Ashlee GRIT Award

Each month at the girls school they give out GRIT awards at a morning assembly.  Mikayla got a coupe GRIT awards a few months ago and this month Ashlee received one for Focus.  Her teacher talked about how she is always focused on the task at hand and always does what she should be doing.

Ashlee is in the pink sweat shirt. It happened to be pajama day at school too.

Young Women in Excellence

Tonight our ward had their Young Women in Excellence Program.  This is were each girl 12-18 has a table and they talk about one (or more) of the young women value(s) projects they have completed or are working on completing for the year.

Ashlee talked about a few projects that she completed or is in the process of completing.  They were:

Organizing and conducting a Easter Brunch and Egg Hunt for the ward
Doing Family History work.  She has 20 names to take to the temple
Participating and performing in the Stake Elijah Performance
Making a Quilt (still working on it)

She is moving quickly through her Personal Progress.  I don't think she has very much of her book left to complete.  And she still has several years left in Young Women's.  She is doing well.

Ashlee's Soccer Party

Ashlee had her end of the season soccer party tonight at Rico's Pizza.  They each got a medal.

Ashlee in gray sweatshirt

Ashlee in gray sweatshirt and her friend Lauren getting ready to hand a medal to someone.

Ashlee's team and coach.

Soccer Tournament

Ashlee and Mikayla both played soccer for the city league this fall. At the end of the season they always have a two day tournament.  This weekend was the tournament.  They both did well.  You can see how much they improve in just a few months.  

Ashlee has never played goalie, nor did she have the desire to play goalie, but her coach put her in that position and she did extremely well.  During games I would hear other people on the sidelines watching the game say things like "Man, no other goalie would have got that", "Good job goalie".  One parent at their last game said she deserves an award for MVP.   She surprised herself and surprised all of us.  Her coach ended up saying that he thought she was probably one of the best goalies in the league at their end of the season party.  She stopped lots of goals. 

Ashlee's team played some tough games, but got knocked out of the tournament.   Mikayla's team took third place in the tournament.

For some reason, I didn't manage to get any pictures of Ashlee's team, I am a bad mom.  Here are some of Mikayla's team.

Mikayla Second player from left.

Mikayla second player from left with her medal on.  Third place in the tournament.

First Basketball Game of the Season and Ever for that matter

10/22/2014-  Ashlee and Mikayla have never really tried to basketball or have even had an interest for it.  This weekend they decided they wanted to try out for the school basketball team.  After their first day of tryouts they decided they liked it, so they tried out again on Tuesday.  Today they found out that they both made the team.  This was a teaching moment...you never know until you try and if you don't try you will never know.

Fast forward to 11/2/14 now.  That is the day of Ashlee and Mikayla's first basketball game of the season, and first game ever for that matter.  And to top it all off, their first game was against their friends from their old school Whitmore Charter School.  When they arrived to the game, their friends from their old school were out waiting on the curb for their bus to arrive.  Their bus driver told them "look girls these girls are friendly"  (he didn't know that they were waiting for Ashlee and Mikayla to get off the bus.

Mikayla's team played first, and their was  one point in the game where she was having to block her best friend Allison from her old school and they were laughing and giggling down the court, they couldn't keep a straight face.  Then Mikayla attempted to score a basket for her old school (I guess she thought she was with them), luckily it didn't make it in, but that made for more laughs.  Mikayla's team ended up winning their game.  Here is a picture of her with some of her friends after the game.

Brooke, Mikayla, Allison, Jordan and Heather

Ashlee's team played next.  They won as well.  You could tell that Ashlee was afraid to block her friends from her old school.  She didn't want to be aggressive or get in their way because she knows them and they are her friends.