Today was Ana and De’s birthday — this year De picked an ice cream cake from Bruester’s, and Ana asked Daddy to make his chocolate tart for her cake. They were thrilled with their presents — a computer for each girl, plus a new bike for De and a pair of new skates for Ana, and some spending money. And, Lunn made each girl a special surprise – a really big custom poster for their rooms. He had been secretly making these picures over the previous month — it was hard to hide it from the kids! They came out really great, too.
The kids have a new pairs routine. They are still learning bits of it, but it's starting to look very nice. They are looking forward to competing it for the first time at Mentor in late July.
Ana is having a great time with her bike racing team, Team Citius. She's in the front on the far left, in this pic.
And De has finally learned how to ride a bike without training wheels, after many years of absolutely refusing to even try. And of course, now she absolutely loves it! She says she wants her own racing bike for her birthday.
Ana's choir (Children's Festival Chorus) sang the national anthem today at the baseball game at PNC Park. It was HOT and really sunny, several of the kids had to come off the field early due to the heat, but Ana was a trooper and her choir sounded wonderful.
Jenya finished the last book in the singapore math series today, book 6B. So she is now officially totally done with the math basics phase and is starting Fred Algebra, interwoven with a little bit from the beginning of Fred Statistics. Life of Fred (plus Khan Academy) from now on! She's very happy.
Eight years ago… Wow that sounds like a long time. An article in the local paper with a picture of Jenya when she was 4 years old, at a lego science event at the museum.
This weekend all three girls skated at the Mt. Lebanon competition, and also Ana's chorus had a concert. So we spent Saturday morning at the rink, and the moment Jenya finished her compulsory we jumped in the car and zipped off to listen to Ana's concert.
Ana skated Pre-Preliminary A (no axel) which is sort of a half step up from where she was, and she did very nice job. She actually had originally been entered as No Test, but her time conflicted with her concert, and so Crystal was able to get her moved to PrePre A. She placed 2nd out of 4.
De skated Basic 6 again – somewhere in the last few weeks she's really starting to look graceful on the ice. I guess she's finally getting comfortable enough on the ice to translate all that gymnastics grace and elegance into her skating. She has a lovely very high spiral, but unfortunately she bobbled it a bit in her program — overall very nice, tho.
And Jenya skated PrePre B (with axel) again. She had a lovely compulsory, but unfortunately fell on her axels in her free skate, so she was rather frustrated.
Then we had the big end of year concert for the Children's Festial Chorus. It was very nice — music from Les Miserables, and from several other musicals and operas. The kids sounded great, and Ana had a wonderful time and really enjoyed herself. She sang so much that when she came home she said her diaphram was sore!
Dealia's last rhythmic gymnastics competition this season was in Columbus, again — the Spring Fling, at the Columbus convention center. It was a very large, international competition, easily the biggest we've attended ever. There were competitors from Puerto Rico, the Ukraine, Japan, and many other countries, as well as from all over the US.
De very much enjoyed herself. She placed 5th on Floor, 6th on Ball, and 7th All Around. Here is her floor routine:
