Moran Family Fun

Last year Jared ran his first marathon and afterwards he vowed he would never run one again.  This year Jared ran his second marathon and is planning on running the same one again next year.  He was lucky enough to catch a military flight to the states and then he drove to West Virginia to visit with his family before heading up to Pennsylvania to meet his best friend John, with whom he would be running the marathon.  John's wife Larisa wrote all about Jared's arrival at their house on her blog.  I'd recommend you hop over to their blog and read her post as Larisa's a really good writer and it's a fun story. Jared had a good race and finished the 26.2 miles twenty minutes faster than last year, with an official race time of 5:22:11.  Here's the race day in pictures. Jared and John pre-race Jared nearing the finish line Finisher - with a medal and everything And finally, Jared and John post-race

Madison has been in high school for about a month now and I thought that I understood that part of our lives.  However, I learned this past weekend that I really didn't get it yet.  What made me stop and think, "Wow, our baby is in high school" was seeing her play with the band at her school's football game.  In that instant her high school-ness became very real. There she is, an honest-to-goodness high school student playing an enormous drum at an actual high school football game.  Besides quickly bringing me to the realization that Madison will soon we out of high school and on to bigger things, being at the game took me back to my own high school days.  How am I even old enough to have a kid in high school already? Natalie wasn't interested in the game or the band music.  All she wanted to do was climb up and slide down this ramp separating the band from the rest of the crowd. Samantha got in on the fun as well while Emily sat there hoping ...

With four girls playing soccer this year, and one mom coaching a team, our life has been taken over by soccer practices and games.  Can I start by explaining how I came to be coaching a group of pee-wee soccer players when Jared is the resident soccer expert?  It's pretty simple really, I signed the kids up for soccer, but there weren't any open spaces for Natalie and Abigail to play this year.  They were put on the waiting list and we just kept hoping that spots would open up for them.  Then I got an email asking for volunteers to coach pee-wee teams which said that if I agreed to coach a team, my children on the waiting list would be guaranteed a space on a team this fall. Even better, coaches kids play for free and with four kids playing that was a $240 incentive to coach.  I tried to talk Jared into coaching, but he really is busy with church, work, and school and I just wasn't convincing enough.  Still, we wanted the girls to be able to play so I email...

Last spring Samantha's school class put on a play based on the children's book, The Rainbow Fish.  I wasn't able to be there to see the performance then so I was glad to learn that they were putting it on again this school year.  It was a really cute little play with lots of songs.  I'm glad I knew the basics of the story, it helped me to understand what was going on because those little German kids speak fast! This is the opening song of the play After the play was finished Samantha just had to show me her monkey bar skills.  She's been working hard every day and usually comes home with slightly orange, very calloused hands. She made it all the way across and almost all the way back again.  I was very impressed since I was never able to do the monkey bars as a kid.  I can do them now, but only because my feet touch the ground!

Natalie drew this picture at school the other day... It is a picture of Rapunzel. But it's not the regular Disney princess Rapunzel, oh no, it's zombie Rapunzel.  I thought she looked like a pretty tired princess, but I didn't realize she was an undead princess until she pointed out the brains coming out of her skull. If I put the disturbing zombie aspect of her picture aside I'm actually pretty impressed by her drawing skills.  Zombie Rapunzel has lovely long hair, a beautiful crown, and a suitably fancy princess dress.  And I think she really nailed the essence of a zombie too; those brains totally make the whole picture. That's why I ask, where did I go wrong? Maybe I should just blame this one on Jared.  I know that I didn't introduce her to the idea of zombies and I certainly don't have Plants vs. Zombies on my iPod - but I know a certain dad who does.

On Labor Day we loaded up the kids and took them to Holiday Park, an amusement park just over an hour away from our house.  It was a surprise and a reward for the girls after a long summer.  Not that summer vacation usually requires a reward or anything but we hadn't done much just for fun as a family over the summer.  So my goal for the day was to have loads of fun. We rode rides screaming while throwing our hands in the air. We ate ice cream and bratwurst and slushies and doughnuts.  We rode one ride repeatedly so we could take funny pictures for the camera that would take a picture as we went down a big hill.  It was a great day and I'm glad Jared, in all of his wisdom, made sure this happened for all of us.  Okay, here's a little photo journal of our day. Five beauties waiting to enter the park Abigial and I were ride buddies for a lot of the day.  Here we are ready for our very first ride of the day! Emily and Samantha were our other...

Man, is that title long enough for all of you?  There's way too many back to schools around here.  First Natalie and Samantha, then me, followed shortly by Madison, Emily and Abigail, and finally Jared.  Now that we're all officially back to school I feel as if I can chronicle the all important first day of school for our amazing three older girls. Madison is in high school.  What?  How did that even happen?  I really do remember her starting Kindergarten in Wyoming and it really does feel like just a year or two ago.  Time marches on and kids grow older no matter what I do so I'm going to be happy about this new chapter in Madison's life. Madison pointed out that this is the first year since first grade that she didn't have at least one of her sisters at school with her.  I've loved having them all at the same school and I think they have liked it as well.  That's all over now as we have five girls going to four schools.   ...