NPCC Christmas concert

On Thursday night, Cassidy and I went to North Platte to watch Kiane and Sasauna sing in the North Platte Community College choir's Christmas concert. There were some beautiful voices there. I had a deja vu moment, when Kiane started laughing during one of the songs....it seems like only 10 years or so ago that she did that at a Palisade concert!!! It just goes to show they grow up, but they are still little girls to me"The Cousins" .... Sasauna, Kiane, Kaleia, Cassidy and Leiauna

"The Sisters" ... Kaleia, Kiane and Cassidy

"The Roommates".... Shaylee, Ryann and Kaleia

"The Couple" .... Kiane and Eugene

Cassidy and her first junior high basketball game

Cassidy had her first jr high game in Madrid on Thursday. Wow. It has been a looong time since I have had anyone playing junior high basketball. It was exciting though. The A team lost but B team won. As you can tell below, Cassidy and her friend, Jasmyn, had a lot of fun!Cassidy and her very first free throw. Unfortunately, she didn't make this one...
but here she did!!

If the pictures had loaded correctly, these last three pictures would be in great order. The shot, mid shot and whoosh! basket made. I have an idea....let's just pretend they are in order as you look at the following shots!

Half Time Fun...

Recently Staci, Chase and I went up to watch the girls play basketball. Every once in a while, the NPCC guys play the same night, and so we decided to stay and watch Eugene play too. NPCC has a tradition, it seems, to have elementary school kids play with the basketballs during half time on the courts. Well, of course, Chase (being the sports nut that he is) had to participate. I thought okay, that is cool, no shyness in that boy! Then, I was amused to see that Kiane went down to play with him...then Kaleia.....and of course, Staci couldn't stay put in the stands either! Only they were the only people out there over the age of 12!! They originally went to play with Chase, but other little boys started to ask if they could play with them too. So, there you have it.........three tall Alberts' girls and kids who aren't very tall.

Kaleia

We got test results back for Kaleia.....I guess you could say it was good news. Her EEG and MRI all came back clear, but we now are on hold to see if she has another episode. Sometimes, I think, it is harder not having a reason for her stroke like symptoms than finding out she had epilepsy or multiple sclerosis. We will just have to keep the faith that it was a one time fluke!I went and watched the girls play Tuesday night in North Platte. They won against the Hastings JV, and it was a really good game. Kaleia got some good playing time and had a really good defensive game.

Seth

I was playing on the computer the other day, and found pictures from Seth that he downloaded from this summer of firefighting, and since I am the proud mother that I am, I decided I could post a couple on my blog! That sounds fair to me, how about you?Seth with his...I have no idea...but isn't that a spectacular view!
Who wouldn't want to sleep like this every night??!! Ah, to be young.....

Just a cool picture showing fire and the embers flying around. If you look real close in the lower right hand corner of the picture, you can see the silouhette of a Hotshot.

Seth is done with being a Hotshot this year. I have been informed that next year, he is trying hard to make it into the Smokejumpers, his ultimate goal. He might need one more year of experience to actually achieve his goal, so he may have to spend next year with a helitack crew, which is a whole other experience. While he waited to join his Hotshot crew last year after Staci's wedding, he spent over a week on the Helitack crew in Salt Lake City, and seemed to enjoy them.

School pictures

Okay, I know you were expecting to see Cassidy and Chase. I would rather you would only see them too. But, unfortunately, I have to get my school picture taken too. And, since the kids think that if their pictures have to be on the blog, so do mine!

Kiane and Kaleia and Basketball

Last weekend Staci and I went to stay with Seth in Omaha, and on the way back we stopped and watched the girls play basketball in Norfolk. We had an awesome time with Seth in his extremely under furnished apartment ( and hey, I didn't get lost once!), and found out he only lives a mile from a Gordman's! Now all the girls want to go visit him!

The girls did win this game, in case you were curious!

Definately tricks....and treats

On Halloween night, Cassidy and her good friends Jasmyn and Jordyn went to a costume party at Jacob Maris's house in Wauneta. The girls stayed over at Jordyn's and obviously had a good time. I think a "trick" was played on Cassidy while she slept! And by the looks of things, the culprits definately wanted to record it for posterity. You can see Jordyn taking her picture, and I wonder if Miss Jasmyn could be behind the other camera capturing this shot....what do you think?Here is a picture of a very giggly Jasmyn
A picture of the trio.....Jordyn, is dressed for Mardi Gras, Cassidy is in a bathtub with her bubble bath (thanks for the idea Leiauna!) and Jasmyn is dressed like a character from some book. I know I will hear from the girls that I should who the character is, but hey, remember I come from the age of the dinosaurs! :)

Couldn't resist putting this shot of Jasmyn on my blog. Let's just say, this one is for you, Charlie!

Just a little more....

Recently McDonalds (my second job) held McTeacher's Night in McCook for the senior high teachers. Every hour at every station a teacher worked at one of the stations at McDonalds. I was lucky enough to get Staci for one hour. As most of you know, she is student teaching this semester and continuing to teach algebra at McCook High School next semester. She did very well working the register and taking orders. She actually counts change better than her mother! (And yes, I am very short when standing next to her!)Seth is recently back from firefighting at Bonneville. I caught this picture of him and Cassidy and Chase playing football. The kids thought it was funny to pose for this, though I am not sure why. Seth is on his way to Omaha to work and live the off season, and I am definately going to miss him!

Cassidy and company

Today the junior high girls had another volleyball game in Curtis. Jasmyn is the teams score keeper, and she does a pretty good job! We went to watch the boys play football and I got these three to pose for me.

Cassidy, Jasmyn and Jordyn smiling nice and pretty at me....

...and the same girls giving me their silly faces!!! Can't wait for when they are seniors to whip these pictures back out!

Junior High Volleyball

The seventh grade girls....Abbie Fanning, Tailor Lee, Cass, Brooklyn Nordhausen, Jordyn Doetker and Secily Troutman.

Cassidy had her very first junior high volleyball game on Monday against Maywood. Her small, but mighty, team won. It is hard to imagine that there are only 9 girls total on her team. When her sisters played, the number was definately double that number, and more. It was definately easy to tell it was their first game, a little nerves showed, but they were still awesome. The same girls who couldn't serve the ball over the net last year definately were on an "ace" roll Monday. Here is my girl, #10, doing her thing serving. I wish now I had kept track of how many serves she had and aces, but I know she only missed a couple of serves! The best part is she knew what happened with the bad serves. Not bad for a seventh graders.
Cassidy and Abbie at the net.
Getting ready to go
Serve receive
Cassidy is very intent at the net

They're off to college.......

Recently I sent Kiane and Kaleia off to college at North Platte. They are both going to play basketball there for the Lady Knights. This is Kiane's third year there....she played volleyball the last two years and last year at semester joined the basketball team. She enjoyed it so much, that she decided to use her last year of eligibility at the junior college level to good use. What can I say? Three years of free education sounds good to me!!

Kaleia has always wanted to play basketball...it is definately her favorite sport! Not to mention that she is good at it (though I could be biased as I am her mom) :) So, she got recruited by Coach Thurin and off she went.

I got the chance to go and see the girls on Monday in North Platte. Of course, all of their roommates, (but one....except she was doing her hair, and was camera shy) had gone home for the long Labor Day weekend. So I just took pictures of the girls in their rooms.

This is Kaleia's room. She loves color, and what you can't see is the bright lime green bookcase she has just to the right.

And here is Kiane's room. She has decided to decorate her room with pictures. It is actually pretty cool.
I told the girls to change the pose from Kaleia's room, and this is what they decided to do. I hope to get pictures with the roommates sometime, and maybe actually meet the one I haven't yet.

Go Knights

Seth......mighty Wildland Firefighter...a true Bonneville Hotshot!

I have been thinking alot about Seth lately. I guess no matter how old your children get, you still remember them from the minute they were born. Time just goes by sooo fast! Seth has always been a fun, loving, independent, mischievious son!!! I truly swear half of my gray hairs are because of me, and the other half from the female version of him (you know who you are :). Anyway, I thought I would post some pictures of him in his official gear. October-November can't come soon enough for me, for him to come home! (Though maybe not, some of his ideas for off-time may cause me to age 10 years overnight!!! Seth and his fire torch (I can't remember what it is called. Sorry Seth.) This picture just makes me feel the heat.
I love this picture. It shows so much how fire just eats the trees. Seth has hundreds of fire photos, but for some reason this is one of my favorites.
This picture is of his crew from last summer. I love how they all decided to play hair decorator with their hair. Male bonding....what more can I say?

And then there's Cassidy!

I went through and realized I didn't have anything on our Miss Cassidy. She, more than any of my other kids, likes to hang out by herself. She spent last weekend with her friend and classmate Jasmyn. I stole this picture from Jasmyn's moms blog. Thanks Charlie! But don't you think Cassidy is looking all grown up? It is just so hard to believe that she will be in Junior High(!) in just 2 short weeks! Wow.

Harvest Fest Sand Volleyball

The girls played in the Sand Volleyball contest at Wauneta's Harvest Fest again this year. They always seem to have alot of fun.This is Kaleia's team. She played with her good friend Brittany O'Neil and Tanner Bardsley and Jess Vapenik.
Kiane, Staci and Matt played on the same team this year, with Eugene. Here you can see Ki blocking a good shot from a team from Trenton.
Matt and Kiane (you can just see her legs) dove hard for this ball!