Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I hope you were able to find our family blog from the note in our Christmas card. Please leave us comments-all you need to do is click on "Comments" and you can leave a note for all of us or individually to a post. Please check back for updates. We decided this was the easiest way to share our lives with friends and family. Ryan is giving up baseball in the Spring which will free his schedule for college trips-so we may be looking you up! We're hoping to take a nice trip on Spring break, since we only have 2 more before they start heading off to college. We're a pretty tight knit group, sharing a house w/3 teens, lots of Guitar Hero and Rock Band. A big basement with a "baffled" home theatre is sounding pretty good about now. At least we like the music, hard to believe they're playing all our retro music. I need to get a video of that and put it up. Frank's pretty good on vocals!
PS-Be sure to click on the link to Katie's finish at state (above right)-sorry about the quality, but it captures the excitement-btw, it's sounds like Frank, but it's another dad yelling "KATIE!". We were just happy to be there, maybe next year we'll be better prepared to video.

Michael

Michael (13) is a 7th grader at TMS and is doing well. He seems to be growing faster than his brother since he is already 6'0". He is playing basketball for the middle school team now (need to get some pictures posted); which means Dad doesn't have to coach anymore (yeh!). He also had a great cross country season, too and is looking forward to track (the mile?) and some spring league basketball. When he is not busy with schoolwork or sports, he can be found playing XBox live "Call of Duty-V World at War", which appears to be his real passion. Anyone know if it's possible to make money being an expert at that?

Basketball

Ryan (17) is a junior at Tippecanoe HS and this is his first time playing on the varsity basketball team. At 6'5"+ & 200#s, he is the tallest player on the team and plays center and forward. He plays tough defense and gets his share of rebounds while keeping the opposing big guys in check. He usually scores inside but he has a consistent outside shot too. He says he is also cleared to shoot 3s, if it is "the right 3", according to the coaches. He has started the last few games, but shares play time with some of the other forwards. Tipp graduated two really good players last year - the leading scorer and the league's leading rebounder, so this year's team of mostly juniors is still trying to figure things out. Ryan appears to be in the mix, for now anyway and we are thankful for that.

Ryan inducted to NHS

Ryan was inducted into NHS this week. He's been keeping up with his grades, despite being busy with sports. Basketball has started and he seems to be holding his own as Tipp's biggest center, 6'5" & 200#s-wow, still remember him as a baby! I'll try to get some pics up soon.

Katie's amazing finish

Athlete of The Week: November 12th, 2008
WRITTEN BY MARK HOKE
WEDNESDAY, 12 NOVEMBER 2008 00:00
The selection for Athlete of the week is Katie Landwehr. Katie finished up her sophomore season by coming in sixth place in the State Cross County meet this past Saturday. The fact that she did so at such a young age is nothing short of amazing. When you throw in the fact that four of the five girls who finished ahead of her are seniors, then you get a real sense of what an accomplishment this was. Katie started running Cross Country as a 7th grader after she was approached by Coach Larson.

Up to that point she had never even considered it. As a freshman she made the varsity teams in both Track and Cross Country. At the beginning of the season she was running times in the 21 minute area. About half way through the season Coach Rohrer had her start running with the boy's team. From that time on, her times came down and her confidence went up. At the State meet she turned in a personal best time of 18:53. Katie stated that this has been her favorite season because, "the team was very close and we are all great friends. When I was at the State meet and saw all the people in the grandstands, it was very cool." Her future goals are to win state individually and as a team. Her current goal is to lower her school record in the 1600 (5:10) when Track season begins. Katie would like to thank her parents for supporting her in everything that she does, her coaches for helping to give her confidence in herself, her teammates for being such good friends and showing up at State. Lastly, the boys team for helping to get her times down. We would like to wish her luck next year and look forward to seeing her run when Track season comes along.

6th @ State Cross Country

Katie Landwehr uplifted everyone’s spirits by running a fantastic race to finish 6th place overall in the DII girls race with a time of 18:53, earning All-Ohio and podium honors. After finishing 3rd at last week’s Troy Regional, Katie was determined to beat the two runners who beat her at Troy at the state meet, and that she did. For most of the race Katie sat in 10th-13th place, but her fierce determination and competitiveness would not let her settle for that. In the final half mile of the race Katie quickened her pace, picking off a lot of girls and out-kicking several more in the final stretch as she entered the stadium for the final time. Katie’s 6th place finish comes after not even qualifying to the state meet the previous year, and her time came only a few seconds shy of the school record of 18:50 set by Melanie Grim. 4 of the 5 girls who placed ahead of Katie are seniors.

Landwehr finishes 3rd, moves on to State

The running conditions were ruthless to say the least at the Troy Regional on Saturday, October 25th. Runners had to battle through fierce winds of up to 20 MPH on their quest to a state tournament birth.
The Tippecanoe girls team finished off their season by placing 9th place in the Troy Regional. They gave it their best effort, but injuries have plagued them throughout the season. They lost two top 5 runners in Leah Schiller and Alex Mahan to injury early in the season. Jessica Bruggerman, the team’s usual #2 runner, also injured herself during the District race and wasn’t at her full strength Saturday.


Allison Chin finished 55th with a time of 21:27 as the team’s #2 runner. Team leader and senior Corrie Jones capped of an excellent running career by placing 70th with a time 21:45. Tracy Fujimura finished 73rd with a time of 21:48. Peyton Miller finished 74th with a time of 21:49. Jessica Bruggerman finished 88th with a time of 22:34 and Jillian Blakey finished 108th with a time of 23:12. 123 runners competed of the race.
The story of the day for the girls team was the impressive performance by Katie Landwehr. After placing 26th last year at the regional meet, Katie ran toe to toe with the region’s best, without feeling her best, and finished 3rd overall with a time of 19:20. Although she heads to the state meet as an individual, Katie will definitely have the support from her teammates who will continue to run with her this week at practice. Katie has her sights set on placing in the top 15 at state, earning All-Ohio honors and placing on the podium.

Exerpt from the paper:

The girls team qualified to the regional meet for the third straight year by placing 3rd in their race, beating Carroll by 1 point and losing to Alter and Northwestern. Katie Landwehr ran the best race of her career and broke the 19 minute barrier for the first time, finishing 1st overall with a time of 18:54, 14 seconds ahead of Alter’s Catherine Crisler. Katie led for almost the entire race with Crisler and Indian Lake’s Rachel Watt less than 10 meters behind. With less than a half mile to go in the race, Katie dared her competitors to run with her. She turned around, looked directly into Crisler’s eyes and confidently said, “Alter, come and get me”. Katie picked up the pace, but her competitors were unable to step up to the challenge.

The rest of the girls ran similar times from the CBC race last weekend. Peyton Miller finished in 20th with a time of 20:52. Jessica Bruggerman, Corrie Jones, and Allison Chin ran in a pack to round out their top five and finished 26th, 27th, and 28th with times of 21:11, 21:12 and 21:14. Tracy Fujimura finished 41st with a time of 22:10, and Flora Hernandez finished 45th with a time of 22:22. 76 runners competed in the race.

The girls team is looking to improve on their 5th place regional finish from last year and finish in the top 4 to qualify to the state meet, but they will definitely have to drop some time if they want to do that. Tipp enters the regional meet with the 5th best top 5 average time in the 16 team field. Individually, Katie Landwehr should dual it out with rival Angela Klimklowski from West Milton for the regional title. Katie didn’t even finish in the top 16 last year to qualify to state individually, but has improved dramatically since then. The girls team is an underdog to qualify to the state meet, but they have a lot of fight in them and will leave it all out on the course on Saturday at Troy.

Come & Get ME!

Ryan had his last JV game Saturday and had a great game, finishing his season 7 & 1. JV played the last quarter in Friday nights game. Varsity's last game is Friday night and we should have a playoff game on the following week.
Katie was 1st in District, setting a new PR of 18:54, improving last week's time by 14 seconds. Right after the race, coach pulled me aside. He said in the last half mile, Katie looked back at her nearest competitor and said, "Come & get me, Alter", as she pulled away from the Alter Catholic "gang of 5". Coach gave the quote to the paper and said I've heard some good ones, but that beats all-he was very proud of her! (Btw, he's about 60 years old). She had a nice write up in the paper. Next Saturday is Regional and she's 4 seconds off from the top runner, so it should be a very exciting race.

Homecoming

Homecoming started with our football game being "Dayton's Game of the Week"-both teams undefeated. It was an exciting game, however, we lost. Ryan had a good JV win Saturday morning, although it was tense. Katie and Michael had to catch a 6am bus to run at XC Conference. Michael shaved another 10 seconds off his PR to finish his season with 11:40 for the 2 mile. He had an outstanding 7th grade year @XC and is looking forward to basketball tryouts, then track in the spring. Ryan went with Drew to the dance, as friends and had a good time.



Katie took 20 seconds off from her last race to finish 3rd with a 19:08. She is ranked 2nd for our District and Region, since we have the top runners from our region in our District. This Saturday she competes in District and should easily advance to Regionals the following week. Assuming she has good runs, she should go to State on Nov. 1 and is currently ranked 17th in our Division. As a team they're ranked 5th, so it will be hard for all to advance to Regionals. However, if they can be in top 4@District, they should advance to state at Regl. Katie went with a group of girls to the dance. They had dinner at Waffle House and a sleepover afterwards. Sunday they had Student Senate dance cleanup. Katie had a long run Sunday afternoon. Homework, PSR, etc. Long weekend, everybody tired this morning.

Ryan is having a good year at football. He hold snaps for extra points for varsity and plays some QB on Friday nights, as the backup for the Senior QB, who played last year. Saturday mornings he plays QB and safety for the JV to get ready for next year.

Michael broke 12 yesterday finishing 20th in 11:50 for the 2 mile, and 5th for Tipp at Conference. He took off over 20 seconds from his PR (personal record) and they finished the season undefeated. He is looking forward to basketball tryouts and then track in the Spring.

Katie finally had a good run Saturday-2nd in Miami county, just 20 seconds behind a senior that finished 14th @ State last year. Unfortunately, the girls team is plagued with injuries, so she probably will have to go it alone. Though, she'd much rather have her buddies advance to the finals with her. Coach has her running w/JV boys now and only competing twice a month, so they can train harder. Our boys varsity finished 5th at state last year, and have been working hard to be first this year. In 2 weeks they run at Conference, then on to Districts finals.

XC

Michael has 2 more runs and he's tearing up the course. He's been able to keep pace with our best 8th graders, despite only taking up running in August. As a team, they win every meet. He comes off the race, laughing and happy-no puking or sideache. Looks to be a natural. He got his 1st medal by finishing as the 2nd 7th grader.

Ryan's team is undefeated in football. He holds for the kicker at Friday night varsity games and usually plays QB last quarter. Saturday morning he is JV QB and plays safety on defense.