The Sump Family: October 2009

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

On to State!!

Thought I would do a quick update to let everyone know that our boys Cross Country team has qualified for state. Monday at Perry they placed 3rd in our district to secure a first ever team trip to state for a DCG Cross Country team! We missed second place by 1 point! Jordan is thrill and all of these boys have worked so hard to achieve this goal!
So Saturday morning after sending the team off in style we are headed to Ft Dodge to cheer this great group of boys on! It will be a busy day as the little two are not letting us forget that it is Halloween. We should make it home with a little time to spare before we trick or treat and then the adults get their turn to dress up for the annual Ribich Halloween Bash!
Should be a memorable weekend! Stay tuned! Oh yeah.....please note in the following pictures that Jordan has changed his hair style! I find myself staring at him as it sure made him look grown up and alot like his dad!

The new hairdo!

We're going to state!

3 of the seniors that will run at state!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Sick Days and College Visits

I would recommend that before you read this you do several of the following......1)Wash hands thoroughly! 2)Apply mask! 3)Use hand sanitizer frequently while reading this entry! Yep.....the house is sick. No...I don't believe that it is the H1N1. I think that it is just a nice virus that we picked up. I don't think that we are sick enough to say it was the flu. At lease that is what I and our very nice pediatrician think. Even though I couldn't imagine feeling any sicker than a few of us did.

It started last Monday with Jordan saying. "Mom, my throat is a little scratchy." I was forbidden to touch him or ask any questions. He had the conference XC meet on Tuesday night and he was running. Tuesday morning at 4:00am Dana and I were awakened by Carson who was crawling into our bed because he was "too hot". In my sleep induced coma, I acknowledged that...."yep, you are indeed hot" and we all settled in to finish the remainder of night before being rudely awakened by the darn alarm. Carson slept on while Dana and I got ready for work. I got both Carson and Emma up to get ready for school and realized in my fully awake state that, "Oh my gosh! Carson is really warm." He crawled back into our bed and announced "Email Mrs Mackey, mom. I'm not going to school today." As all this is playing out, daycare families are dropping off there kids. While in Emma and Carson's room I discover that the reason he decided to come to our bed at 4:00am was because he had vomited in his bed! Great....so I begin to call all the families that had just dropped off their children and had them come back and get them. With all the yuck that is going around this year I have decided to take a harder line in regards to having sick kids here or caring for kids while mine are ill.

So, Carson was home Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Jordan ran at conference on Tuesday night...finished 13th overall with All-Conference honors. He woke up Wednesday morning feeling crappy and was home Wednesday and Thursday. Saturday morning Dana, Jordan and I went to a Senior Day at Simpson College in Indianola. Saturday night I started feeling a little yucky. We had our family pictures taken on Sunday afternoon. I am not sure that all of us were feeling all that great but we smiled and I think Julie got some good ones. Sunday afternoon Carson, Emma, and I didn't moved out of the living room. We watched movies and napped. By Sunday evening Emma and I were both running temps. Monday was a day off for everyone. There was no school and I wasn't scheduled to work that day. I was to be on my way to Maryville, MO to look at Northwest MO State with Dana and Jordan. They went without me.

Abbey felt a little crappy but had no fever and has continued on with her activities. She sang in a choir with other area 8th graders on Monday. Dana made the concert...I was on the couch! She also performed in the Middle School choir at their fall concert. Dana made the concert...I was on the couch! Dana has managed to stay healthy through all of this. He has been a great help in keeping things moving forward.

With all that, we did get the two college visits in. We were sitting in an athletics session at Simpson and they showed a short video and I had to really focus on something else for a second because I thought I was going to cry. It came over me what we were really doing there. While on the campus tour I felt a sudden excitement for him. All the new prospects of being a college student and the feeling of freedom that comes with that. I felt a little bipolar! He said he like Northwest MO State a lot better. Liked the whole campus, the amenities offered (laptops and book rentals) and really liked the track and field coach better. At least there is no question how the first two rank with him. We will visit Central and Morningside in early November and will see how they fall into order. He has started sending out applications and has been accepted at Central so far. He is taking the ACT's again on Saturday and will take them a 3rd time in December if I have anything to say about it. If he keeps improving his score then his chances for more financial aid will too!

There are no photos for the week. Sorry...I am too lazy today and I am not sure there are any photos to show! The XC team runs at districts tomorrow, weather permitting. Hope to share exciting news from that!! Now....go wash your hands!!

Monday, October 5, 2009

Homecoming 2009 and College stuff!

Well Homecoming 2009 is now history. It was a pretty busy week for the house but we managed to enjoy it all! It started off with the Homecoming Games hosted by the After Prom committee on Sunday night. Dana and I decided this year in stead of being in charge of a game we would just go up and enjoy watching the kids participate. They had a lot of fun playing some crazy games! Monday we were in Adel for a XC meet which the boys won! Thursday was the Powder Puff football game which pits the Senior girls against the Junior girls. This was the first one we have been able to attend because usually there is a XC meet that same night. This year Jordan was asked to sit in the press box and give commentary. He was really funny and had a great time! It was really weird and cool to hear our son's voice over the sound system. The Juniors beat the Seniors. The most entertaining part was the Junior XC boys dressed up as cheerleaders!! Later that night there was a bonfire. The first ever in the school's history. We didn't stay as it was mostly for the kids. They must have thought that Jordan did a good enough job in the booth earlier because they asked him to emcee the events going on at the bonfire....the cheers...speakers and such! Football Friday was a busy day so I took the day off of work. I went over and watched Abbey run the mile and Jordan and the other varsity XC runners came over to run with the kids for encouragement. Abbey did a great job. She looked so focused and on a mission. Then it was off to the parade and coronation. We took Carson out of school early so he could ride in the parade with the Booster Club and throw candy. He was in heaven! The coronation crowned King Eddie and Queen Dani. Jordan was not named Homecoming King but he remains King of our hearts! (I know....kind of cheesey!!) He found a partner for the dance in Courtney P. He threw it out on Facebook on Wednesday night to see if there was anyone out there that wanted to go to the dance with him. A little unconventional but it provided results.

Our XC boys have been on a roll!! We have won the last three meets we have been at. Adel, Nevada, and North Polk. We are ranked 6th in the state for 3A. These boys have been working really hard to get to the state meet. We were lucky to find out that we will run at Perry for our district meet in 2 weeks. We have had to go to Atlantic the last 3 years. We will run at Perry next week for our Conference meet so our boys will have a chance to know the course before districts. They have been running no matter what the weather conditions are. Their sights are set on Ft Dodge on October 31st! In their district they have the 3rd highest ranking and they only take the top 3 teams so they will have to run very well to get there! Jordan ran a personal best at Neveda of 17:51.

Show choir has started for Abbey. They had a week of early morning practices last week and then auditions this week. We are fairly certain she has a spot. She is in heaven that it is starting. On September 26th she had a really cool opportunity to be an extra in a movie that they were using the DC-G Middle School to shoot in. The movie is called "Smitty" and has Mira Sorvino, Louis Gossett, Jr, and Peter Fonda in it. She spent about 5 hours at the school waiting to shoot some cafeteria scenes. She hopes she doesn't end up on the editing room floor. We spent most of the night texting back and forth and she was just giddy! She met someone named Boo Boo who is apparently in the Twilight Movie series. For a teenage girl it doesn't get any better than that!! She took photos with her cell phone and he signed the phone for her. She was over the moon when I went and picked her up. Not sure how much she slept that night!

Carson and Emma have been great. They both really enjoy school. This week has been all about Fire Prevention so they have both made a trip to the Fire Station and have been busy comparing stories. They have been going to all the XC meets and love running around. They also love the attention the high school girls shower them with! I spend alot of the meets trying to prevent my small children from running into the path of the big kids while they run! We ran at TCI (a very nice local golf course) this week and they had a blast picking up golf balls from the driving range. I am pretty certain that we weren't suppose to be removing said golf balls and my children are now considered criminals but it kept them happy.

Since my last post, Dana and I have both turned another year older! We celebrated with meals from out favorite restaurants in between Homecoming activities. We have bowled our 3rd week as of last night and are having lots of fun. We are bowling really well and my average keeps going up. Which sounds great, but eventually it will just become an unreachable number. Both our guys are bowling in the 200's and Krista and I have been known to bowl in the 160's and up. I kept it real last night with scores in the 1 teens and 120's.

Dana and I took Jordan to the Golden Circle College Fair on Sunday. There was over 140 colleges there and we were able to talk to people from the colleges he is interested in. We spent an hour collecting info on colleges and financial aid and then we took him to our favorite Mexican restaurant, held him hostage in a booth for an hour and discussed what we had received and what he has going on in his head. It was the most productive conversation we have had in a long time! We got out of him his top 4-5 choices of schools. He has been getting calls from college track coaches to see if he would be interested in running track at their school. He is interested in running but the best information we received from our pow wow was that he is interested in communications/broadcasting. He said he had a lot of fun up in the booth at the Powder Puff game. He is interested in pursuing something along that lines. He is going to see if he can shadow the local sports director at one of the major network news stations here in Des Moines to see if that is the direction he would like to go. He mentioned "sports management". Not quite sure what that is but am thrilled to death he might actually have a path now. He refers to it as an "narrow dirt road" but, hey, at least we are headed in the right direction. The next month finds us making at least 4 college visits. Hoping that by actually seeing the campus and speaking with the Track and Field coach that my indecisive teen will have an easier time making a decision!

Finally....a little food for thought. Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue!

Enjoy some pictures from the past two weeks!