Black Belt Test

Just wanted to put up some video and a picture from Ethan's taekwondo black belt test.  We were really really proud of the hard work Ethan put into preparing for the test, not to mention the booty-kickin' job he did at the test itself.  All the pictures and video are in the 2012-08 folder on our smugmug site, but here are the highlights:

In the weeks leading up to the test he had to relearn and pass off the forms from 6 of his earlier color belts: White, Orange, Yellow, Camo, Green, and Red.  At the test he had to demonstrate three of the six: White, Orange, and Red for the panel of judges.

Breaking is a part of every test - color belt or black belt.  Ethan had to break one board with a punch and another with a kick.  A lot of kids need multiple attempts, but Ethan made it look easy on his very first try.

Here's a great picture of Ethan with all of his teachers.

Fun at the Firehouse

I'm going to try to get back into regular picture posting. Think of this as a pre-New Year's resolution. I hope to get some photos up soon from our trip to San Francisco/Stinson Beach in August, but in the meantime here are some fun shots from an afternoon we spent in September at the firehouse where our neighbor works.

They Ate Thanksgiving Turkey!

As our boys seem to have come into this world with strong opinions about what they will and will not eat, it is always cause for celebration when previously-rejected food gets an enthusiastic reception. Based on some recent success with fried chicken we decided to throw holiday decorum out the window and go with a more medieval approach to the older boys' turkey. It worked! Woo hoo!

Space Derby

I've been meaning to put up some posts from August for a while now. August was full of fun activities, all of which are worthy of posts. The first one I want to blog about was actually the last event of the month: Jackson's participation in our stake's Cub Scout Space Derby. As co-creator of Jackson's rocket (I whittled and sanded, Jackson painted) my fervent wish was that the rocket not fall apart on the first run. Much to our happy surprise, however, Jackson took first place in the derby! Hurray! More catch up posts to come.

March Merriment - the Sequel

Here's the second March flashback. To cap off our family spring break (yep, the three schools our family is connected to all took the break in the same week - we probably should have made a huge stock market bet as soon as we found out as that kind of luck may not come around again) we took a ride on a whale watching boat. No whales showed their tails, but we saw a whole bunch of dolphins. It was a perfect day for being out on the ocean as the water was smooth as glass. Here are some pics and video clips from the outing.

March Merriment

Well I know this is reaching back in time a bit, but I want to get some pics posted from March that are too good not to share. In this post I'll post some shots of a really great missionary activity put on by our ward's primary. You can see from the pictures that the kids dressed up like missionaries and the primary provided name badges. Each of the children was "called" to a particular mission somewhere in the world, and their names were then posted on a big map. Jackson's mission was Raleigh, North Carolina and Ethan's was Houston, Texas. In about thirteen years we will report back on how prescient the primary presidency was. There were a bunch of great activities like the making-your-bed race (I can report that that particular lesson hasn't stuck), missionary Jeopardy, and the construction of missionary piggy banks out of plastic water bottles. At one point the kids made a healthy snack out of apples, graham crackers, and cinnamon sugar. That made me think back to some of the snacking that went on during my mission days in London England. I had one companion that constructed "missionary pizza" out of toast, ketchup, and a slice of processed cheese. My snacks of choice were Yorkie bars and chocolate covered Hob Nobs. Ah, good times. Anyway, the kids had a great time and we got some great pictures. Enjoy!

Whoo Hoo! Artichokes!

I can't say that my garden looks like much so far this year. My biggest crop by square foot is weeds. However, the artichokes that I planted last summer from seed have finally arrived and man is that a funky looking plant. The pictures here don't really give you a good sense of scale. The two plants are really big and bushy. So far we've eaten three and given away two green globes. Not much to eat on the leaves (I know there's normally not much anyway, but these really don't offer much meat on the leaves of the globe) but the hearts are tasty. I wish I could embed one of the songs from Little Shop of Horrors and have it playing while you look at the pictures. I think of Mean Green Mother from Outer Space every time I go out in the back yard.