Moran Family Fun

June brought us Abigail's birthday, the end of the school year, warm enough weather to go to the beach, a visitor from the States, a trip back in time to the town of Lavenham, and a proper English afternoon tea.  We kicked off the month right with Abigail's fifteenth birthday celebration! We enjoyed some delicious chocolate cake before making her work for her presents with a little target practice/scavenger hunt.  Inside each paper cup was a little clue to the location of one of her gifts. She had to shoot the cups with a nerf gun and once she knocked one over she could go in search of her present. Once she found them all we gathered in the living room so she could open them. It was a fun way to make the birthday fun last just a little while longer. Her favorite gift may have been a subscription to Good Housekeeping magazine, which is probably not your typical most wished for item for teenage girls. Then again, Abigail is not your typi...

Way back when, soccer was the sport of choice for our girls. When we lived in Wyoming they played soccer every year with Jared as their coach. Abigail and Emily played a few seasons in Germany as well but not quite every year. Abigail played one season in Maryland with our neighbor and friend coaching her (hi, Steve!) but we've been a non-soccer playing family since the fall of 2014. Volleyball and running replaced soccer as the preferred sports for Emily and for Abigail.  Fast forward to spring 2017. We'd moved to England and the Lakenheath High School girl's soccer team had lost the majority of their players from the previous year due to a combination of players either moving away or graduating. Word on the street was that if someone wanted to play soccer, this was the season to make the team. They needed bodies and would worry about skills later.  Both Emily and Abigail decided to try out for spring soccer and made the varsity team. Three years away from soccer ...

Our love for Germany continues despite our best efforts to move on and get over it already. We feel pulled to Germany, it calls to us and we can't help but answer the call. Our memories of Germany keep a little spark of love alive and that spark is hard to ignore. It's like the ex-boyfriend you know you shouldn't go back to but you still carry a flame for even though you know you should make a clean break, move on, and fall in love with someone new. That's easier said than done sometimes.  A couple of months ago Emily and Abigail were selected to play for their high school in the DODDS Europe Soccer Championships in Germany and Jared was offered the opportunity to work as a referee for the tournament. It was a no brainer really. Emily and Abigail were already going with their soccer team and Jared would be reimbursed travel expenses as well as paid to referee games so it was basically a free trip to the place we love so much. We booked our Chunnel crossing, made ar...

May was a month for running, among other things. Early this year Jared found three races, one each in spring, summer, and fall, that sounded fun and within our abilities so he signed us up. What sounds like a good idea in January can quickly become a dreaded date on the calendar, especially when you haven't made the time to get enough miles under your belt to be really prepared.  A 10K is a great race to fit into training for longer distances and a great distance to bump up to for anyone who can easily run a 5K. It doesn't require the time commitment of training for a half or full marathon so it's easy to fit into your regular routine. The first race of the year for us was the Unilite Night Trail 10K in Afan Forest Park in Wales. Suffolk, where we live, is flat. Wales, where we ran this race, is not. Afan Forest Park is home to 100 kilometers of mountain biking trails. That's a lot of running up and down twisty, rooty, rocky hills.  We were all smiles befor...

April flew by in a blur. There was hardly any down time between Jared's birthday, spring break, and a visit from my parents but there were a few regular days mixed in there that deserve a mention. First up was Easter, arguably the best of all the holidays. We were blessed with sunny skies and fair weather so the annual egg hunt was held outside. It wasn't until Easter that we truly appreciated the fact that this house has our best yard yet. Smaller than our Maryland yard, sure, but flat and free from trees so there's room to run and play. And best of all room for a trampoline, or an impromptu soccer game, and even some epic cornhole battles. And of course, plenty of room to hide eggs on Easter. As the youngest, Natalie still gets a brief head start on things like this and she used those ten seconds to her advantage, grabbing all the eggs Jared had hidden under the padding on the trampoline before her sisters had even started out the back door. She took the slo...