School starts

We started school this week with a lot of excitement. Em is going to a new school (Academy). She started back a day before E and Erin. Erin was very excited about school...she wants to have the most AR points in her class and she has her buddy Kenna with her. Erin and Dad are still reading Junie B. Jones (Erin's favorite). Em has had some great first days. They have 5th grade in middle school at Academy. Em has 7 different classes. She is ready to start P.E. Em has to have 100 AR points each semester. Right now, Em is loving the Nancy Drew series. Elizabeth had a good first day, but is a little worried about her Spanish class. She has trouble rolling her Rs. Kind of funny...she has all advanced classes, finished in the top 10 students in her grade last year & she is worried about Spanish. She worried the same way about the clarinet & ended up 1st chair for 2 years in a row. If you call the house and someone speaks Spanish, it may be Elizabeth so beware.
Mel has a lot of energy going into the first week...don't know where she gets the energy from. She has a student teacher to start the year with her, and a couple of new teachers she is mentoring. She is still involved with the curriculum writing. She still has too much on her plate. Seems Thornton Elementary was abuzz at open house when everyone found out Em wasn't returning. Parents started questioning if they should leave too. Check out Melinda and Em starting trends. I'm hoping they will help bring back 80's music and parachute pants (funny to see those at high schools again!).
Dad took off the first week of school to help ease back into the routine. Kind of nice havin' some time off. If I could win the lottery, I might be able to get used to this. Of course, I might have to start playing for that to happen.

Ready for school?

We are within a week of school starting back up and we are looking at each other trying to figure out what happened to the summer. Melinda went back to work this week. She was working on and off all summer. We had Emily's open house tonight at Academy (yes, we decided to try Academy this year with Em). Em's science teacher used to teach with Melinda, so we know her (Donna Beach). She is Molly Beach's mother...Elizabeth's buddy from preschool at Immanuel. Em has a couple of her soccer teammates in some classes. Em is excited and ready to start school. Em starts on Monday and Elizabeth & Erin start Tuesday. Erin and Dad started reading the Junie B. Jones series tonight. It was so much fun listening to Erin laugh when she was reading. She was laughing so hard, Dad had to help her finish reading a couple of chapters. Elizabeth is ready to rule the school in 8th grade. She is considering not staying in band because she wants to tryout for Kittens in 9th grade. In previous years, the high school wouldn't let kids in 8th grade band tryout for kittens (makes no sense to me).

Emily had her first soccer tournament this past weekend in College Station. Her select team tied 3 games and lost 1. Considering they have only practiced 4 times before the tournament, they did pretty well. Em is playing center midfield. Em really had fun having almost all of the girls from her team in our hotel room to mess around. She has a fun group of girls on her team.

Elizabeth's Birthday

We went back-to-back on the birthdays. We had a lot of fun with Elizabeth's day. We went shopping in Austin for clothes and then dinner at Nami (Hibachi). We were tired by the end of the day, but everyone had a good time. E had some good news with cheerleading...she is one of the fliers now. She was a little anxious about being thrown in the air, but settled into it and did great! She is pretty excited about cheer starting.
Emily started practicing with her select soccer team this past week. She had a great time. They scrimmaged with some 12 year old girls. Em stayed with them pretty well. She threw the ball in further than any of the 12 year olds. Had a coach ask me what we were doing to get her to throw the ball in that far...didn't tell him it was the gymnastics she has taken for a couple of years. We have a preseason tournament August 16 & 17th.
Erin has decided she is sticking with dance. She is taking hip-hop for sure and may take tap/ballet as well.
We have only 3 weeks left until school starts for the girls. Melinda has about 3 days off until she starts back. She has meetings & curriculum going on for the next 2 weeks until she is scheduled to return. Not sure where the time went...none of us are ready to go back. Get the feeling it will come whether we are ready or not.

Happy belated birthday to Tia Jill. Her birthday is the day between Erin and Elizabeth's. Hope your day was great, Tia!

Erin's Birthday party

This summer has flown by so far. We just had Erin's birthday party...it was a blast. Everyone has stayed busy, but not crazy...thank God! Erin had her party to celebrate the big number 7. We went to Build-a-Bear at the Lakeline mall. We had 5 girls go with us and a couple of younger brothers and sisters. The girls had so much fun. Everyone got to pick their favorite animal and clothes to go with it. I wasn't aware of the difficult decisions 7-year olds have to face..this purse or these shoes. This may be practice for later in life. Everyone decided and Erin loved her purple bear. After Build-a-Bear, we ate dinner at Macaroni Grill. All of the kids had a great time eating together. After that, we came home for cake and presents. Erin loved all of her gifts.
Once everyone had settled down after cake and presents, they decided a pillow fight was in order. We have a couple of videos of the girls getting into the fight...you've never heard so much giggling in your life. We finally got everyone settled in around 11:00pm for a movie. The last 2 awake were still going at 1:15am. We all got up around 7:30am...there will be some little girls crashing early tonight! We spent today at Hank's Town playing games. We are now in the middle of the 3-D Hannah Montana concert...jealous??? I believe I know the words to almost every Hannah Montana song now. Where did the 80's go??? Emily loves her bear as well. Emily did want it known that she beat Melinda once at Dance Revolution. The crown may have to be passed on...we'll have to wait and see. Elizabeth is really good at Dance Revolution as well. Don't think she competed against Mel. Next week is Elizabeth's turn. We will see what she decides to do for her birthday...stay tuned

Double Celebration

Hope everyone enjoyed their July 4th...we had a great time. We had Nana & Papa over and had ribs. Erin finally tried ribs and she loved them. Melinda took Emily and Elizabeth out to watch the fireworks. They had a lot of fun. The finale was their favorite part. Dad and Erin stayed home and watched the Boston Pops play and watched the firework display on TV. Erin thought it was great but wanted to watch Bratz Rock Angelz instead.
The fireworks were a prelude to the big birthday we celebrated the next day. Melinda turned 40! She had breakfast in bed (the girls got doughnuts and coffee for her). We took Melinda to a movie (Wall-e) and then out to dinner. After dinner, Melinda decided she wanted TCBY. So, we headed over for some frozen yogurt for dessert. It had been so long since we had TCBY, the girls didn't remember what it was. Everyone enjoyed their dessert, especially Melinda. Today, we are going over to Nana & Papa's for breakfast. The party continues...

Summer fun

We are into summer and having a blast. We have quite a few activities going on, but it's a lot of fun. We had a visit from Tia Jill and Julia. Tio Mike and Max weren't able to make it this time. We are ready for all of them to make the trip when they're ready. Here's the latest:

Erin - Erin and Elizabeth were asked to be in a commercial for a Temple family recreation & fun place, Hank's Town. They shot the commercial today and they had so much fun. The commerical is schedule to air Saturday, July 5th (Melinda's birthday). Erin believes this could be her big break. Look out Hannah Montana! Erin has been to the local waterpark, Summer Fun, and absolutely loves it. She has a summer pass & is ready to go 24/7. Erin is really excited about her latest Webkinz. She has been on the Webkinz website almost everyday now. Evidently it is really cool....I'm too old to know now. Erin has decided she wants to stay in dance and take hip-hop again.

Emily - Em just finished the University of Texas soccer camp today. Em and Dad drove to Austin every morning this week...Austin traffic is still horrible. The camp was from 9-3. Em got a picture with Coach Petrucelli (UT's head coach). Em thought it would be cool to show him the picture in 8 years when she starts to play for him and say remember when. Love her positive thinking. She did great at camp. A trainer from another soccer club, Cortney, was asking about where Em was playing. She is interested in having Em switch soccer clubs and join Lonestar Soccer Club with her. Em just made the select soccer team for Centex Cyclone in Temple. We will probably wait until next year to consider the switch, but it was cool to feel like she was being recruited. Em wore herself out all week.

She had a few friends that made it to the camp as well (Caroline, Ashley, Kaitlyn, Alana, and Valencia). I may be a little biased, but she was the best out there. Em is looking forward to spending a lot more time in the pool since soccer is over and it is hot!

Elizabeth - E has cheer practice once a week for 3 hours. She is still loving it. She probably loves it more now since Melinda is in charge. Mel has a couple of coaches working with the girls, so they are already looking better than last year. E has cheer camp coming up soon. She and Melinda will be doing that for a full week. E is true to her word....I want to hang out with friends, swim & not much else. That is exactly what she is doing. E has decided that Rice University needs to be included in the selections for colleges.

Melinda - Still busy with everything cheerleading. She has things beginning to take shape. She may begin to enjoy more instead of working to organize. Melinda has many projects for the house this summer. She will also be busy with a Math conference in Dallas for a week. Too much going on still....

Eric - Eric took the week off to go to the UT soccer camp with Em. Had a great time watching how many drills Em knew and had an easy time with. Driving every morning and afternoon in Austin traffic wasn't a lot of fun, but it was worth it. I got to speak with Chris Petrucelli (UT head coach) a couple of days. Intense guy that seems to really enjoy the kids. A buddy I work with and I were the only ones that stayed for camp each day for the whole time. The others were probably smarter for getting out of the heat.

School's out!

We made it through the final 2 weeks. There was so much going on I will try not to forget too much. The summer looks to keep everyone busy, but not crazy like during school. Here are the updates:

Erin - Erin made it to the awards ceremony. She wasn't quite sure she could wait to get her trophy. Thankfully, she did and received her trophy for all of her hard work reading. Nana and Papa were able to make it to the awards. Papa offered to take Erin's trophy off her hands, but she had a serious death grip on the thing. Wouldn't have had a chance prying those fingers loose. Erin's teacher, Ms. Tyson, has gone through the growth of the family first hand. She was Elizabeth and Emily's teacher as well. I'm sure she is going to miss not having another Chavez to look forward to in a future class...unless Dad needs to start over. Erin's dance recital was terrific. She had so much fun and it really showed. One of her buddies in dance is Emma Cox. Here's some trivia for you...Tia Jill babysat Emma's Mom growing up. The circle of events is amazing. Could this be the start of the 6 degrees of Erin???


I tried to include some video of Erin dancing...she is 3rd from the left. Erin is looking forward to swimming and playing with her DS Lyte this summer.

Emily - Em had an incredible year. She had so many awards they barely fit on the certificate. Em wanted them to include Gifted & Talented on the award. The GT kids had more work than their regular classmates (Latin, 3 books, additional work, etc). Looking at her certificate, I don't know where they would have put it...no room. Em is really looking forward to the University of Texas soccer camp in 2 weeks. She plans on reintroducing herself to Chris Petrucelli (head coach). She told me she was going to tell him her name and let him know she would be playing for him in about 8 years. He should probably start to know her name. Made sense to me. Em is looking forward to swimming, soccer camp, soccer tournament, and playing with her DS Lyte this summer.

Elizabeth - E finished the year strong. Her overall grade for the 1st semester was a 96. This is what they based her top 10% performance upon. The 2nd semester her overall average was a 98. She didn't let down and kept doing well. We are very proud of her. E found out the last day of school that she made the symphonic band again for next year. This is the school's top band. She was excited a couple of buddies made it this year with her. E received the award for Outstanding Student for symphonic band. Pretty cool since only 1 student receives the award. E received a certificate for participating in the Duke University Talent Search as well. E made the National Junior Honor Society for the 2nd year in a row. Fortunately, she seems to realize this is not an award you just get. You have to work hard all the time to keep your grades high enough to be included. E is looking forward to hanging with her friends at the mall, movies, or whatever. E has cheer camp this summer as well.

Melinda - Mel made it through the rest of the year. She is still working with some partners on math curriculum for the school district. She is neck deep in the cheerleader sponsor thing already. She is getting things organized for the year and for the cheer camp coming up. So much for the break...she hasn't taken a break yet. Mel had a great time with Monika and Kim on their getaway weekend. I suspect that's what helped Mel get through the rest of the chaotic year.