Erin is 14!

Our big girl turned 14 on Sunday!  While people often say "where has the time gone?", I tend to think that it feels like she's been around for about 14 years.  Not to say that in a bad way, but Erin has done so much and has been such a big and wonderful part of our lives for a long time now - it feels like about 14 years!  

She's had an extended "birthday season", as we like to say, beginning on Saturday the 15th.  We had a really fun time at the Buddy Walk with Elliott and family in Charlotte and then got to visit and celebrate at their house after!  

Phase 2 of Erin's birthday celebration was on Friday the 21st, when friends Olivia, Vera, and Elena came over to hang out during the teacher workday and then we all went to Kabuki for a memorable birthday dinner.  Olivia and Vera wanted sushi and decided to order the "Sushi Titanic for 2", which was quite impressive!  I don't eat much sushi, but apparently a "sushi boat" is a thing...but this one was accurately dubbed the Titanic!  The girls had a really fun time going out together.  

Sunday was her actual birthday, and was filled with everything that Erin likes.  We started out with presents from us and waffles, then Mass, Starbucks, then a family hike at Hemlock Bluffs, shopping, and then Chipotle for dinner with cake and singing.  

The final phase of her celebration will be this coming Saturday when we will get to see Grandma and Grandpa Flanagan!  Erin has stretched this birthday into two full weeks!

So, what's new with Erin this year?  She continues to be an incredibly hard worker.  She is organized, meticulous, and always does the very best that she can do, no matter what the task may be.  We cannot ask for more than that!  Ballet and piano continue to be her passions outside of school, and we are very proud of all that she has accomplished in both.  She was invited to participate in a piano ensemble this winter with some high school students, and she is super excited about that!  She takes school extremely seriously, which is great in terms of her academics, but she finds other kids who don't feel the same way to be very annoying ;) She's become independent with school, which feels weird to me to not be studying with her like we used to, but it is a wonderful thing!

She's got her 3 best friends, as well as a few others who she also enjoys hanging out with.  She has fully immersed herself in the teen life of texting friends, hiding in her room, and maintaining music playlists on her phone.  We do not take this for granted, and it warms my heart when she throws a little attitude my way like a 14 year old should!  She isn't focused on earning money like Anna is, mostly because she is a saver - her allowance and gifts more than cover what she wants to buy.

This is her last year at her school, and we are in the throes of making the big high school decision.  She will visit Cardinal Gibbons in early November, as will Bob and I at a different time.  We are hoping that we will have a better idea of what to do after those visits.  It will be an exciting year ahead as she enters this fun and exciting time in her life!

September!

We had a great month!  We started out with Anna's first volleyball game of the season on the 1st, which they won!  With 2 games to go, her team is undefeated so far this season!  This year, there are 2 JV volleyball teams, and Anna only plays in the Thursday games.  The other team plays on Tuesdays.  It is actually quite nice to have Tuesdays off and only have half of the away games to deal with!  

We had a fun Labor Day weekend, beginning with a great day at Jordan Lake with the Summer cousins on Saturday!  We got a pontoon boat and had a great time swimming, tubing, and eating a picnic feast! 

 Bob and I enjoyed a Wolfpack Women's' soccer game on Sunday afternoon while Anna was at Addie's house and Erin was watching Finley.  It was a hot one and they didn't get the win, but we still enjoyed it.  After that, the 3 of us went to see our neighbor friends' (the Baileys) new house, just down the road.  It is beautiful!  Monday, we did some things around the house, Anna had volleyball, and Erin had piano.  

The rest of the week was mostly the usual routine, ending with a fun family tailgate night at Gibbons!  Saturday the 10th, the girls got flu shots and Bob headed to Ireland.  We ladies hung around the house the rest of the weekend, preparing for my trip.  Anna had friends Grace, Lyla, and Addie over on Sunday.  Grandma arrived on Tuesday afternoon, and Wednesday was my turn to fly to Dublin!  The trip recap can be found HERE.  

While we were gone, everyone at home did great and got everything done that they needed to do!  Grandma headed back Wednesday morning.  The rest of that week was the usual, plus the kids having their one-day retreats, where I helped with the lunches.  They had Friday off of school for a teacher workday, and Anna went to a fun party at friend Lyla's house that day.  Saturday, we showed the kids some local culture by finally taking them to Cook Out in Fuquay, meeting up with Bob's friend Praveen who was in town.  We had a nice, but cooler, boat ride on Sunday afternoon with Finley.  Only Anna was brave enough to get in the water!  

Anna also watched neighbor dogs Tornado and Sheeba for 4 days over the weekend.  

Monday the 26th was back to normal, including an away volleyball game in Chapel Hill.  I ended up being busy this week with 2 days volunteering in the cafeteria, helping reorganize the used uniform store at school one day, and helping with the fall teacher luncheon one day.  The kids were pleasantly surprised to have no school on Friday due to Hurricane Ian.  Most of Friday there was just light to moderate rain with some wind, both of which increased from about 4-8pm.  We did end up losing power around 8pm and played a fun game of Apples to Apples and then Hangman by lamplight (thanks to Bob's new UPS from work).  Thankfully, it wasn't hot, so losing power was not a big deal.  

Saturday, we had some delicious pour-over coffee thanks to Bob and did some cleaning up of the yard in the morning, then played Scattergories, then took showers (gas water heater for the win) and went out to Mexican for lunch and then some shopping at Target.  It seemed that our neighborhood was in a pocket of Holly Springs without power while most of the rest of our area had it.  After getting home, we relaxed and enjoyed the quiet, then decided we might as well go to church that evening.  After church, we were heading to get subs at Jersey Mike's when we got notifications that the power had been restored!  Yay!  It ended up being just under 23 hours without power.  Anna still went over to sleep at Sarah's as previously planned (her survival skills were running out).  We had to throw out a couple of bags of food from the fridge and 1.5 gallons of milk, but really we didn't lose too much.  All frozen meat was still frozen, so we just pitched the ice cream from the freezer.  As far as power outages go, this one was not that bad.  Our total rainfall in our rain gauge was 3.5", not including some light rain Sunday afternoon/evening.

So, that was September!  We had a highlight in the Ireland trip, plus some hurricane excitement at the end.  We are following our Wolfpack football closely, as they were ranked as high as #10 in the country before losing to #5 Clemson.  We are also enjoying following the Wolfpack womens' soccer team, as well as Gibbons football.  Fall is the best!