Jenya has joined a synchronized skating team, Little Blades out of the RMU ice rink. She absolutely loves it — hard to believe we all started skating lessons for the first time only last January. She and her Little Blades team will be performing in various local/regional competitions starting this December.
Day at the Renaissance Festival
We had a nice saturday at the local Ren Fest. It's a bit of a money pit — $2 for this, $5 for that, and pretty soon you've spent a stupid amount of money on not much — but for all that, it was fun, and the girls had a wonderful time. They all got face paint — or in Ana's case, body paint, with a dragon painted on her arm. They also made wax molds of their hands and decorated them, and tried archery, and lots more. Very nice all around.
Jenya demands to learn football
Lunn was rather reluctantly coerced into the role of football coach today, when Jenya decided she wanted to learn how to play. I think she got the idea when she joined in a game with some neighborhood boys a week or so ago, but she’s certainly enjoying it right now.
Ana jumping her bike
Jenya jumping her bike
The neighbor’s kid let Jenya and Ana try his jump ramps. The girls come flying down the steep hill on the left of the driveway, go over the jump and then keep on going. They keep asking me to try it, but I figure my odds of reaching 40 improve if I just watch (and take pictures).
Daredevil De and the Waterpark
I had promised the girls and myself that we’d go to Sandcastle, the local waterpark, before the end of summer. We cut it pretty close, but I was able to carve out a day off this past friday to take the girls and mom to Sandcastle. We all had a wonderful time – it was brutally hot, but once we got wet it wasn’t bad, and the girls are finally big enough to really enjoy a lot of the attractions. Last time we went, which was two or three years ago, the girls weren’t up for anything more than the kiddie wading pool and mini slides. This year, they all enjoyed the double tube ride, taking turns riding it with me. It’s a cool ride that goes thru dark tunnels and has some fast but not too fast turns and dips. They also enjoyed Wet Willie’s, the bigger kid play area, and jumping and bodysurfing the waves in the wave pool.
De was especially adventurous, tho, and wanted to go on every ride she could. She was too short for several of them, but was allowed to go on the Boardwalk Blasters, a slide advertised as an "extreme action slide" that ends in a 7 foot drop into a 12 foot deep pool. I went on it with her, and boy did it pack a punch! She was the littlest kid to try it by a good margin, but she handled it like a trooper, flying down the slide and popping right up out of the water. The lifeguard commended her for being such an amazingly good swimmer. I didn’t bring a camera, since I didn’t want to have to juggle it around all that water, so unfortunatley I don’t have any pictures of the great adventure. All in all, a great day, and a nice end of summer treat before school and all the fall activities start up.
No More Training Wheels
So yesterday evening, at Jenya’s request, I removed the training wheels from her bike. She took to riding without training wheels like a duck to water – I don’t know if it’s the scooter practice or what, but she didn’t fall at all, in fact she barely wobbled. I ran next to her the first few times but she never needed my help. Her sisters were both very good sports, too, and were enthusiastically cheering her on. Now she’s on that bike at every opportunity. I was impressed – my memory of learning to ride a two-wheeler involved a lot more false starts. Here’s a pic of the proud moment.
Jenya Doing Chores
A nice pic of Jenya emptying the dishwasher and putting away the dishes – which given her height, involves her climbing up on the counters to reach the upper shelves. Makes for an interesting sight, but she’s quite good at it.
Recital Mania
Well, we survived all of the end-of-school-season madness – an assortment of recitals, shows, parties, festivals, and other activities in quick sucession. Jenya had a speaking part in the Montessori end of term recital – if I can figure out how to post video clips I’ll link up the video. The theme for the Montessorri show was south america, which has been the theme for a lot of the school year – so the kids can name every country, major city, and important event in south america, but aren’t clear on what country they live in…
They also had their gymnastics recital, and got the ubiquitous medals and trophies for showing up (a trend I’m not happy about in the world as a whole, but at least now I’ve got the kids to understand that they don’t "win" those medals). They all did a great job, and all got promoted – twins from little dipper to big dipper, Jenya from Lucky Star to Pearls (Pearls is the pre-team team prep level), so they were very happy. And of course they did a nice job at their dance recital earlier, as well.
New Business
As most of you probably know, my time with my current company (ESS) is coming to an end soon, and I’m getting involved with a new company. Lunn has been busy updating the graphics and layout for the website (Aspira Consulting), continuing his unbroken trend of somehow being volunteered to do logos and/or graphic design for every company I’ve been involved with for the last ten years or so. We’ll be finishing it and taking it live over the next week or so. Feedback is welcome!