More HHN, Disney, XC & a Job Interview

We had a nice week. Some highlights:

After work on Wednesday, Thomas, the girls and I went to Hollywood Studios. It was not very crowded and we had dinner and rode several rides. So many people come from all over the world to vacation in Orlando and I never take those quick trips for granted.

Thursday was Anna's night at Halloween Horror Nights. She doesn't like it the same way Kara and I do, but she does enjoy going once every year. Kara and I try and scope things out to determine what we think she will enjoy. We did 5 of the haunted houses (Ghostbusters, Museum, Sinema, Goblins, and Monsters). We had some themed snacks and dinner and rode rides. It was a very fun night. For some reason, the pictures are in reverse chronological order, but here they are:

City Walk photo opp.

Kara took this cute picture. I held Anna's hand through the scare zones.

Kara was back at HHN on Friday night to celebrate her friend Abby's birthday. Meanwhile, Anna had her first job interview! It was at Panera and she thinks it went well. She hasn't heard back yet as to whether or not she got the job. We celebrated the interview with dinner at the restaurant of her choosing--Red Robin. While we were doing that, Jack was at a football game with the band. We again picked him up early to try and let him get some extra sleep before his Saturday morning track meet. Thomas and Jack left the house around 5:45 Saturday morning for that. It was super foggy, which caused most race times to increase. However, Jack managed to shave off another 17 seconds. He ran the 3.12 miles in 19:26, finishing 59th out of 181 varsity runners (64th/358 if we include JV).  His team is currently in 4th place and only the top 4 move on to the post-season and the coach is slightly worried they could drop lower. Cross-country scoring is interesting, there are 7 varsity runners on the team. They all run the race, but only the top 5 scores count. Jack is currently the 5th place runner. His score has counted every week and the coach wants his time to drop into the low 18s to help the team be more competitive. Considering he started at over 21, that seems pretty ambitious to me, but we shall see. I don't think Jack can work any harder than he already is; he really wishes he had started running as a freshman.

Also on Saturday, Anna and I volunteered at the Special Olympics State Bowling Championship. We signed up to help with awards and it was a very cushy job. We brought medals out as scores were tallied and put them around the athlete's necks. 

Saturday night, Kara babysat. The rest of us enjoyed a quiet night in. I am way behind on my Goodreads goal, so I started reading some of the Sunshine State books to try and catch up. Those are the books Luke reads for the book club and (hopefully) Battle of the Books team. I finished two on Saturday. One of them, Penny Draws a New Best Friend, I thought was excellent and would highly recommend to elementary aged kids who may sometimes feel a little different or struggle with friendships. 

Sunday, we went to a Flying Tigers game. It was the first game in the Championship series. It was a very exciting game. The Cardinals took the lead in the 6th inning, but the Tigers rallied in the 8th to go up by one run and held off the Cardinals in the 9th. We intended to leave earlier, but couldn't walk out on such a nailbiter. We ended up getting home around 9pm. Luke spent some time on the outfield berm where he snagged a foul ball and got a ball thrown to him by one of the players. I think everyone had fun.