Mega Blog: Coloma trip, Kindergarten show, Spring Concert, Oakland Zoo, Mother's Day & more

Axel's 4th grade class went to Coloma California, to "gold country" to learn about 1849 and the gold rush. They had to be at school by 6:30 am on Wednesday April 24th and arrived home at 5 pm on Friday the 26th. Axel was so excited to be away on his own with his entire 4th grade class and several teachers, along with the principal, Mrs. Giammona. It was a wonderful experience for him and he loved every minute of the trip. 

 While Axel was on his trip, Phoenix had her Kindergarten show, "It's a Jungle Out There". She was one of the three cheetah's.

I was extremely impressed with how well the kids did. The memorized 5 songs. "dance" routines, and 4 or 5 lines. The stage set up was pretty spectacular as well for a Kindergarten show. 

 I was so grateful that I cancelled my day at Stanford and went to the show. I would have been so sad to have missed it. When I found out about the costumes and set, I knew it was more than a quick show and that I needed to be there.

 Our little Cheetah and two of her friends that were elephants.

Here she is saying a couple of her lines. 

 We have been so busy and I have been working or volunteering on Fridays that Rubix and I hardly have had any days together. The couple of Fridays we have had together we makes sure to get to the library. He loves books like the other kids. It is so much fun to see how much he loves books, cars, planes, trains and monster trucks.

 We also make sure to get to the park. He typically picks El Quito park. He was really cute here and said, "Mommy take a picture of me!"

 The last weekend in April we went to one of my patient's house to look at her Fairy Garden. The fairy garden was not done so we went to her local neighborhood park.

 The kids had so much fun exploring this new park.

 I am not sure what was so funny, but I love the moments where the kids get along and love being together. It sure makes up for the time when they are at each other's throats.

 We had a couple of weeks of amazing warm weather. We spent the weekends at the pool, when the kids were not at birthday parties. We had 3 weeks of birthday parties and BBQ's that also filled our days.

 Rubix really wants to learn how to swim. He is loving the water just as much as the other two love it.

On May 3rd I had the privilege of going to the Oakland Zoo with Phoenix and her class. 

 They had over 32 Chaperones. I got lucky and was one of a handful of parents who was responsible for only 2 children instead of 3. It made the day super fun because we were able to see the entire zoo at our own pace and had lots of fun playing. Leah and Phoenix got along very well.

 Phoenix and Axel go to swim practice 3 to 4 times per week. Rubix is a real trooper and plays well by himself or with the other younger siblings. He is becoming quite the daredevil.

 You can see it is not easy task for him to climb up, but he does manage.

Axel had his Spring concert on May 2nd. Here he is playing a solo. I am a little sad that this will be his last concert for awhile. He decided he rather do the dance team then the jazz ensemble next year. I am hopeful that he will play again in the future, but regardless of what the future holds it is amazing at how quickly he learned how to play. 

 Phoenix is becoming quite the reader. It is really impressive to hear how well she reads, but even more impressive at how much she enjoys it. I feel so very blessed that all of the kids have found the love of reading.

 On May 9th, Phoenix's kindergarten class hosted a Mother's Day tea party. I did not plan on going, but I asked her and she said that I had to go.

 Boy, I was so happy that I went. Every mom was there. I would have been the only one if I did not make a big effort to get there. Luckily, my Stanford mentor has been really understanding and I was able to leave early in order to attend this hour "lunch" event.

 Phoenix and her class did a great job of showering all of the mom's with love.

 Last Saturday Keith and I finally got to ride up to the very top of Mt. Umunhum. They opened the very top in September of last year, but with the fires and long rain season, and lack of fitness we just now got around to riding it.

 It was spectacular. They did a fabulous job of making it a beautiful park to hike up to and through. We enjoyed the 4000+ feet of climbing and the perfect 70 degrees weather.

 The kids and Keith spoiled me for Mother's Day. I received 4 home made owl cards that said, I am wise, I am a hoot, I am an airplane and I am an owl. It is an inside joke between Axel and Daddy from a Late Night show episode about cards.

 Phoenix and Rubix also made cards at school and daycare, which are always nice to have. The kids also picked me a nice bouquet of flowers from our yard.

 We enjoyed bagels from Noah's bagels for breakfast and sushi for dinner. Keith took Phoenix to a birthday party and Axel for a bike ride and then he took all of the kids to the pool for an hour so that I could work on my presentation. Getting the 3+ hours of work done was icing on the cake.

Phoenix finally learned how to do a cartwheel. She is so excited!!! Rubix does somersault now. I will have to get a video of that next.

I am sorry for the delay in posts. It has been beyond busy with the kids schedule, Keith's and my work schedule and trying to finish up my Felllowship work. Next time I post I will have completed my last 3 days in St. Louis and may be done with the Fellowship (depending on how long the final takes me to complete). Looking forward to school ending, as well as being done with all of my extra work in the next month! See you in June!

Happy Easter

Keith had a long, but productive 15 day trip to Asia. He spent one week in Japan and then split the second week in South Korea and Taiwan. We had just hung up from talking as the earth quake hit in Taiwan. He was on his way to another costumer. He saw and felt the roads rumble. He was very lucky that nothing serious happened and he was able to continue on to his customer without much delay. 

 I am not exactly sure what cities the pictures below include, but all of the ones with flowers are from Japan during the cherry blossom festival. I received lots of wonderful pictures of food and the places he was able to visit between work. It seemed like an amazing experience from both a life point of view and a career point of view. 

 The big event in Korea was going to a baseball game at the Olympic stadium after work last Tuesday. So much fun!

While Daddy was gone working hard, Rubix was busy playing and growing. Here is a cute video of Rubix shooting the basketball that we sent to Daddy to cheer him up.

Rubix has really changed in the past month. He is much more expressive and starting to test his boundaries with some defiant moments. He is still overall very sweet, but it is a little humbling to see him show such strong protests, when he has been such an "easy" kid the first 3 years of his life. 

 Phoenix continues to be my energetic wild child. She has such wonderful moments of being sweet and thoughtful and caring. Here is one of those moments when she gave Rubix her snack at school after Rubix and I came for me to do the 25 minutes of "parent read".

 Axel has been extremely helpful and much more mature. I am so proud of the person he is becoming. He still has his moments of outbursts, but for the most part, he is learning to process his emotions and articulate his thoughts and feelings. He has really embraced being the oldest child and is especially sweet to Rubix.

 The kids have been playing at our neighbor's Saif's house and with his large quantity of Nerf guns. Here is Rubix enjoying some fun park play with one of Saif's nerf guns.

 On Friday, Rubix and I went to enjoy the Kindergarten "Hat Parade", Easter egg hunt and party at Harker. I thought it was funny that Phoenix and her best friend Kyla, not only picked a similar dress, but also decorated their hats very much alike with flowers and butterflies.

 They are both so cute. Here is our little miss Phoenix.

 Here is cute little Kyla.

 Phoenix shared her school egg hunt with Rubix. She allowed him to help her pick up the dozen eggs she was allowed to get.

 Full of energy, love and ....fire!

 Rubix was delightful and fits right in with the rest of the Kindergarteners.

 Those cute girls again!

 Miss Phoenix in her domain.

 Mr. Rubix riding his bike with the cool baseball jersey Daddy got for him in Korea.

 Phoenix and Daddy racing!

 The kids opening their Easter baskets. Rubix loves his bubbles!

 Phoenix intrigued.

 Axel, huh, what?! Oh, yeah, baskets!

 The Happy Trio!

 The annual egg hunt in the park!

 So much fun!

Happy Easter! We are feeling so blessed that He has Risen!

Axel officially 10, Rubix's 3 year picture and more!

I believe the 2nd trimester of school ended sometime in late February. I forgot to mention how well the kids did on their report cards again. Axel got his straight A's with 2 A+'s and 1 or 2 A-'s. I can't remember now, but the biggest accomplishment was him getting the citizenship and achievement awards. All of his teachers recognized at how hard he has been working. It was quite an accomplishment as this year has been the toughest for him in regards to getting along with all of his teachers. 

Phoenix doesn't get letter grades, but she did get kudos for being a wonderful student to have in the classroom. Her teachers recognized her hard effort and work. To do a little bragging about her, because I am actually blown away by her work in KINDERGARTEN, I have to include some examples of her exemplary work! The first is a spelling test. She regularly does well. This is one of her 100%, but I am most impressed with the "neatness". 

 An art project "for fun". I don't think I could do this in Kinder.

 Another example of a weekly Mr. Fix it Test.

 An example of a comprehension test she does each week.

 An example of a writing assignment that she does each week. I don't remember when I learned to give 3 reasons or to start the paragraph repeating the question. But again, look at that handwriting! It is so beautiful! I am so very proud of her effort and her love for school. It is icing on the cake that she is doing well in addition to learning to love to learn.

 So this is a picture of Rubix. It doesn't look clear. I cheaped out and bought just one pose, but the worst thing about it is how fussy the print turned out. So now it just looks like another crappy picture. I called and complained, but I haven't heard a response. Now they are just sitting in my kitchen doing nothing! I feel like I even wasted the 26 bucks I spent on the one pose! Argh!

 The kids were on Spring break with Keith this past week. They had such fun times with Daddy. They went to the track, the pool, out to eat a couple of times, had play dates with friends and went to Axel's 10 year check up and then the longest dentist appointment ever! Axel weighed in at 54 lbs and 11 oz which is still less than the 5th percentile, but almost a 4 lb increase since last year. He grew 2 inches this year which puts him at 4 feet and 4.25 inches which bumps him up to the 19th percentile! If he continues on this trend of about a 4%ile jump per year he might be in the 50th %ile by the time he graduates high school! Only the Lord knows, but I can be wishful!

So this dentist appointment was so long because all 3 kids transitioned to a pediatric dentist. They all had their cleaning at the same time. Phoenix got x-rays which showed 5 cavities! She then had the luxury of getting 2 filled after her cleaning. Axel then had an extra tooth pulled that was in the way of an adult tooth that came in last year and then had his second cavity filled. They ended up being there for over 3.5 hours! Luckily they were all on their best behavior and cooperated very well.

 They tried to give Phoenix the dog to help calm her, but then took the dog away when they realized the "Barbie" movie was plenty to keep her distracted. Rubix was entertained by a Car movie and Axel went without.

 I forgot that Axel and Phoenix also got to visit Daddy's new work. The big move happened this week so he went to go check on the lab and to see if his team of workers made it in to the new building. He also went and checked on the EMI chamber which is still in the process of getting built.

 Our favorite tree was in bloom so we took advantage of climbing on it and getting a few pictures in front of it. Keith really liked the pictures we got of the family just before Rubix was born.

 It was a little sunny and bright out, but the purple tree is still beautiful!

 Here is the official 10 year old. Double digits!

 He had a super fun day of spending it with his friends. He went to Selena's birthday party and they sang to him and Selena again. Sulin, Selena's mom, put Axel's name on the cake again. She is so sweet to include Axel. He was the only boy at the party, but he had a blast. Apparently, a few of the girls painted his face with frosting and it was a big hit. He then went over to Kristin's house for the rest of the day and we picked him up just before bed time. I was a little sad to only spend breakfast with him again, but since this was the second year in a row that I didn't get to spend his actual birthday together I was a little more prepared.

 We finally had a single nice day of Spring last weekend where it was a beautiful sunny day. We spent most of the day outside including time at the park. Phoenix taught Rubix how to swing on his stomach. He loved it.

 We have finally decided to start doing some basic home repairs. We have visited Home Depot and Lowe's in this undertaking. The kids absolutely love going and running around. We have our wild child who doesn't listen and then we have our little follower and then we have our cautious level headed one. Can you guess who is who?

 Yep, if you guessed Phoenix is the wild child and Rubix is the follower and Axel is my level headed one you are correct. I actually made Daddy "take them home" when we went to Lowe's last week because they were misbehaving so much. Phoenix is really going to try my patience and help me learn how to grow as a person and a parent.

 I will leave you with this cute picture of our determined fire cracker. We are solo for the next 2 weeks as Keith is now in Japan. We have lots of fun things planned, but hopefully will have some nice down time as well.

Thanks for reading. I probably won't post again until after Easter once Keith is back in town.