More Friday night parties

More scenes from Friday Night Dance get-togethers. Nicola's house, with a chocolate fountain.

Kimie's house.

Monse's house, with Monse and Paco demonstrating the correct way to eat pupusas.

HoCo

It was Homecoming weekend at Lincoln -- football game on Friday night, dance on Saturday. Seb had a great time hanging out with an assortment of friends.

Liesl runs Xcountry

Liesl decided to join the cross country team this fall at West Sylvan (instead of playing volleyball). Today was the first meet of the season, a 4x1-mile relay at Pier Park. Seb ran this race twice and it was fun to be back and cheering on the runners -- xcountry meets are such a fun and celebratory atmosphere.

 

 

Liesl ran the second leg for her team. The first runner was Greta, who did very well and came in as the second runner to the handoff. Liesl held the second place position. She ran her mile in 6.52, on a hilly course with uneven footing, which is amazing.

 

 

 

  

Here's Liesl coming up a short, very steep hill near the end of the race.

 

And here's the final stretch -- the first runner from Grant, and Liesl in the field behind, and the third place runner nowhere to be seen.

 

 

The relay team - Grace, Greta, Nidhi, Liesl. They came in 4th out of 37 teams! Amazing.

Lincoln soccer!

Seb is playing soccer for Lincoln again this fall, on the JV team. He participated in 2 weeks of preseason training and a week of tryouts during August, and has been regularly training and playing games since end of August. Making JV instead of varsity was a bit of a letdown -- some of his friends are on varsity, and he would have liked to be there too. But he's making the best of his season on this team, and there are some perks -- he's team co-captain, he likes his coaches a lot, he's getting to be a leader on the field, he's one of the taller players (first time ever).

 

The team has started off strong with three wins and one loss, on Thursday night, to Jesuit (an arch-rival).

 

First game of the season, in Hood River. They won, but Seb was off his usual game.

Game against Jesuit. The boys came out very strong, with early chances and an early goal, but lost some pep in the second half -- too much adrenaline to be sustained for 90 minutes. One of the parents livestreamed and posted a video of the game here: https://www.youtube.com/@CliftCity

Friday Night Dance

Liesl is once again participating in ballroom dance lessons on Friday evenings -- 6 evenings this fall, 90 minute lessons, boys and girls from a few westside middle schools, very strict dress code. We had so much fun last year getting together with the other neighborhood families and eating dinner together while the girls got ready. Sassa and I volunteered to co-host the first dance on Friday the 6th -- we went and picked up supplies at Costco that morning and then spent the afternoon together mixing salads, chopping fruit (a veritable mountain of watermelon), making potato salad, and grilling chicken. The girls arrived after school on the bus.

There was a lot of makeup-doing and hair-curling.

Jasper joined the girls for dinner. He was very patient and well-behaved, and I am quite certain that he got some chicken. And watermelon.

 

Elly, Chloe, Ella, Bailey, Ana Lucia, Nina, Adeline, Indy, Addie

Campbell, Anni, Avery, and Liesl

Thousand Acres dog park

Liesl was busy with friends, Seb was out with friends, and Steve was doing work, so I took Jasper to the Thousand Acres dog park on Sunday. He romped with other doggos, he swam in the river, he fetched a lot of sticks. It was great. Except that the air was smoky and it was hot; there are the wildfires in the mountains and this week the wind has been coming from the east. But the dog was happy!