FFA Week for Oliver

 Wellsville's FFA chapter was resurrected this year with a new advisor stepping up.  My boys had a lot of fun in FFA when Oliver was a freshman and Calvin was a Junior, but then sadly, the advisor left and the chapter dissolved. Oliver was excited to get FFA back at WHS for his senior year!  He has been serving on the officer board as "Sentinel" this year. 

We just finished celebrating National FFA week and the kids had a great time.  Here's a little snippet of their activities, beginning with a Teacher Appreciation Breakfast.

They wore their FFA colors of Blue and Gold one day.

Oliver looked SO handsome in his jacket! I told him he should wear this all the time next year at K-State. I'm sure it's an absolute chick-magnet out there.

The highlight of FFA week was definitely "Drive Your Tractor to School Day." Oliver drove his favorite, the Allis-Chalmers.

I love the peaceful video Oliver sent me of his sunny drive to school that day.

He made it!

It was the first year for this, so I was impressed with how many tractors pulled up to school.

What a fun week for these kids!  I love that Oliver is taking advantage all of these high school experiences.

Violet's (Short) Sophomore Bocce Ball Season

Violet has been SO excited for Bocce Ball season for get here. Unfortunately, the entire season was wrapped up in one tournament this year, but she made the most of it!  Her bus made it to the tournament in Lawrence.

Violet was on Wellsville Eagles Red team.

We were there in time for the Opening Ceremony (which included one of the athletes doing a great job of playing the National Anthem on her flute) and then it was time to get playing!

The first game was a little rough, so we won't talk about it.  The second one was much better and we beat Lawrence High 9-3!

One of the highlights of my day was when I saw a dear friend from Violet's days at the LeAnn Britain Center, who was there with her kiddos.  Violet and Jace are birthday twins and were in class together when they were babies/toddlers.  Here are our big 16 year olds!

And this is the last time we saw them in person, back in 2015. They've changed a bit in the past 11 years.

And here are pics going back even further, to when they were 3 and 2 years old. I'd say the only thing that hasn't changed is my inability to get a decent picture of the two of them together.

Violet wasn't nearly as excited to see Courtney and Jace as I was.  She was mostly excited to see her sister and her Aunt Joy & Uncle Scott.

She also loves hanging out with Austin, who is on one of the other Wellsville teams.

And possibly her favorite person right now is Dave Johnson (aka "Not Today Dave"), who often drives their bus.  She got a fist bump after their big win.

She also ran into a friend from church, Kate, who was playing for Lawrence High.

Waiting for the medal ceremony. . .

Third place! Way to go, ladies!

I love that Kali and Nora have been on Violet's team for the past 3 seasons. They are such sweet friends! And Graceanna was a great addition this year, too.  They had a great tournament and a great season!

Oliver's Senior Night for Basketball

 My goodness, this year is flying by WAY TOO FAST for this momma's heart. Oliver's Senior Night for basketball was Friday night, which was accompanied by lots of emotions and a few tears.  

These started well before the night itself as I made his basketball poster.  Oliver was the CUTEST baby and spent a ton of his childhood on the basketball court.  Pictures of our sweet "Baby O" above the rim. . . those of him with Grandpa Kermit, Uncle Kyle and all of the cousins at summer camp. . .lots of rec ball with Calvin. . .middle school fun. . . the excitement of winning State! So many basketball memories over the years!

I also included a strip of his team pics from kindergarten to the seniors of this year. It's so fun to see how the boys have grown over the years!

Heading into the school, I spotted our boy's name!

And I spotted his poster!

All of the posters looked great!

The Senior banners have looked great hanging in the Kermit Deterding gymnasium all season.  

Between games, they announced all of us as we made our way to center court.

I love how we are always next to Cristy and Brandon at these things! First with Calvin and Chase, now with Oliver and Cole.

Similar to Calvin's class, nearly all of these boys have lived in Wellsville their whole lives and been buddies since kindergarten (the only exception is Justice, who maybe has lived in Wellsville that long, but is homeschooled, so we didn't know his family until last year.)  That's one of the really special things about growing up in a small town.

I just love him so much!  And couldn't be more proud of him.

Russ always has a way of lightening the mood. I don't know what he said here, but based on Oliver's and my faces, I'm sure it was good.

Baby Fathead Oliver made the rounds during the game.

And what a game it was! The first time we played SFT this season, they put a running clock on us (i.e. beat us by at least 30). This time, we came out on top! Oliver had lots of great support, as always. (Grandma Jo & Grandpa Denny were there also, but had to start their drive to Hays for Ross' Regional wrestling -- oh, the busy lives of grandparents!)

With this win, the boys also gave us one more game in Grandpa Kermit's gym. If we had lost, our first round of substate would've been at Iola (yuck), but with a win, we get to host the first-round game!

Each Senior boy was gifted a really cool basketball "In memory of Roger O'Neil" -- I love that his family does this.

We didn't catch all of the seniors before they left, but here are 66.7% of them.

I can't believe we are almost closing another chapter of his book. Here's hoping for a great substate run so we can keep it going a big longer!

JM&ME on President's Day

The kids were out of school for President's Day, so that means a Just Me & My Evie Day! (Oliver went golfing with Ty and Grandpa Kermit; Violet had a fun day shopping and eating at Culver's with Grandma Cheryl.)  Evelyn decided in honor of the Winter Olympics, we should go ice skating.  The last time we went ice skating was 4 years ago, so it seems as though we've started a tradition of ice skating with each Winter Olympics. . . We got to Crown Center before the Ice Terrace was open, so took advantage of the time to do some shopping.  Evie has been looking all over for Needoh squishies, which are very popular right now. I was optimistic that the big fancy toy store at Crown Center would have them.  We looked all over with no luck.

As we were about to leave, we saw this empty display.  Apparently Needohs are popular everywhere.

We did a little more shopping and then it was time to lace up our skates at the Ice Terrace.

We got there right as it opened and literally had the entire rink to ourselves for awhile, which has never happened before.

Something else that's never happened before while ice skating? We got hot. With temperatures in the 60s and lots of sunshine, this was definitely the warmest I've ever been at the Ice Terrace. It was really a beautiful day.

So here's the comparison shot of a much colder day 4 years ago (when we still had to wear masks, apparently). . .

. . . to today, with my beautiful daughter almost as tall as me.

All that skating really worked up our appetites and we decided to find a place to eat in Crown Center. Evelyn always likes to find Thai restaurants on our JM&ME Days, but was equally excited for some Indian food on this day. We had our curry and butter chicken with naan and a cherry limeade from Topsy's to wash all the deliciousness down.

We did some more shopping an then found our car in the garage. We had another stop to make on the way home. I've never been to the huge Ikea in Merriam and this was the perfect day to check it out.

When we parked in the garage here, Evelyn said it felt like we were at the airport; everything was so large. We found our way inside the humongous store and definitely could have spent the whole day there! They had entire houses set up on the showroom floor.  Here are a couple of Evelyn's favorite rooms.

At one point, I didn't know if we were ever going to find our way OUT of this place. We just kept following the exit signs, only to discover a whole new area.  The place is HUGE. We were big spenders and got a $0.99 lint roller.  We stopped at a Walgreens on the way home that was supposed to have a Needoh in stock, but they lied.  The thrill of the chase on this one left us empty-handed.  In spite of this disappointment we had a GREAT Just Me & My Evie Day!  A day spent with my girl is always a great one!