Homecoming 2010

Life back in the U.S. high school system = Homecoming in the fall. The football game was on Friday....and we lost miserably to the #1 ranked team in the state. Who plays the #1 team for your homecoming game? Anyhow, the final score was 48-7. (yikes) The band put on a great half-time performance and the cheerleaders yelled their hearts out, even though the football team was being creamed on the field. The Homecoming King and Queen were announced at half-time and the Homecoming court was also introduced. Most of the Homecoming royalty were very active in the school...either in the band, FBLA or athletics. I have to say it was odd not knowing any of the kids' names mentioned. At our little international school in Norway, we would have known EVERYONE....here, I am just happy to know the immediate circles of friends the boys have.
Saturday night brought the Homecoming dance. Both of the boys were asked by their dates. Tim was actually asked by three different girls. Who would have thunk it? :o) There was a large group of freshmen girls that got together and decided how the night would go. Tim got a text message from his date telling him where and when to show up for pictures, where they were all going to dinner, etc. So Tim's job was easy...just show up and pay for everything. :o) The freshmen group met at Shadow Lake shopping center in Papillion, NE for pictures and then went back to Bellevue for dinner and to the school for the dance. Tim's date's name is Lauren and she was a cutie. Joe met her when they were taking pictures and told me, "I am proud of Tim. His date is hot!" lol
Joe, on the other hand, got together with some of the sophomores he hangs around with at one of the girl's house. They had pizza there and then went to the dance. They then went to someone's house after the party as well. Joe's date was Peyton...the one with the turquoise dress that I could find a tie to match. So he matched Kate's dress instead. Egads.
They both had a great time and danced the night away. Until next year....(at least then I'll know a bit more of what to expect!)

Littlest Daisy Scout

Lily has taken the plunge and is a Daisy Scout. This is the precursor to Brownies, for those of you my age....they didn't have Daisies when I was growing up. Anyhow, she has a meeting tonight and was supposed to wear her uniform to school today. I thought she looked kinda cute and wanted to share these pictures I took before she set off for school. There were only 4 kindergarten girls interested in Daisy scouts this year, so they combined the 1st grade and kindergarten together. Unfortunately out of the 10 girls in the troop, 3 of them are named Lily! What are the chances?? So Lily is now Lily Su at Daisies. :o)

from our yard....

Here are a few random pictures from our yard. The sunset on a day where the storm clouds were gathering, and a picture of Lily and Rich trying to conquer the weeds in our yard (it's going to take awhile!)

Happy Birthday Tim!

Tim is 14 today! He was pretty excited to be the same age as most of the other freshmen...finally! He has grown and changed so much in the last year....many of the people who meet him here mistake him for being much older. He has grown an inch and a half since July 1st, so he's still sprouting up. As an avid hoopster, that's just how he wants it. He always tells me that 6'6" would be good but he'd be happy with 6'3" or 6'4". I don't know where he thinks he'll get those giant genes, but ya never know. :o)

What did Tim get for his birthday? A lot of books on basketball. He loves to learn about the nuances of the game. He knows so much trivia, it amazes me. He got another Celtics t-shirt (I guess you can't have too many of those) and then a Creighton basketball hoody. (just in time for the cooler weather that rolled in yesterday) For those of you who don't know about Creighton...it's the #1 basketball school around here. It's a Catholic university that has a wonderful medical/dental/health field programs. Tim wants to go into nutrition and personal training. It's 20 minutes' drive from our house, so I am somewhat hoping he gives it a look. :o)

Anyways, I am very proud of the young man that Tim is becoming. He is really coming into his own with school and sports. He's a great big brother to Lily and I think our neighbors may want to adopt him. :o) (Their boys have left home now and Tim goes over almost every night after dinner to play basketball with their dad.) I look forward to seeing what he can do during his high school years. He is really blossoming here and I love watching it.

Happy 14th Birthday, Tim! We love you!

Lily's Elementary School Carnival

Lily's elementary school had their big PTA fundraiser on Friday...a huge carnival. The weather was supposed to be horrendous, but with a few hundred prayers being lifted, the rain and thunderstorms held off until everything was done. Lily had a blast going around and playing games. We now know that if being a chef doesn't work out for her, she can always win prize money throwing toilet paper rolls through a hanging toilet seat. She was really quite good at that! Who knew?

Tim volunteered an hour of his time running the basketball toss area. He was pretty excited that he got selected for that booth!

Joe was off with the varsity football team. They had a game in Kearney, NE, which is almost a 3 hr drive from here. Joe doesn't play football but was there as a student athletic trainer. He told me as I was dropping him off at the school for the buses that he was riding up on the cheerleader bus. Wow. Rough life! He came rolling in at 2 a.m. but estatic because his high school team had won. Way to go T-birds!

Cornhuskers...they are a breed apart! :o)

Okay, we have been in Nebraska for a couple of months now. We love it so far. We noticed that there's a lot of red things around here....seems like there are a lot of red pick ups...everyone wears red shirts. There aren't any professional teams here in Nebraska....no NFL or NBA teams...or even MLB. So college sports are very big. Here in Omaha, the high school teams are really big. People without kids come to the tournaments and games to watch a high level of sports play. But Saturdays during the fall, it seems that all of Nebraska comes together to cheer on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Cornhuskers. Their colors are red, white and black. UNL flags are seen flying in almost every yard and every native (and even some that aren't native to the state) are wearing red. I have to say, we have purchased shirts for each of us so we aren't banned from the neighborhood. There are signs up everywhere in support of the cornhuskers. We took a ride to Fremont, NE this afternoon (about an hour northwest of Omaha) and we went by a house that I just had to stop and take a picture of. You don't see a blow up cornhusker in every neighborhood, but this one made me grin. They are hard core about Husker football here. By the way, they were added to the Big 10 (which is really the Big 12, right...since there are more than 10 teams?) and they have won their last two games. Go Big Red! :o)

A few pictures of our house

Before I get anymore polite but persistant emails regarding not having shown you all pictures of our new home....here they are. Now, please remember it is still a work in progress. Most of these pictures were taken at the end of August. We are still waiting on delivery of a few items that were "lost" by the storage folks in Colorado five plus years ago. There was a lot that needed to be done to this house to make it a bit more liveable. However, we are slowly but surely making it our own. :o) Thanks to Craig's List...something that wasn't widely available or maybe didn't even exist when we left the U.S. in 2005, we have bought some gently used furniture to fill up some spaces in our house. In fact, I just got back from a trip to Fremont, NE (about an hour from here) to pick up an entertainment center for the basement...so as I said, everything is still evolving...but you get the gist.



the spare room/computer room/crafting room in the basement



basement spare room



The basement



the basement



the basement



the basement - with Joe and his friends Tanner and Zac hanging out watching the FIBA semifinal game



the basement - Lily's area



Tim's room



Tim's room..by far the coolest room in the house. He put a lot of thought and planning into his "Celtic" room.



Tim's room



Tim's room



Lily's room



Lily's room



Joe's room (still a work in progress as he hasn't hung much)



Joe's room - the sliding door goes to the hall bathroom that the kids share



The master bathroom



The sitting room off of the masterbedroom...which is Rich's office.



The rest of our new bedroom set - we still don't have things hung up on our room either...



Our new sleigh bed (which I LOVE!)



The desk nook between the kitchen and the formal dining room.



The kitchen



Tim in the kitchen



The family room



The entry way (what you see when you enter the house via the front door)



The formal dining room



The hearth room (off the kitchen)



The formal parlor...which is still a work in progress due to missing piano and needing to hang the pictures on the wall.