Happy

Random things making me happy today:

1. It's the weekend. :)

2. The week's sunshine brought these lovelies in my front yard:

I can't remember what they are, but they're happy, don't you think? 

3. I don't want to jinx anything but I'm so excited that I actually have buds on my peonies this year!! My poor peony plants haven't done well since planting them in the summer of 2014 (thanks a lot, hail storms, lol) and I wasn't sure if we'd ever see any blooms. So. Fingers crossed, eh?

4. Noah had his penultimate Calculus I class yesterday afternoon. He has the final on Monday then will be done with the Front Range Community College classes for the semester. The college and high school classes he has on the CEC campus will finish next Friday. This all makes me happy because it frees me up from getting him to said calculus classes and because "penultimate" is a fun word to say. :)  

5. Since we're done with archery and because I'm looking ahead toward summer, I took Micah and Asher to the pool to swim laps earlier this week. Trying to work in some regular exercise (along with gauging Micah's swim competence, lol) and was pretty happy with how that went and that they're both on board for doing that again next week. Asher did surprisingly well considering that he hasn't been back in the pool since January (having been swimming laps weekly for the months before that to prepare for his black belt testing). 

6. This week was our "off week" from homeschooling. We're between sessions and will finish up our school year with another six week session starting next week. (It'll be a lighter session than the others, though.)

7. My Micah's been trying new recipes again and his enthusiasm is such fun to watch. Last week he made stuffed pork chops with smashed potatoes. This week was chicken fried steak and ham & asparagus frittatas. :)

8. Even though I prefer the sunshine, I love the way everything smells after the rain. So. I'll put up with today's overcast weather...but I want my sunshine back before too long, okay? 

Okay, off to tackle my weekend list. Happy start of May to you all!

Friday, again

Things I'm thinking about this snowy/rainy Friday...

1. I'm not happy about this weather. Nope. Not at all. It's gray and icky and cold outside, and I want to boycott wearing coats and jackets already. The only glimmer of happiness about this spring storm is that I got to wear my new yellow rain boots that I found on clearance a week or so ago:

Aren't they fun?!

2. I saw Gilderoy just a bit ago! I was worried that he'd gone missing since I hadn't seen him for a couple days. :) To explain...Gilderoy is what I named the solitary goose who's taken to wandering our neighborhood. We're pretty sure that poor Gilderoy is missing some marbles. We've seen him actually fall off the curb when walking. He likes to mosey across the street and stop traffic. In any case, he's still there. :) 

3. I'm making cookies now. Because I can. 

That is all. :)

Friday

1. Last Sunday, we took the boys to watch Canyon Concert Ballet's performance of Peter Pan. One of our friends was in the show, and we joined her family to watch. Here's our crew during intermission:

Thank you, B, for helping me bring some culture to these boys of mine! :)

For what it's worth, they did enjoy the sword fighting and even recognized one of the pirates from karate. They felt there should have been more blood, as boys are apt to do. Noah won for aftershow comments, though. He (unlike his brothers) wasn't familiar with the storyline. As we were walking out, he declared that obviously the whole thing was a mass hallucination brought on by the medicine that the father gave Wendy, John & Michael before tucking them in. :) (And, looking back, I could see his point, lol!)

2. Speaking of Noah, he (along with most of the other 10th graders in Colorado, I think) took the PSAT on Wednesday as the required state testing this year. (We both appreciated that they switched from the weird PARCC testing from last year (that required like three days of testing over two different periods) to something that's actually useful practice for the future.) 

A couple weeks ago, he actually took the ACT, too. That one wasn't through school but was on the advice of his advisor for practice and because the advisor was concerned that Noah might not retain all of the algebra and geometry by his junior year since he's already doing calculus now.

Noah says he preferred the PSAT format, though he wasn't thrilled about taking it...mostly because (even though CEC cancelled classes for the day) he still had calculus over at Front Range Community College that afternoon. :)

Whew. Only three more weeks of classes for him this term.

3. These are my boys this morning. Unprompted, they began talking to each other on their feet-phones:

Don't ask me why. They're weird. ;)

(I did take the opportunity to do a small lesson on phone etiquette, btw. ;) Talked them through how to properly answer and end a call, since we don't have a landline and they so rarely talk on the phone. Just a good reminder.) 

Done

After Friday night's promotion for Micah (followed by demo team practice for Asher and Micah), we set out early Saturday for Denver for the final JOAD tournament of the season. Micah's check-in time was 7:00 am and we managed to get on the road (overly prepared for the potential snow that had been forecast) by 6 and registered just fine. 

Micah had put in extra practice in the weeks leading up to this final tournament so was really hoping for a good showing...knowing that if he shot his best, he had a good chance at placing. Unfortunately, though his form was definitely more consistent and better overall, his scores didn't match his expectations. :(

But. Social boy that he is, he managed to enjoy himself chatting with his coach and teammates:

...when he wasn't shooting, obviously...

After he finished shooting, Noah's division started. Like Micah, results were less than expectations, sadly. But. Our team definitely put in a good showing:

Look at all those teenage boys, lol. (There were a few more that weren't in this picture for this shooting time.) 

So. After a long couple of shooting sessions (which both started late thanks to not the greatest tournament management and some technical issues), we made it home about 12 hours after leaving. Very glad that we didn't have either boy shooting in the third session of the day...which was set to start at 4, but which obviously didn't since Noah's session was still shooting at that point. Whew. So that was Saturday. 

And now our JOAD season is DONE. Or will be after this weekend's team party. :)

Brown belt

So. Last Friday, Micah promoted to BROWN BELT. He's pretty happy. :) He has to earn one more belt after this (and put in the requisite class work from there) before he'll be eligible to test for black belt. Whoa.

Here are a few pictures...first, the demo team performing as usual:

...and actually receiving the new belt from Mr. Yee:

...and high-fiving the others who promoted:

...and hanging with his pals (who also promoted to brown belt that night):

Yay! Continually pleased with how karate has and is influencing our lives!