First Day of School

We have a high school student! Wow! Welcome to the hamster wheel of high school activities! It really didn't take as long to reach this milestone as I thought it would. It seems like just the other day I was taking their picture as Savannah was entering 2nd grade and Duncan was entering Kindergarten. Savannah was pretty excited this morning. Of course, with band camp the last 2 weeks she feels like she has already started high school! I think Duncan would have been happy to extend the summer vacation, though. He has his first Cross Country practice this afternoon so it should be fun to hear how that went. I am glad that official practice has started because I don't think my achilles tendons can take anymore running for a while.

What did we do this summer?

Remember when summer used to take forever? Not this year!!! We've had a very busy summer out here in Iowa. Savannah has had a part-time job this summer on top of taking Driver's Ed in June and beginning band camp in August. So, the parents feel like their nice relaxing summer has been highjacked and the brother has wondered what happened to his big sister! We did manage to get in a few family moments, though. We spent Memorial Day weekend at Custer State Park in South Dakota and we camped with my parents at Palisades Park on the other side of South Dakota. Duncan and Savannah's favorite part about South Dakota is all the rocks. We have quite a deficit of nice rocks to climb on here in Northwest Iowa so finding great rocks to climb is a real treat. This particular rock is at Sylvan Lake in Custer State Park.

Band Camp

The last week of Band "Boot" Camp is almost over for Savannah. This has definitely been a full immersion experience! Camp started August 3rd and has gone 6 days a week since then. This picture shows them preparing for the day with a few warm-ups. (I wonder how many of the kids fell asleep?) The first week of camp was pretty trying for our new freshman, but she came home last Friday night (9:30pm) with a big smile on her face because the show was really coming together. It is really neat to see her be able to appreciate this unique experience. Can you find her in this picture??? She is the the 2nd person back on the line (white shirt, blue shorts).

Cordry Family Portrait

Whoops! This picture is a little old, but it will have to do for a while. This was taken about 2 years ago at one of our 1st degree mid-terms. Savannah is now (nearly) my height and Duncan is about as tall as Savannah is in this picture. We are all 2nd degree black belts now (but the belt doesn't look any different).

Now we're blogging!

Welcome to our blog. We thought we would give this thing a try and help our friends and family keep closer tabs on us. Pictures at Christmas don't really show how much the kids have changed! :-) They also don't keep everyone up on what's going on.