Phoenix turns 10 years old and makes Junior Olympics Team!

We have been so very busy and there are so many wonderful updates, I cannot wait to share. Before I get started I found a couple of pictures from our epic swim meet with hail and high winds last month. 

December and the first couple of weeks of January were some of the craziest storms and rain falls that we have had in my 20 years since moving back to California. Although we feel very blessed to have our reservoirs filled it has been very hard on our community with downed trees, damaged houses, vehicles and roads. Our mountain neighbors just now have their power restored. 

Here is a picture of one of our many storms with a heavy downpour/small hail. 

With the rain came puzzle making and game planning. I love seeing Axel playing with Rubix. He is such a sweet older brother!

Here is a picture of the thickest rainbow I have ever seen. The purple was vibrant and you could see a full rainbow. This was on the way to pick up the kids after school. Absolutely beautiful!

The storms brought beautiful sunsets and sunrises and this was one of my favorite!

Now onto the kiddos!

Rubix went on his second field trip ever. He had the luxury of going to Levi stadium. We were uncertain if he was actually going to get to go because of the heavy rain predicted, but the storm broke enough to allow the kids to go and they still had fun despite the weather.  Rubix is the one in the blue rain coat with a big smile on his face. 

Other big news for Rubix is that he finally got moved up to P3 in math! This means he is doing much more interesting math and is loving it. They are doing big number addition and subtraction and have to do 20 math facts in a minute, subtraction and multiplication. He is also learning bar diagrams for world problems and they have even been exposed to basic geometry including angles. We are so happy for his hard work and ability to participate enough in class that the teacher saw him stand out more. He is learning to master long division and factoring. 

Phoenix has been drawing up a storm. She received art supplies for both Christmas and her birthday and whenever she has free times she draws. I am really impressed with her drawings. I think she has a real gift, although I know I am completely biased!

Phoenix was able to wear free dree on Thursday January 19th and decided to eat her birthday crunch cereal I purchased for her special 10th birthday. On Friday the 20th, Harker had a special dress, color class day where Phoenix wore all red. We bought her all red sweats and put red ribbon in her hair. She went shopping with her friend, Audrey, who purchased the same outfit. They looked so cute. I was so bummed not to get a photo. 

On Friday night, Phoenix went to swim practice and had her 4 close friends stay to celebrate her birthday. We had pizza and cake and we gave out cake to most of the swimmers who came to practice. 

I realized after I started cutting the cake that I did not get a picture of it!

Here is Ayline, Kaila, Phoenix, Camille and Great from left to right. They had such a great time playing in the pool and hot tub until 8pm! Oh, did I tell you it was in the 40's out and we, the parents, were practically freezing! The girls hardly noticed!

Phoenix had her first friend sleepover ever! Kaila was able to come over after the pool and spend the night. I made the girls pancakes with sausage, fresh fruit and whipping cream for breakfast. 

Phoenix was thoroughly happy! She loves deciding what she is going to eat all day!

I made her put her hands up since this will be the last time she can show her age by using her hands. I am so excited that she is double digits and 10 now!

Kaila left just before noon, which allowed Keith and I to sneak in a quick bike ride before having to get ready for Phoenix's 2nd birthday party! Yes, she had 3 school friends come over to celebrate her special day on Saturday afternoon. We just made her a small chocolate vegan cake and had ingredients for root beer floats. 

Phoenix wanted an art party so all of the girls painted the same picture. 

They also painted their nails! You see Melissa, Angela and Kylie from left to right with Phoenix in the back. 

Rubix was disappointed he wasn't part of the party. I had no idea he would care. Axel, being his sweet self took it upon himself to help him paint a picture. Here is the finished product. I just want to give a shout out to Gma Susan who turned me on to the dollar tree. I was able to purchase canvases, paints and all of the party supplies for $48 dollars! What a deal!

The birthday girl in art heaven!

Angela and Phoenix showing off their paintings!

The girls singing happy birthday. 

I love small parties!

Phoenix requested sushi and other Asian cuisine. I do have to say, I was so happy to see her friends eat a ton of food! Angela typically doesn't eat well when she comes over so I was so happy to see her eat. Kylie ate all night and Melissa ate a ton before going home early to celebrate Chinese New Year. It was a total success!

Here is another photo of their paintings. Melissa had already left for home. 

After dessert the girls got started on project two which was scrap booking! We had a small scrap book for each of the girls and they had so much fun taking pictures from the party and creating a book of memories. I am so proud of Phoenix for having friends with similar interests. The kids do not necessarily do art together at school, so it was a pleasant surprise to see all of the girls enjoy themselves with good old fashion fun.

On Sunday, we spent over 4 hours making Challah bread for her heritage class history project. Phoenix was able to bring it in and share it with her history class on Monday and share that her daddy had fond memories of his Grandma making it. Our house has been so cold (because our heating bill was through the roof, so we went hard core and keep the house at 62 or 63 degrees) we had to put an electric heater in Phoenix's room with the door closed and flour covered to get it to rise. So funny!

Phoenix tried out for basketball the first week back to school and made the A team. She is absolutely loving it. She has had 2 games so far, and surprisingly they have one both games. You may see she is one of the tallest girls on the team and she is one of the most athletic and is able to bound up and down the court. She has been able to make a couple of baskets each game so far. I am excited to get to finally watch a game of her this Friday. Keith and Rubix went to her first two games. 

Phoenix boxing out a girl from the throw in. 

Phoenix running down the court!

After a big weekend of birthday fun, we had another big weekend of Zone 1 South Championship swim meet. Despite the pool heater breaking and no practice on Wed and Thursday before swim champs, Phoenix had the best meet of her life. She went sub 7 minutes for the 500 yard event on Friday. On Saturday she flew in her 50 Fly and 50 Breast making Junior Olympic times in both events! She crushed the J.O. times by over a second! To top things off she was 1 second off J.O. time in the 50 backstroke! 

On Sunday, she raced hard in the 100 and 50 free improving her times, but out of reach of J.O. times by a second. She missed J.O. time by .2 seconds in the 100 meter IM. We were ecstatic for her as she has had some really tough meets without improved times this fall. We stared private lessons for her and Rubix, 30 minutes each the 2 weekends before this meet and the small technique changes was exactly what she needed to finally break J.O. times. She is signed up for the 50 breast and fly on March 11th and 12th. She also qualified for the Allstar meet and we will find out soon if she made the Allstar team. 

Her A time medal and ribbons from this weekend. In other news, Phoenix is rocking math and got a perfect score plus bonus points on her last math test and got her first 6/6 on a CML competition. I also forgot to say how determined she was with practicing the 500 in the weeks before the meet and swimming in the rain during the many weeks of bad weather. We are so proud of her, Rubix and Axel for being such tough kids and learning to persevere in their training, despite bad weather. 

Rubix crushed the 6 and under and won the overall fastest 6 year old. He had a bit of a tough meet as he only had 2 PR's. He dropped his backstroke 25 by more than a second and his 25 freestyle down to 17.2 seconds. His coach wants him to work on breaking the 17 second barrier that he has been on for the last 6 months. Rubix has all A times for 8 and under so we applied for the Allstar team for him as well. We will have to see if he is selected as he is up against the best 8 and under kiddos in Zone 1 South. 

 Axel PR's in all of his events, except one. He is slowly improving his times, but he wishes he could get more BB times and get closer to reaching an A time. He works so hard at practice and he continues to go to master swim on Saturdays at 7am. He got a 23/25 on the AMC8 which is an honorable mention. He is waiting to see if he made Mathcounts. He is hoping to find out this week. He is getting nervous about the AIME coming up because he hasn't been able to do any practice tests. He also signed up for the Berkeley math invitations with the AlphaStar math team but we are still waiting to see if he made that team.

Big news for Axel is that he made his 9th grade course selections. He is hoping to take Cal BC AP, CS AP with data structures, Honors Japanese, Honors Physics and English 1 and World History 1 next year. He elected to skip an extra period option for a study hall considering he will have such a tough schedule for his first year. We are working on completing his 4 year plan to make sure he doesn't miss out on any cool classes. It looks like he should be able to take 4 years of advanced math and computer science classes, which makes him very happy! He just has to make sure he can squeeze in his required classes like his study of the arts and P.E. credit through sports. 

Life is full and good. I only have one more week of mentoring and then I will go down to working just 4 days a week for 3.5 months. I also got approved to finally cut my hours so come March 1st I will be back down to 24 hours! I am so excited as I should have time to stay on top of things more. My new schedule will allow me to be able to get the kids right after school for swim practice every day, which is important when Keith travels. 

Next week is a big week of Valentine exchanges, a field trip for both Phoenix and Rubix and a Valentine's breakfast for the 1st graders with their parents. I have the privilege of going with Phoenix for an all day field trip and I get to go to the parent breakfast as my mentoring ends just in time! I am looking forward to a fun filled week with the kiddos!

I hope to post at the end of the month! We have more swim meets, which means very busy weekends. 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

It is January 2, 2023. It is amazing how the years keep ticking away. We are finishing up on a wonderful holiday break from school with much well needed rest. Here is a picture of our lights when we first put them up. We changed the lights around the pole to color since we decided the yellow white does not look good with the snow/bright white of our icicles. I mentioned that the kids and I put these up before Thanksgiving when Keith was in Japan. We now have to find time in between rain storms to take them down. Hopefully, we can get to that before the end of January!

I also never posted videos or pictures of all of the swim meets that we were apart of, but I came across this picture of Phoenix and Rubix that I thought I should add to this blog. We are gearing up for more USA swim racing starting the last week in January. Phoenix is looking to improving her times to figure out what events she can race in the 10 and under champions in April and which races, if any, she can qualify for Spring J.O. in the beginning of April, before the 10 and under championship. 

The last wee of school brought lots of fun activities for the kids. Here is a picture of Axel and Phoenix with myself as we were waiting for Rubix's 1st grade holiday show. Keith was up talking with parents and socializing. I was so stressed trying to get there on time, I just wanted to sit and calm myself down. 

Rubix looked so nervous up on stage signing. We came to realize, about half way through the show, it looked like he had to use the restroom. He denied it, but could hardly make it home when he stated he really needed to use the bathroom. I felt bad for him, as he appeared to have trouble enjoying himself as his bladder seemed to be a loud disturbance to him during his holiday show. 

The next day we had the swim team party. Rubix entered the "ugly sweater" competition. Because we were so loud he ended up winning the contest. 

I made Axel stand up in the contest as I thought his button up Christmas shirt was great and should count as an ugly sweater. 

Here is a picture of the two winners. Rubix and Quinn. 

Rubix on the last day of school ready to start his winter break!

On Saturday the 17th we had our Christmas gathering with my side. We decided on an Asian cuisine theme. The kids had fun making sushi and then eating it!

The whole family was involved in our sushi making event, except for Gma Susan and Gpa Brian who preferred to stay away from the ciaos :). 

Aya and Rubix did a good job of eating them as Phoenix, Braylin and Axel worked to make them. 

We also had poke poles and dumplings. No one went hungry, from what I could tell. 

It was one of my favorite Christmas meals so far. 

Aya and Rubix were so cute playing together. Here they are measuring their heights and comparing them to each other. 

Phoenix prepared another white elephant game. This holiday she decided to do origami since she had prepared lovely Christmas artwork that she decided to give to her teachers instead of use for the white elephant game. 

The favorite origami would have to be the Christmas Tree and Gma Susan stole it from Aya, but Aya picked another gift to open just to find a box with 2 Christmas trees in side! This picture shows Aya with her two lovely trees and sad Gma with only one! We all had such a great laugh. 

Our attempt at a family photo.

Time to open presents!

The cousins patiently waiting to open gifts!

The girls with their Santa Chair hats on their heads!

A warm goodbye to Gma Susan!

A warm goodbye to Gpa Brian!

The cousins got outside to play before dark and then continued to play a fun made up game inside while we were saying our goodbyes. It was really nice to have the cousins together again just 3 weeks after hanging out for Thanksgiving. I do hope we will be able to get together soon, but we all know how busy school and outdoor activities make us. 

Unfortunately, the next day Rubix came down with a fever. We watched the most amazing world cup and rested a lot. Axel came down with a fever on Monday and Phoenix and Tuesday. I guess Aya and Braylin and Gpa Brian also got sick sometime that week. I felt so bad that we gave everyone the flu. Shannon said that Aya's closest two friends also came down with the flu, so she would have likely picked it up from them, if she didn't get it from Rubix. I guess they missed a few days of school! 

The week before Christmas was a blur for me as I worked all week and then stayed up late preparing for Christmas. A couple of highlights on Sunday after the world cup, were Phoenix's piano recital and Keith and I going Christmas shopping together for one of the first times in years! It is so nice to have Axel old enough to watch the younger two. 

Phoenix and Rubix, worked on one of his gifts. They painted the solar system. We were suppose to download an app to complete the project, but haven't done so quite yet. 

On December 23rd Rubix lost his tooth, just in time to have his 2 front teeth missing!

We took advantage of the weather and had the kids in the water on Christmas eve. We got home just around 430pm and had the kids open their Christmas pj's and shower before attending the 5pm church service online. 

All showered and ready to watch our church service!

Sibling fun!

Getting ready for dinner!

The kids have been loving "Sushi Go". They played while we got "The star" up and running. The Star was a wonderful moving about the story of Christmas. It will be one that we watch again in the future. 

A selfie of Keith and I before putting the Christmas gifts out!

Christmas morning.,,,everyone slept in until 8am. Yes, for nearly two weeks the kids have been sleeping in regularly until 8am. They were sick for a week but even this second week when they are better has turned in to late morning starts. I am so glad that their little bodies are resting. I hope they are ready for school tomorrow!

Pumpkin scones and drinks for everyone! Although, Rubix claims this year that he no longer likes the pumpkin drinks. 

Family selfie!

After opening stockings and eating breakfast we were ready for the main affair. 

Our cute little elf helpers distributed their gifts. They loved everything they received and we are so grateful for this time together

New Year's Eve we had our traditional game night, but we couldn't use our game table because it was covered with a puzzle the kids were working on. We still had fun with the highlight the laughter from Telestrations. 

 On New Year's day we had both a track workout for Axel and his friends and soccer fun with Rubix's friends. Phoenix joined in the sprint workout. Here are a few of Rubix's friends afterwards enjoying a snack. 

Today Phoenix and Rubix finished the puzzle and now we are ready to go back to school!