Here are a few recent events in our family:

Last Thursday, October 29, the freshmen girls' volleyball team played their last game of the season, against their archrival McLean High School. After losing the first set 23-25, the Langley girls orchestrated a dramatic come-from-behind victory, taking the second set 25-17 and the third 15-9. Ellen was the MVP of the match and was a beast on the net and at service. She faced off against a 6-footer on the other team, but consistently blocked her shots and had several kills. Despite McLean's effort a couple of times to "ice" Ellen's serve by calling a timeout, Ellen had a couple of runs of 6-7 serves each. It was a great way to end the season. And the whole family contributed, too, with the younger kids wearing customized Langley volleyball t-shirts, Barb snapping pictures, and me almost getting kicked out of the gym by giving the ref a hard time for making some blatantly poor calls.

On Friday, I flew out to Boulder to attend my 10-year law school reunion. I was in Colorado less than 24 hours, as I needed to be home by dusk to supervise trick-or-treating. This was Ellen's first year of not doing a costume or going out for candy. Instead, she stayed at home and watched some "horror" movies such as "The Nightmare before Christmas." The other kids and I made a good haul this year, despite rainy conditions.

The kids were off school two days this week for end-of-quarter teacher work days and parent-teacher conferences. Apparently, Julia is an angel in her class and has her first grade teacher wrapped around her finger. She's playing that teacher like a fiddle. Jacob needs to pay attention in class and do what is actually assigned, not what he thinks would be a better use of his time. Adam's reading is improving tremendously.

And yesterday, Ellen tried out for District Choir (soprano I). Tonight, she received notice that she made it! This story seems oddly familiar.....

Have a nice week, everyone.