Trey Heye Invitational (Swim Meet)

On the Blocks...

Freestyle...


Results Board for Freestyle (she was in lane 6)...
Look how close it was between the Kammie who finished 3rd in this heat. Only 3/100th of a second seperates her and the 1st and 2nd place finishers. Man!

On her mark for Backstroke...

Backstroke...

Result Board for Back (lane 1)...

On the blocks for Breaststroke...

Breaststroke...

Results board for Breaststroke (lane 1)...


IM
At the wall at the end of her Butterfly...

Back...

Breast...

Free...

IM Results board (lane 1)...


Results
50 Free 35.51 (9th of 42)
50 Back 44.28 (11th of 40)
50 Breast 54.77 (19th of 39)
50 Fly 41.67 (7th of 28--she earned a ribbon and two points for the team)
100 IM 1:34.35 (12th of 31)

Brown Belts

On December 8th, Kammie and Zack, and then later Kate also tested for their Brown Belts in TaeKwonDo. (That made for a busy night of running back and forth between the elementary school and the community center.)

Kam and Zack passed off their form at the same time. Here are some shots. (My i-pad froze and didn't record it for me.)
Kam
Zack
Kam
Zack
Kam

Their bow at the end of form...


Sparring...


Zack presented with his Brown Belt...


Kammie presented with her Brown Belt...

Kate's form...


Kate presented with her Brown Belt...


It's been a long road to this point, but they are that much closer to their Black Belts!

Winter Wonderland

Each December at Pine Forest Elementary School they do a Winter Wonderland. It's where each grade has the opportunity to peform/sing holiday songs and they hold a silent auction as a fund raiser for the school. This took place on Thursday the 8th (while James was out of town and TaeKwonDo belt testing took place). It made for a busy night, but we did it all. Mrs. Cesge, the music teacher does an Awesome job with these kids! [I'm so grateful for her. At Providence Elementary School in UT we had a horrible music teacher that would just put in a movie, often Disney, and call that music. She couldn't teach singing or recorders or anything, because it was just too hard with the young kids. Don't ever tell Mrs. Cesge that. She goes above and beyond. She's done a 5th grade musical for the last 2 years and is working on Willy Wonka Jr. with Kammie and the other 5th graders now. AMAZING!]

Spencer among the Kindergartners with Gingerbread men...


A couple of Spencer's songs...

Gingerbread men


Up on the House Top



Close up of Spencer at the end as they filed off the stage...


3rd Graders...

Zack on the back row...


A couple of Zack's songs...


This one with Kazoos


More Zack, this time with red eyes...


Kammie as they were lining up...


5th Graders...


Close up of Kam singing...


5th graders again...


Noel song (I think you'll like this Irish sounding one Dad)...


On the recorders...



Sidnie dancing while Kammie and the 5th graders sang...


A snip of a Polar Express song with Sidnie dancing...

Woodpecker

We see woodpeckers here all the time, but they usually move up, down and around the tree so much, that it is hard to see them for long. As I finished my run on Thursday. I heard the knocking/tapping of a woodpecker in a tree in my neighbor's front yard. I looked and there were actually two in one tree and a female in the tree right next to it. I got my camera, but couldn't get both woodpeckers in the same shot very well, but this is a decent photo of the one. The red on the head is cool.

Cutting down a dead tree in our Backyard

We have lots of trees between our house and the golf course. This summer the golf course sold us more of that green space to be included in our backyard. So, now that that land is ours, James was bound and determined to cut down a couple dead trees in our backyard. He set out early to do this, but with one distraction and "honey do" to another, he wasn't able to get to it until 4:30pm yesterday afternoon.

First he tied ropes around the tree and anchored it to two other trees, so that when it came down, it wouldn't fall in the direction of our house or the neighbors' house, or their fence for that matter.

The dead tree...
James with his safety gear and the chainsaw...
Hard at work cutting it down...


Video of Kathie and James trying to get the tree to fall off the stump...

A success of sorts...We finally got it off the stump, but all it did was jump forward. This happened two more times and then got it's upper branches caught in other trees branches. We left it for a moment while James got the chain blade put back onto the chainsaw and it fell (on it's own) onto another little tree, where it broke a major branch, but it didn't land on the neighbor's fence, so we were pleased.

By the time we got that done, there was no sun light to work on the second tree.

Holiday Lighting

These things are better seen in person, but here are our holiday lights.

The lights outside on the house in red and green...

Our Tree...