Womens' Varsity Choir UIL Competition Junior Year

I was so incredibly sad to miss this competition. It was at the exact time of our son's District Track Meet. If we knew how every race would finish then maybe one of us could have gone and been with her and then the other been with our son.
That being said they did amazing.
It is awesome that they won Sweepstakes  for both the stage and sight reading.
They work incredibly hard. Often missing lunch or advisory where they could be working on school work in order to practice their pieces for competition. 

I am truly thatnkful for photographs. While it is not the same as being there, it is wonderful to have a glimpse of their day.

This is my favorite one, that is my daughter bowing (humbly) in the front row. She cracks me up, such personality. She was so excited. We got home from the track meet that evening and she still had tons of homework to catch up on. Of course it took over 30 minutes to reel her in for focusing on the task at hand.
Choir Rocks~

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District Track Meet High School Day 2

Now this is the boy I know. Less stress, just back in the zone and joking with a team mate

I can still see that he is nervous but he doesn't seem like the weight of the world is on his shoulders. His fellow team mate made it to the 400 m race, which ran again to place for the top 3 from 8. While he didn't make it, it was an honor to watch him run. Gotta be tough to now a couple hours later compete again and we prayed he would have enough endurance to help his fellow team. 

What is different about this race is one of the guys had never run with them before. I know that made them a little nervous. The hand off in this is truly important.

I love how the coach chats with them. They have this, they can do it~

He will run the third leg

Waiting for his team mate to run in, this has to be the longest nearly 2 minutes.. He did amazing. He ran his leg in 51 seconds. His best time for a 400 m. I was filming the race and wanted to get lap four of his team mate. I saw him exit the field a little wobbly. By the time his team mate made it around he was going down. I am thankful that the security at the gate let me go in to be there when he woke back up. I am so grateful for amazing coaches that understand this doesn't happen every time. There is no risk to him physically and that we have no answers as to why it occurs. All doctors have cleared him to run and since he has been back on the track we have seen less episodes. Sometimes I feel like if he got enough mileage in every day that we wouldn't see any episodes. Its almost like his body reboots. I pray over the summer we can continue to eat more and more non processed items. Come up with breakfast and lunch that is completely home made and help him build more muscle and become even stronger. He amazes me. I just can't even know what he truly goes through. I do have trouble with seizure like activity but I can't say that I would want to run and compete knowing that is a risk at the end of each race. I am thankful for his faith in the Lord and that he seeks him for guidance.

Winning Track UIL after being off for two summers and a full school year, felt great! He got his celebratory chocolate shake from Whataburger after his meet. Sure was hard getting up for school Friday morning. What a truly busy week.

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District Track Meet High School Day One

District Track Meet. I could see as he walked around how nervous he was. This is what it leads up to from all season long. Two final races. A 400 today and a 1600 Meter Relay the next day. Having this the day after Choir UIL and not feeling like that went well was pretty tough.

He did this a few times before the race. He just kept praying. He couldn't seem to find his peace.

He led prayer for his fellow teammates. I am so thankful to see this, I love how they support one another.

He ran the 400 m race, there were three heats, he did not get to run with his team mate in his. He scored 53 seconds but it just wasn't good enough. He would not go on to race again the next day for the top 3 spot out of 8. I know he was disappointed.

Concellation was a stop at Ross for new shoes, because he needed some and it would cheer him up. Then a stop at Five Guys and Fries. He was craving them. Told me his body was depleted in potassium. The guy was so awesome. He filled the bag and talked to him about track. 

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Junior Year Choir UIL

Today was mixed choir and men's choir competitions for UIL

In between we stopped and snapped some photos

We didn't have long, so we didn't get very many. Men's choir was getting ready to do sight reading.

The women's varsity choir performs tomorrow. I won't be able to get photos since it conflicts with the District Track Meet.

Sometimes they just act funny.

The girls always take such beautiful photos

This is one of my favorites.

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Academic Decathlon

Jakob is part of the Academic Decathlon at MWHS, he seems to really enjoy it and has really grown in the last few years with areas such as interviews and speeches. It requires a lot of extra attention with school because you have to learn so much in a short amount of time. Their school took 3rd place again this year. In a way it is bitter sweet for him as this is his last year to participate and he would have liked to have gone to State. However, he has competition for Skills USA the weekend that Acadec is at State so he now has the opportunity to go try again there this year.

This year we had a ice storm the morning the first competition was to be held so they had to cancel it, at first they thought the event was cancelled altogether but after lots of planning on the part of the coordinators they managed to pull the event together for the Saturday- it would last over 8 hours

For Jakob he didn't feel he did as well as he would have liked to. I think he did really well considering every class he has this year is AP, its senior year with lots of added stress and he has been working hard to also get scholarships for college together too.

Normally the hosting school would have an award ceremony but since the competition went until 9 pm that evening they did not have this advantage so medals were handed out in class and the school district recognized the students from both local high schools at their School Board Meeting.

I am very proud of all the students and pray Jakob does really well this coming weekend in Beaumont at the Skills USA competition where last year he took third in Technical Math. 

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Academic Decathlon

This past weekend the High School held an Academic Decathlon. It typically takes place over the course of 2 days. With our crazy weather here in Texas we had to cancel school on Friday and we thought the competition would also be canceled. With the help of so many volunteers the competition was held in its entirety on Saturday. It made it a very long day for the students. I was so proud of Jakob. He has come a long way in his competition skills. He is so much more confident than he was a few years back and that was apparent in this years interview, where he nearly scored a perfect 10. He got 3rd place in Economics and was the top scorer overall for our school.

Our high school took 3rd place overall, they can go to state and oversee the competition there. Jakob will likely opt to compete at the Skills USA competition that same weekend. Last year he competed in Technical Math and did very well. I am praying he has even more success this year.

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