Small things

It's been a very nice Christmas. No huge gifts, the boy even said, "It's a small gift, with big potential." My favorite words of the day.

Holiday Brunch

We have a holiday brunch every year to celebrate my in laws birthday, usually it's the Sunday after Thanksgiving but we had to delay it a little this year to get the most people. We had 22 today, only one person missing.

Sugar

This sugar bowl has been in the family for a couple generations. My mom got it from Aunt Esther who got it grom my great grandmother. Family lore has it that one of the spoons was lost on a farm, possibly in a pigs trough, and later found which is supposed to explain why one of them is scratched. I suppose I should write that stuff down.

Something to be Thankful For

Today is American Thanksgiving. A day to reflect on the many blessings we have to be thankful for and to realize how many things we have that we don't deserve. And we usually eat.

FaceTime

Family get together today, but some of the family moved to Seattle and couldn't join us. Bring in the technology.

A Busy Weekend

Saturday was a busy day with a bike ride in the morning. A very nice ride in the May Gray (when that term came up I don't know, I have only heard of June Gloom for Southern California) Up the mountain with the mist from the fog on my face.

After that Ethan and I headed off to a birthday party at Jumpin' Jammin' which was followed by the 2009 Scout Expo at Santa Anita Race track. We've never been and it was great fun. We had heard that Ethan could earn some belt loops at the expo, he soon figured out that some of the booths were just activies and others were the belt loops. For belt loops he did astronomy, science and computer, I just realized the geekiness of that.


On the non-geeky side Ethan participated in archery. It wasn't for a belt loop but he did get a patch.


Sunday I got up and went to play music for the kids at church. Always fun, it was a bit of a train wreck last time, this time went much better. After playing I came home and started working on the new play structure we got for the kids.

7 boxes of about a bazillion pieces. Kerrianne read online that these things take "handy" people forever to put together.

This is about the state I had it in when the kids got home from church.


The upper level floor in.


Junia liked climbing on it already.


Ethan like drilling holes in the roots in the ground.


The kids are already getting Uncle Leo on the slide.


So, today I was able to get the pic nic table, both platforms, the ladder and the slide on. So the kids will be able to start climbing around on it. I need to get time soon to get the roof on and the rest of the rails and it's good to go. I'm feeling pretty good about today's progress.

Visitor for Mother's Day

We had a very nice Mother's Day breakfast that, of course, included bacon and cinnamon rolls. Yesterday the kids and I went to Home Depot and bought a bunch of flowers and pots and planted them out back by the pool and we were able to keep it a surprise until this morning.



We went to church and Junia's class sang songs for the moms.


When we got home and were getting out of the car I heard a sound over by the neighbors gate and looked up to see a bear head poking through to have a look at us. I asked the kids to go right inside while I pulled the camera from my pocket.

By the time I got the camera out he had one back into the yard and I saw him climb up on the block wall and over into the next yard. The neighbor there saw me, opened the window and asked what was going on. I said, "the bear just went in your back yard." Her husband went to have a look out the window and said the bear had gone over the next wall and into Jim's pond.





He seemed to be having a good time cooling off and trying to find the koi.

Then Don the next neighbor came along making noise to scare him away. Bear climbed out of the pond, back up on the wall, across the next yard, up the next wall and he was then gone.

March Belt Test

Today was belt test day, well belt promotion, we did our tests during class the last few weeks and today was a celebration and awarding of the belts. With all the students at the school ranging from kids to adults they ran two ceremonies. I chose to go to the early one and celebrate on the mat with Ethan and Junia.

We started out warming up with everyone on the mat. You can see Rog, me and one other mom were the only adults in the early session. Junia, Ethan and Reed are in there too.


Everyone did some kicks.


Then the white belt and Little Ninja Graduates showed off their stuff.

Front fall.


Side fall.


And blocks. Ethan got to be Junia's partner.


Junia's friend Arlie was out there too.


they discussed their hapkido skills.


Then everyone got to break boards.






There was a Kung Fu demonstration by Sifu Lopez and some of the instructors demonstrated parts of their black belt tests. This included the Walters brothers doing some flying kicks and Mr. Zlada demonstrating chair defense. Quite impressive, Ethan was very excited to see his instructors show off.

Then they awarded belts. Master Connard handed them out.


Mr. Birkholz (Uncle Bill) tied on Junia's belt.


After Master Connard handed out the belts we went down the line and were congratulated by all of the instuctors.




Ethan's friend Christopher.

Thank You God For Little Things

The First Grade classroom 1B poem party was on Friday the 13th but there was nothing scary about it. Every student remembered their poems.

Here's the class. Ethan is in the back row, 4th from the left.


The deal is each student is given a poem to learn. They get about two months and work on it during the day and as homework. Ethan also got some pointers from Miss Kristen his speech therapist. They are given help with some hand motions to go along with it. The beauty thing about it is that this is an activity that they will continue each year which gives all of the students an experience in speaking in front of a crowd, using a microphone and respecting others as they do the same.



Every kid in the class did great! There were poems that were funny and some that were sweet, every kid gave their own little twist to them. No one tried to pull off the Mike Meyers poetry reading from "So, I Married an Axe Murderer" though.


Proud Mom and Dad.


All smiles with Brian.


With his buddies, Ethan, Jason, Brian, Owen.


With his teacher. Mrs. Tcharkutchian (I'm sure that's not spelled correctly.)


Afterward we left school and went to Santa Clarita to play miniature golf at Mountasia.


Of course Junia went along too.


And the reason we drove all the way to Santa Clarita is that there's a Farrel's Ice Cream Parlor at Mountasia.

KC and I split the Oreo Bliss... here's a shot for the Extreme Bootcamp folks.


And Junia with her Clown Sundae.


And the poetry reader with his.

Kids At The Beach

Here's another shot of the kids at the beach last weekend.

Relatives, remodeling, running

My little sister Julianne brought her family to visit. I think they really just wanted an excuse to get out of the snow and they couldn't have chosen a better time to come. Southern California was a perfect 80 degrees most of the time they were here.

We had a dinner at Rog's and the kids ran amok. Here's all 5 of the cousins piling on each other. Colby on the bottom, then Junia, Ethan, Sierra and Reed in the back.


Sunday afternoon we met up with them at the beach. Amazing So. Cal..... Jan 10th and going in the ocean.

Colby was the polar bear and went full on into the water. Ethan, Sierra and Junia just got their feet wet.


We had a great time and ended the evening with dinner at Ruby's at the end of Balboa Pier.

Last week I finished the tile on the floor of the bathroom. Here's mid process on the grout. Up to now I've gotten the tile cleaned up and sealed the grout. Tonight I installed the toilet. So far no leaking.


4.9 mile run today at lunch with Keithrus. I had that great buzz for a few hours afterward. Nice.