Sports and D.I.

Both boys have taken up wrestling.  Here they are at the Mentor Youth Tournament with their freind Derek.

Colin and Derek both got medals for placing.  Colin finished 3rd out of six kids even though he only won one match.  We're not quite sure how that worked but we'll take it. 

Justin won two out of five matches.  He ended up in fourth place out of six.  He did an amazing job.  He's a very hard worker and he's been steadily improving because of it.  

Colin will also be playing basketball this winter on the Beachwood Rec team.  They haven't started practicing yet.  This is them at their assessment.

D.I. is going well.  We have a script and we've started building props.

Here's the boys painting in the garage.

Colin is going to be a TKD baby in the skit.  He picked out his outfit - a large onesie and a binkie.  He seems to like his costume way too much.

Justin and Jamie managed to squeeze in a skiing trip over the weekend.  They went to Alpine Valley, which is about 30 minutes away.  They said it was amazing.  Justin even said it was better than Cedar Point.

Congrats to Jamie.  Her job at Progressive has been going great and she just got her annual bonus.  We celebrated by going out to dinner.  We went to House of Pho.  

See you soon.

December Updates

Destination Imagination is going well.  The kids are getting better at the instant challenges.

This is the team at Instant Challenge practice at Hilltop.  They did really well.

And they have started building their stage.  Hopefully we'll be rehearsing in January.

Justin's friend Chris came over last week.

They made lots of candy and had lots of fun.

Justin started wrestling.  He is on the Beachwood Elite youth wrestling team.  

He had his first tournament on Sunday.  He did a great job.  He worked really hard and never gave up.  

He's been doing so well that the coaches named him wrestler of the week.

Justin and Leela having fun with a box.

Colin had a TaeKwon-Do belt test on Friday.  

He did a great job and passed with flying colors.  He is taking a break from TaeKwon-Do for now.  He has signed up for basketball and is also hoping to wrestle on Justin's team if his schedule allows it.  

Jamie was in Houston at the space center for work last week.  She must have loved it because she rented Apollo 13 as soon as she got home and has been constantly talking about rockets and astronauts.

A Saturday afternoon game of Go Fish.

We have started Life School with the boys.  Every week they will get different life lessons.  Hopefully they will learn the kinds of things that they don't learn in school or in sports.  This week they walked to Starbucks and brought me back a coffee.  Then they learned how to boil an egg.  Next week we are planting an herb garden on the kitchen window sill.  If you have any ideas for Life School, let me know.

See you soon.

Thanksgiving Week

Happy Turkey Day everyone.

Aunt Natalie came into town Tuesday night.  We stayed up late and watched the third Harry Potter movie.

The weather was pretty good for November so we managed to get in some hiking.

This is the boys with Reagan and Brooke at Brandywine Falls on Wednesday.

After hiking we drank hot chocolate and played Exploding Kittens.  Can you guess which one forgot whose turn it was?

Thursday morning Chris and I ran the 35th annual Cleveland Turkey Trot.  Maybe next year I'll take a picture while I'm there.

After the race it was off to Ed and Mai's house for the annual Thanksgiving Day Bourbon and Eggs brunch.

Some of us were more into the bourbon than the eggs.  

Thanks for hosting Ed and Mai.  It was a great time.

Thanksgiving dinner was hosted by Aunt Tami and Uncle Nick.  Dinner was great and everyone had fun.

Like every year, we also celebrated Colin's birthday.  Then we did the annual Kris Kringle presents for the kids.  

Friday night we all went to Bistro 83 in North Ridgeville for dinner.  The food was great and it was good to see Uncle Bill, and Aunt Caroline and Jay.  

Can't wait to do it all again next year.

In other news...

The weather was great last Friday - sunny and 70 - so I went fishing on the Grand River.  I didn't catch any steelhead but it was a beautiful day.

And the very next day this happened.  Gotta love Cleveland.

We discovered that Justin loves shrimp poppers.

A swarm of grackles went through our back yard.

Colin had a birthday party at our house with his friends.  Lunch was bacon burgers and instead of cake, Colin wanted mochi.  

Jamie bought "Super Cola" candies and dared the kids to eat them.  They're super sour, so I'm told.  I didn't try them.

Colin didn't hesitate.

But Justin was frightened at first.

Then he decided to go for it. 

He's gonna do it.

Here it goes.

Not too bad so far.

"Oh no.  What did I do."

After all that he ate about 6 more of them.

That's it for this week's adventures.  See you soon.