Red Raiders

Vance had another great season of football.  This season they didn't have as good of a record as last season but individually he did soooo much better.  It was a different group of coaches and they really gave Vance an opportunity to learn the game. As a result he had tons of improvement. He's not afraid to hit hard and has made some great plays. He starts on offense, defense, and plays on special teams. I'm so proud of his hard work. Even though football is not my favorite and I never thought I would let my kids play it, I love seeing the joy it brings him.

Football is no joke in Texas. They practice ALL THE TIME. Also the parents are intense. We pay an extra fee to a kinda booster-club thing.  Each game the boys get a personalized treat or gift of some kind. They have been spoiled all season long. It's no wonder Vance loves it, he is getting the royal treatment.  The parents all have shirts and hats and cowbells, etc. It's nuts!

Here are the pics from the one game I took my camera to. I have to start with one of my favorite pictures first -

Vance always got put on the biggest kids and did his job as a blocker on offense and got by his lineman on defense. My boy is tough!

Wrap 'em Vance!

Stud.

Here is some of his biggest fans!

 I've been doing this photo challenge and my next project was a silhouette photo. I decided Vance would be the perfect subject. I love this shot of him we snapped before practice one night!

Way to go son! You played hard and had a great season!

Great Wolf Lodge

At the beginning of every year I have a list of 10 things I want to do as a family that year.  This year staying at Great Wolf Lodge was on our list. The boys were ecstatic and it didn't disappoint. Get ready for lots pictures...the boys kept asking me to take more and more pictures (proof they really loved it!).

The kids absolutely loved our themed room. They thought their private cabin was AMAZING! It was pretty cute ;)

They had lots of fun Halloween activities since the holiday is coming up. They also gave everyone a pair of these orange ears.

Vance's favorite part was most definitely the Magiquest.  You use these wands and buy these quests. Throughout the resort there are things that interact with the wands. I'm not doing a great job of explaining it but he loved it. 

They let Sutton take a few turns with the wand too.

Chad and I did the quests with Vance until 11:00 pm when they finally turn off for the night (Hallelujah!). Even though it looks like we want to stab our eyes out in the picture below it was fun to see him so excited about it. I hope it's a fun memory for him.

We had this book with all of the clues and directions for the quests. Every quest took you up and down so, so, SOOOOOO many stairs. I must've walked up and down at least 100 flights of stairs. Next time I'm packing tennis shoes or bringing a friend for Vance. Haha!

We finally earned everything we needed to defeat the red dragon (the whole goal of our quest)!

In the evening they had a trick-or-treat walk so we all got our Halloween gear on. The boys had fun collecting candy.

Of course the boys talked Grandma and Grandpa into buying a stuffed animal for them.

We went to story time before bedtime -

In the morning we just opened up our door and let the kids play outside. The weather was beautiful and I had so much fun just chilling by Chad and watching our boys play.

Then we all got dressed and went to yoga. Keller took it so serious. He LOVED it. He has been making us do yoga with the little book they gave the kids. LOL

Sutton had a few of his own poses...

They also went to art lessons to learn how to draw a few cartoon characters.

They had a cub club full of art supplies so I took the younger two to do that while Chad continued Magiquesting with Vance.

The boys even amused me and went to the dance party ;)

You wouldn't know it from my post thus far but the main attraction at Great Wolf Lodge is actually the indoor waterpark. I didn't get tons of pictures because obviously it's hard to get lots of photos when you're in the water but I snapped a couple.

The waterpark was fun and everyone loved it!

We had a great stay and may have to make this trip during fall break again next year!