More J.O times, All-Star swim Team, Basketball, tooth extractions and Valentine's celebrations!

 

Phoenix has now completed 4 of her 6 basketball games. I was finally able to go to my first game last Friday, which was her last away game. We braided her hair for the first time in a very long time the night before. Keith and I picked up Rubix and arrived at the Pinewood gym in time to watch the girls warm up for their 4 pm game. 

It was a tough game and the girls played really hard learning how to be aggressive. The other team  taught their players to grab the basketball from their opponents which lead to more than 25 jump balls in one game! The girls lost 8 to 6 and ended up in tears, frustrated and shocked at how aggressive the other team was in taking the ball, rather than shooting the ball. 

Here is Phoenix at the start of the game during the jump ball. 

Here she is playing under the net. 

Last week I was blown away with how much bigger Phoenix compared to Rubix. With just 3 years separating them, I was surprised to see how much taller she was than him all of a sudden. 

To not leave Axel out, I took another picture including him :)

We have continued to be blessed with rain and, yes, rainbows! Here is a beautiful rainbow from last Sunday that we were able to capture from our house after spending most of the day in the rain at another swim meet. After Phoenix had an amazing weekend last weekend we were excited for her to swim again at the DACA meet the following weekend. She did not disappoint with an amazing 200 free time that qualified for J.O times by over 2 seconds faster. Her splits were amazing with her first 50 ,34 seconds, and her second 50 yards, 39 seconds, her 3rd, 41 seconds and an amazing 34 second last 50 to come in at 2:33.54. She was frustrated to get the exact same time in her 100 IM which was again an A time standard but a quarter of a second off of the J.O. time standard. The following day she was able to qualify for the 100 breast but was frustrated with her 100 free. You would think if she could do a 34 second first and 4th 50 free in the 200 that she could get 1:10 for the 100 free, but somehow her second 50 was just too slow and she got a similar time as the week before a couple of seconds off of qualifying J.O. time. Great news is she is now going to J.O. for 4 events, the 50 fly, the 50 breast, 100 breast and the 200 free, which means that she will be participating in all 3 days of J.O.s. 

Both Rubix and Phoenix were chosen for the all- star team and will be going to Santa Rosa to compete in the meet Saturday Feb. 25th and 26th. Phoenix will have to catch the team bus and go with the team. Rubix, because he is under 8 will go with us. He still participates in the team dinner the night before, but he sleeps with us rather than his team mates. 

I was able to go with Phoenix and her 4th grade class to the Exploratorium in San Francisco on Tuesday. Here is Kylie and Phoenix on the way up in the bus. 

I had 5 kiddos in my group which made it interesting to keep track of and make sure the boys and girls agreed on where we went. Here is Phoenix shooting baskets with the glasses that move the basket to the right. 

Kylie, Phoenix, and the 3 boys in our group on the 3 bear chairs. 

Phoenix high fiving herself in the 3D mirror. 

On the way home Phoenix and several other classmates were tired!

Rubix had a field trip on Thursday and on Friday was the first grade Valentine's breakfast where the parents were able to spend the morning with their 1st graders. You may be able to tell that Rubix has a bit of a cold. 

Yummy waffles with whipped cream!

Today was our first day of having some down time. Axel did masters swim and then went to get his last 2 baby teeth extracted. He was pretty upset with me as they had to dig out a root. I had been trying to make this appointment since October and I happened to follow up yesterday and they said, we have an opening tomorrow at 9am so I took it and sprung the news on Axel. 

He was/is a good sport and baked his way out of being upset. He made cinnamon rolls, but we haven't taste tested them yet, although they do look appealing. Tomorrow we have his friend coming over to watch the Super bowl after we do a track practice and soccer practice for him and Rubix. 

This week we hope to get some good rest in, family time together and catch up with family and friends that we haven't talked to in awhile because of our crazy busy schedule. 

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.