Max is still all about Football!

Just in case you are wondering what Max is up to, Football is still dominating all of our lives, Max has practice 3 - 4 nights a week for 2 1/2 hours. Then he always has a game on Sunday that goes for 2 hours plus he has to be there an hour early (so make that 3 hours). Its a really good thing that he loves it!

Standing with his team before the game.

Max is number 39 on the left side of this picture . . .

I keep threatening to tie a pink bow around his helmet, because I can never tell which one he is out there!

Brenda and I watching the game.

Thank God for nice weather last weekend!

Brenda's son Brennan is also in this picture, he is one of my 5th graders this year!

Max was team captain for this game.

I think it is so cute when they walk out to the middle holding hands!

Max is on a 4th and 5th grade team. He is a 4th grader this year, but has a summer birthday, so he could actually be a young 5th grader. His team has absolutely dominated EVERY team that they have played. In fact, Pop Warner has a rule that they can never out score the other team by more than 28 points or they forfeit. We spend most of our games trying to find ways not to score more than 28 points. Max always starts off playing on the offensive line, but after they get up by a few points, they start moving the kids around to all different positions. He is getting to try a lot of different things. Like I said, he is having a Blast and so is Coach Pancho!

Whats wrong with me?

Anyone know why My pictures show up looking normal when I am creating my Blog post, then when they are posted they are about 3 feet apart!!!!????? Call me, I need Help! It took me about an hour to post this and I still couldn't get it fixed. It makes me not want to Blog and I am already falling off the face of the "blogging world" as it is! FRUSTRATED!!!!

Kelli's 40th Birthday!

My friend Kelli turned 40, so her wonderful husband Dan threw her a Birthday Party at Ring of Fire on Friday night. It was so much fun to have a night out with friends! It felt good to kick back, have a drink (mostly Diet Pepsi) & relax now that I have a few weeks of work behind me. The only problem? I was hanging out with the parents of many of the kids many class! Is that Bad? The partying teacher!

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The O'Hara Cougars!

Amy, Kelli and I


Me and P-Man!

Mini Murray Family Reunion!

Will, Sam, Max (holding Finn), Annie and Lucy

It was so much fun to have my two brothers, two of my cousins, an aunt & uncle and all of their families come to Eugene for our annual Duck Game reunion. The cousins had a Blast together, and I always love spending time with my "sistas" and my brothers too of course. We got the added bonus of my cousin Scott and his wife KayCee and new baby son Colin staying with us too!

Francine holding Colin and Julie (me) holding Finn

Will and Max at the Duck Game!

KayCee and Scott (my cousin) holding Colin

The cousins having an Oregon Duck Parade

Brenda painted Sam's Hair Green and Yellow! Max wanted nothing to do with this!










You know its a party when you have have cheerleaders and wine!











Max and the Cal cheerleaders! The only thing that would have made this picture better would have been if they were the Oregon cheerleaders.

The Oregon Duck came by and visited our tailgater!

Kate and KayCee the new mommies with their babies only about 2 weeks apart!
A view of out tailgate party!















"The Boys" playing their own game of football.

Me, Pancho, Francine, Sean, KayCee and Scott















Max, Annie, Lucy, Will and Sam on their Way to the Duck vs, Cal football game.














Pancho holding Colin. The youngest Duck fan in Eastern Washington

Football, Football and more Football!!!

The last two weekends have been mostly centered around one thing . . . FOOTBALL! We have gone to both home Duck games on each of the past two Saturdays, and spent both of the past two Sundays at Max's football jamboree and games. The next two weekends coming up are more of the same. It's a good thing that I like to watch football, of course I am not sure if I will still be saying that after a few more weeks of this! Luckily the Ducks won both of their home games and Max's team won all 3 of their Jamboree games last Sunday and came away with a 26 to 13 win last night (his team is really good!). Rain or shine, its all about football right now.

First Day of School (for all of us!)

The first day of school was a BIG day for all of us this year! Pancho took Sam to Spring Creek to meet his teacher Ms. Chang and to start his first day of 3rd grade. Luckily Pancho remembered to snap a few pictures on his phone! Sam loved his first day, and he thinks his teacher is really cool!

Ms. Chang and Sam

Sam in front of his school!

. . . at his desk on his first day of 3rd grade!


Grammy and Papa took Max and Lucy to their first day of school at O'Hara because it was also my first day as the 5th grade teacher there! We all had a great first day of school. Lucy was so excited to see all of her friends from last year and to be a Kindergartner this year. Max was pretty calm and unemotional about the whole thing, but he really likes his teacher and I can't believe he is in 4th grade already! Grammy and Papa had a great time going to coffee with the other parents in the cafeteria after drop off, I was so glad that they were there (I'll have to get some of my Dad's pictures to add to this post).

Lucy, Ady & Emma

Me (a little nervous on my first day)

standing with a few students in my class

Mrs. Mussio and Lucy

Sam had Mrs. Mussio too (and LOVED her!)

she is also our neighbor and her daughters babysit for us all of the time!

Lucy was so excited to get her as her teacher.

Mrs. Mahalak and Max

Angela (Mrs. Mahalak) lived in our old neighborhood

and we have been in a BUNCO group together for years!

Max was really happy to be in her class!



I had a GREAT first week of work! I have the best class EVER! All of my students are so sweet and so much fun. They are also really excited to learn and do cool projects. We have already made electric circuits and they have also used their individual clickers to do activities on the computer that I can project up on the screen for us all to do together. There are so many fun technology things that you can do with kids in the classroom now, and I am so excited to try all of them. The kids love it too. Pancho did all of the driving for our kids this week as well as laundry and grocery shopping (he gets and A+ this week). However, he will be out of town on business Monday - Thursday for the next 4 weeks in a row! I will be a working single Mom! So we will see if I am as excited about all of this next weekend at this time! I am just so relieved that the first week is behind us all and everything went pretty well. I'll keep you updated on next week though . . . if I have time!

Papa's Birthday & Marist Game

We went to Grammy and Papa's for Papas Birthday last Sunday. Mom made chocolate cupcakes for all of us and cooked the best dinner ever YUM!. The kids had so much fun playing at Grammy and Papa's (as usual) and we all watched the movie "The Cat in the Hat" together. It's actually a really cute movie, I had never seen it. So glad that we got to celebrate Papa's birthday with him!

Papa and Lucy

Sam was showing Papa the card that he made for him.

Happy Birthday Papa!

Blowing out his candles

(with help from his grand kids)

We also went to the Marist Football game last weekend.

We all had so much fun. Max's football team met there to play football and watch the High School Boys play. Sam found his best buddy Colin to play with and Lucy found Chelsea and Madeline. We couldn't drag the kids out of there when it was over, they were so entertained.

Marist won by like 40 points!

Chelsea, Madeline and Lucy

How Cool is THIS !?!

Our principal surprised us today with an all staff outing for lunch. She didn't tell any of us where we were going (we thought we were probably having a picnic at the park). We all loaded on a bus and to our surprise, we were taken to Autzen Stadium, where we were treated to a tour of the locker room and training room as well as lunch in Phil Nights skybox!!! Is my job cool or what?

Here I am looking like a dork, all excited to be in Phil Night's Skybox!

Here we are unknowingly heading to Autzen on a school bus.

The training room

The locker room was absolutely unbelievable

There were Big Screen TV's everywhere, pools that players can run on treadmills in, a waterfall, a snack bar, glass walls that cloud over at the push of a button, a dentists office, a pharmacy, and an x-ray room as well as all of the latest state of the art workout equipment!

a whole room dedicated to showcasing the plans for the new basketball arena

it is going to be soooo cool!

then we went up to Phil Knights skybox for lunch!

We watched the players practicing on the field!

some of my teacher friends making themselves comfortable in Phil's Box

the Oregon Ducks running off the field to go catch a plane to Boise

their first game of the season is tomorrow night!!!

a group photo of our whole staff

notice we are making the "O" sign for O'Hara!





After we ate lunch, we went down on the field and played a game of staff Kickball!

Mrs. Bert (our principal) kicking the ball for our team!

What a fun Day!

Suzanne, Ramona, Angela & Melissa

Angela and I

So I guess that if you aren't a Duck fan, this probably doesn't seem that cool, but to me it was an amazing day!