Basketball Season Starts

The basketball season started this past weekend with the Garfield High Jamboree. Noah got to suit up with varsity. He even got to play for a few minutes in the first game against O'Dea. These are the only photos we took during Thanksgiving weekend. We completely forgot to get the camera out on Thanksgiving Day. We didn't even get our Christmas card photo taken. Here Alyssa poses with her real brother and her surrogate little brothers, Kaleb and Shawn.

Noah listens intently during a time-out.

Since he's only a sophomore sitting on the bench during varsity games will be the norm. Most of his playing time will be when he plays JV. Noah was so excited to get into the game and play his first varsity minutes. He didn't even remember touching the ball till he saw this photo. He did well. He didn't turn the ball over, he made good passes, and he played solid defense. The regular season starts tomorrow. Good luck Eagles!

Good Bye Alexander

Our four weeks with Alexander flew by. I don't know if Noah's German or Alexander's English really improved much, but the boys did become good friends. Noah and his friends were very welcoming, and Alex was just part of their group. He went to football games, Homecoming, the Absolute Air Park (a warehouse filled with trampolines, Noah's fall league basketball games, and he had his first experience trick-or-treating. Alexander got the full Halloween experience by going to the pumpkin patch to choose his own pumpkin. Unfortunately his was so hard he had to borrow a small handsaw from Forrest so he could carve it. We also took Alexander to our friend's huge haunted house in downtown Seattle. He didn't seem to like it much. I didn't either. I did like the part where our friend who owns the haunted house business let us go behind the scenes for a special tour. Before his trip to the U.S. Alex had only played Xbox once. As you can see by the photo he loves it. Alexander and Forrest share a love of race cars so Forrest bought a racing game for the Xbox, and all three of my boys love it. Alexander flew home four days ago. His trip home took 25 hours (including a 4 hour layover in New York). I hope that we will be able to visit him sometime in Stuttgart, and we told him that he always has a place to stay with us if he ever comes to Washington again.