meets monthly after school

The most fun and exciting cross country meet of the season is the Wingfoot Classic - this year it was on Grace's birthday and the Alpha Crush girls team won first place!!!!  It's a huge meet so it was a great accomplishment by these sweet girls!

Many of the kids' friends, like Colin,  ran for BT Titans so it was neat to meet up with them at Wingfoot as well.

Another meet - Boys 13-14 team on top!!!!

These girls have so much fun running together

Love watching my runners!!!

Great times with Hokie friends!!

Even got to catch up with his godson Colin

Mammoth Cave National Park

 After our wonderful western National Park trip this summer, we caught the "national park bug" and couldn't wait to check out another one!  So for Labor Day weekend we visited Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky.  We stayed in a lob cabin VRBO that was lovely and had a great time hiking and exploring the cave.  We spent the mornings hiking the beautiful above grounds and the afternoons exploring the underground massive cave system.  We took 2 tours (Domes and Dripstones tour and River Styx tour) that entered the cave at 2 different places.  We enjoyed picnic lunches and cooked at the cabin in t he evenings, as well as had a bonfire and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows one night.  It was a lovely little family long weekend getaway.  The cave is super cool as well and absolutely worth seeing!!

Hiking above ground

lots of up close wild life on our hikes

Cool big tree!

snack break

View from top of our hike - the Green River

We had to take the Green River Ferry each day to get into the park from our cabin

Picnic lunch time

The tiny Catholic Church where we went to mass

Fun bonfire at night

Just chilling at the cabin

heading into the cave

Heading in at the other entrance - the historic entrance

One portion was later lit only