See the November “Family Faith Sharing Questions” flyer to get your family prepared each week for Sunday Mass. The reflection questions are based on the Sunday gospel readings.

The Valley Catholic Middle School Track team competed Saturday, Oct. 30 in the Oregon Middle School State XC Championships. Made up of students from both the Middle School and Elementary School, everyone worked hard and represented Valley Catholic well. Coach Joe Manning expressed pride in his 19 team members ranging from grades four through eight. They practiced twice a week to run as a group and competed in seven different local meets. This is the second year that the Middle and Elementary Schools have shared this team.
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The Halloween Carnival on Oct. 29 heard the laughs and giggles, as well as screams, from the haunted house. All of this was not possible without the massive amount of help from all the volunteers. Valley Catholic Elementary Carnival Co-chairs, Steve and Amy Aragon have made a flyer to say thanks to everyone.

The Valley Catholic Elementary Scholastic Book Fair is scheduled the week of November 15th through the 19th. We’re thrilled to offer this educational experience to our students. This year’s theme is “Here’s to our Heroes! Reading Saves the Day!”

We invite your entire family to participate by visiting us during Book Fair week. You and your child will get the chance to purchase bestsellers, Newbery and Caldecott Medal-winning books, chapter books, picture books, and hundreds of other items only available at the Scholastic Book Fair. I will be sending home a Book List with each student to give you a preview of the books at the Fair. We would love for you to visit the Fair in person, but if you cannot, you may place your order by using the Book List order form.

Read more by downloading the VCES Elementary Scholastic Book Fair Flyer.

Some important news from the Scrip Team — November is a short month for school, so Scrip sales will be a bit more limited than usual. The only two days to place an order for Scrip are November 16 and November 30. These are for the long form orders that are due Tuesday mornings at 8:00 a.m. We will be selling Scrip for your convenience in the elementary school entry way Tuesday, November 9, and Tuesday and Wednesday, November 16-17 as well as November 23-24.

We will place the order the week of conferences, and deliver them to school on Thursday, November 18, by lunch time. We will do our best to get them delivered to all families for the weekend! We will also have order forms available at the conferences for parents to take. Please look over the form for some great retailers, from grocery stores, coffee stores, and lots of stores at both Washington Square Mall and The Bridgeport Mall. The holidays are coming, so please purchase Scrip!!

As soon as classes start again the week of November 29th, you will be able to place the orders for the Teacher/Staff Holiday Scrip program. Watch for these details in the next couple of weeks with the most updated list of all of our awesome teachers and staff members. Say thanks with the gift of Scrip!! See the latest Scrip flyer and order form.

Valley Catholic Elementary is looking for a Haunted House chairperson for next year! This is one of the most fun events at the VCES Annual Halloween Carnival. We’re looking for someone with creativity, energy, enthusiasm and a willingness to work with others to create an awesome, but not over-the-top scary, haunted house. We want to fill the position now, so that we’re ready to roll on the planning right away for next fall. For more information, please e-mail Laura Schultz.

The Student Council Judges' Favorite pumpkin, "Boo Avenue" by Anna Noll in 4P.

~Written by Victor Agostinelli, Yearbook Staff Writer and Student Council Representative

In late October, the Valley Catholic Elementary Student Council held their second annual Pumpkin Decorating Contest. There were many entries from all grade levels and several different categories for the contest. There was a Trailblazer, a Frankenstein, a pirate, a cowboy, and even a Biggest Loser set! How funny is that! The five categories were:

1. Best Small Pumpkin
2. Most Halloweeny
3. Most Humorous
4. Miscellaneous
5. Judges’ Favorite

After dividing the pumpkins into groups, the Student Council handed in their ballots. The next day during the school announcements, we found out who the winners were!

For the Best Small Pumpkin it was the “Small Mighty” by Stella Bauman in 2B. For the Most Halloweeny category it was “Pumpkin Bat” by Hannah Park in 4P. For the Most Humorous category it was “The Biggest Loser” by Natalie and Madelyn Schur in 6H and 4F. For the Miscellaneous category it was “Pumpkin Penguin” by Kirsten Lovely in 5W. And last, but not least, for the Judges’ Favorite category it was “Boo Avenue” by Anna Noll in 4P.

Monday, November 8
Karen Law

Tuesday, November 9
Laura Schultz and Naveen Buddi

Wednesday, November 10
Bev Bruer and Tina Tran

I want to thank all of our volunteers for the work put into the Halloween Carnival a week ago, especially Steve and Amy Aragon, who co-chaired the event for the first time. Our students love the Halloween Carnival! They were so cute in their costumes and their gleeful enthusiasm was absolutely infectious. I especially loved watching the little ones try all the games. It was also good to see some middle schoolers there, not worrying about being too cool and grown up to come to our Halloween Carnival. That’s one good thing about being a PreK-12 school—most of our students have been here long enough and know so many school staff members and other students at multiple levels, that everyone feels pretty comfortable and welcome at each others’ events. We got a good glimpse of that last year when our Student Council sponsored the first-ever family sock hop—everyone was dancing together and having fun! We’ll probably do that again this year.

The next three weeks of school will be short and quick. November is always chopped up with holidays and parent/teacher conferences. Make sure you study the school calendar thoroughly, so you don’t get mixed up and try to drop off your child on a day there’s no school. That would be embarrassing!

Veterans Day is next week. This holiday sometimes gets lost in the shuffle, because it doesn’t always create a long weekend, and not everybody gets the day off. It’s actually a very serious and special day, meant to honor all men and women who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces. My father was a proud veteran of World War II. I always think of him on Veterans Day, participating in the local parade in my little hometown of Dallas, Oregon, marching with his VFW buddies, or serving on the rifle squad for the 21-gun salute. When I was in high school, our band marched and played in those parades. I know all of the service tunes from that experience! Please don’t let the day go by without thinking of the servitude and sacrifice veterans have made for our country.

Don’t forget to turn your clocks back one hour before you go to bed Saturday evening! Take care and God bless, Susan Friesen

P.S. We learned this week that one of our former parents, Rhonda Greeney, has been very ill with cancer and is going into hospice care. Rhonda and Keith Greeney have three children, Caitlin, Megan, and Ethan, who all attended our school. Our heart goes out to the Greeney’s. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

Quote for the Week:

“True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.” [Arthur Ashe]

VCES Calendar Update for the Week of November 8-12:

Monday, November 8

• Playground Monitor – Karen Law

Tuesday, November 9

• Picture Retakes (“dress-up” free dress is allowed today for retakes!)
• Playground Monitors – Laura Schultz and Naveen Buddi
• 2:00 dismissal!
• 6:30-9:00 – VCS Board mtg. – Convent Conference Rm. A/B
• 6:45-8:00 – PTC meeting – Hot Lunch Room

Wednesday, November 10

• 9:35 – Veterans Day Prayer Service led by 6M – Convent Chapel
• Playground Monitors – Bev Bruer and Tina Tran

Thursday, November 11

• NO SCHOOL – Veterans Day!

Friday, November 12

• NO SCHOOL – Teacher Professional Development in the morning and report card preparation in the afternoon.

Judges' Choice Winner - "Boo Avenue"

Our Student Council representatives organized the entries into categories for our second annual Pumpkin Decorating contest and selected the following winners:

• Small Pumpkins category – “Small Mighty” – Stella Bauman (2B)
• “Halloweeny” category – pumpkin bat – Hannah Park (4P)
• Humorous category – “Biggest Loser” – Natalie Schur (6H) and Madelyn Schur (4F)
• Miscellaneous category – pumpkin penguin – Kirstin Lovely – (5W)
• Judges’ Choice category – “Boo Avenue” – Anna Noll (4P)

Click here to see more pictures of the Elementary pumpkins.