Karate Seminar

Today the boys had their first karate seminar.  They were both so excited!!  So excited that Michael woke me up to ask if it was time yet to leave for the seminar way too early in the morning.  I am so happy they are so excited about it!!  It was a three hour seminar to teach them what they needed to know to earn their orange belts.

They boys getting ready for the seminar.

warming up and stretching out, very important as they always tell me.  ;-)

Showing their teachers their blocks.

Then came self defense, they boys were so excited about this part.  They had to get out of holds, etc.  Here they are blocking a knife and then moving the knife into the attackers leg.  During the break they tried those moves on me.  :-)

Next came showing their kata - check out his strong punch and yell!

Michael's turn to show his kata.  They both did AWESOME!!!

Both boys earned their orange belts!!!  They were so excited about it!!! 

My orange belts!!!  They were so happy and ready for their orange belts!!!  They are already talking about when they get their green belts.  I told them they had a little ways to go before they get the next belt. Though they have gone up three belts in just over three months.  They are on a roll.  Maybe they can make their green before summer.  We shall see.  I am sure you have noticed that we haven't done as much traveling lately.  Don't you worry, once David gets home I have trips already planned and ready to go because the travel bug is hitting me hard.  :-)  But soon he will be back and then we will be back on the road again.  :-)

AJ's Karate Tournament

On Saturday it was AJ's turn.  His tournament had quite a few more people, which it should because it was for 7-18 years old.  He was extremely excited and ready to go.  We arrived very early just to make sure we had seats and a parking spot.  I was told it could get really crowded and boy did it!!  It was standing room only and people getting tickets for parking in fire lanes.

Here AJ is warming up.  This morning his instructor changed up his Kata at the last minute.  I was a little nervous, but AJ was totally good with it.

They were lining them up here.  The black belts were up front and the yellow belts in the back.  This was just Karate Tech students, there were two other dojos there also.

watching a little demonstration waiting for start time.

We were lucky because he was one of the first one up, here he is reporting in for his form part of the tournament.

Check out that form, it looks great!!!

After a bit of a wait it was time for sparring.  Here he is playing with his mouthpiece like Michael did last week.  :-)  Check out that expression.

Gearing up for sparring!

Setting up for round 1

AJ getting in a punch while the other one trying to kick him.  AJ did great!!  He won his first two matches.  He lost his last two and took fourth place, just out of the trophy range, but we are so proud of him!!!!  After that we headed to the BX for a celebratory lunch for a job well done!!!

That afternoon we had AJ's basketball party.  Here is his team this year, they had a great year!!!  They played as a team and really improved through out the season.

Coach Terri handing him his trophy.  It was a great BBQ and the boys had soooo much fun!!  By the end of the day both boys and myself were extremely exhausted!

Michael's 100th day of school

On Friday February 28th, we celebrated Michael's 100th day of school.  The teacher was a little late on it because it was really the 108th day of school, but it was still after 100 days and it gave them more time to plan. I found a few things on pinterest to put up in the classroom and a few activities.

I made two of these one for her front door and one for her back door.  The kids loved walking through it!!  I am surprised it lasted the day.

Next we did a marshmallow building project.  The kids had 100 mini marshmallows and 100 toothpicks to put together anything they could imagine.  They were broken up into teams.  Michael's team decided to try and build a bridge.  We gave them ten minutes.  It was cute what they all came up with.

After that we gave them all marshmallows with either chocolate, caramel, or pineapple.  Yes sugar in the morning for kindergartners, probably not the smartest, but fun!!

Then we headed to centers.  Here Michael is putting together 100 pieces of food to make his 100 day snack.  Have you seen a pattern yet?  There were about five other centers including centipedes, fruit loop necklace that had 100 fruit loops on it, a hat with 100 items on it.  It was a really fun morning!!!

In the afternoon we headed to the gym and the kids popped balloons and inside was a piece of paper that we had to do 100 of.  This is 100 skips, there was 100 jumping jacks, 100 blinks, etc.

Next was circuit training, they were supposed to do 100 seconds of each one, but that was a really long time so we cut it down to 45 seconds.  There was push ups, sit ups, toe touches, windmills, etc.

We had planned to do a total of 100 laps between all of us, but we were running short on time, so we just did one.  Here Michael is at the starting line ready for his run.

And we were off!!  The kids did great!!  Some even decided they wanted to do a second lap, so off I went to follow them Michael included.

Then of course we had to have a snack!!  There were cupcakes and water.  Can you tell Michael is excited?!?  It was such a great day!!!  All the kids had so much fun and so did I!!!

Scouts - AJ's Promotion

On Sunday was the monthly pack meeting for scouts.  It was a special one because it was Blue and Gold, which is when we celebrate the Scout's birthday.  They had it out at their camp Kachina.  Luckily the weather held and it didn't rain on us.

Getting ready for the meeting.

AJ also did all the requirements to become a wolf scout!  Michael was very helpful and was taking the pictures for me while I painted AJ's face.

Here I am getting ready to pin on his new rank!!  

Wearing the badge of the wolf!!  We are so proud of him!!!  He is really enjoying scouts and getting so much out of it!!!  I am so happy for him!

His brother was proud also and wanted a photo with him!!

After that the wolves had to lead a song at the pack meeting.  It was pretty funny.

They had a campfire, nothing like the ones we have out at the ocean, but it was okay.  Though we were so far back that we couldn't feel the heat at all.  :-)  But it was a great meeting and AJ is a proud new wolf scout!!!  He is following in his Uncle Al's footsteps!

MIchael's Karate Tournament

On Saturday February 22, Michael participated in his first every Karate tournament.  He was so excited and wasn't even nervous at all!  I think I was more nervous than he was.  ;-)  This one was only for 4-6 year olds, AJ's tournament is next weekend.  They split them up because it is pretty big.

All the kids had a chance to warm up and practice their Kata.  He was very serious about making sure he did it all right.

This was the whole group from their style, Karate Tech.  There were at least two other groups that were there.

Like all military functions it starts with the color guard and national anthem.  The lady behind them sang the German national anthem and the US national anthem.  At all events here in Germany they always carry both flags and do both anthems.  Even at the close of business at 5 pm when they play it they play both, which can get really long because the German one is quite long.  :-)

Then it was form time.  The first event they did their form in front of three judges.  Michael did a great job!!  There were over twenty in his group and only the top three received trophies.  I was so proud of him!!!

Next up was the sparring.  Michael was really excited about this, as you can see he was in line and already jabbing!

They had to wear mouth guards and this was the first time Michael ever had one in and he was being funny with it!!  He couldn't stop playing with it.

Down to business, Michael is in the red dots on the left, ready to spar.

Here Michael is landing his kick on the other player.  He fought so well!!  He won his first two rounds and then was fighting for first and second place.  He went against an orange belt which is one up from his yellow belt.  It was also their best orange belt from a different dojo.  He did awesome!!  It was tied at 2-2 and then the other guy landed the final punch.

Michael took second in sparring at his first tournament!!  So proud and so excited for him!!!!  Even cooler is that this is his sensei handing him his trophy.

Proud standing with his trophy!!!

So excited!!!  It was a great day!!!  We were there from 9:45 am 'til 2 pm so we were all extremely hungry and wanted to celebrate so off to the BX for some victory lunch!

Dynaikum

So on Monday February 17th we went to a really cool museum, it was a hands on museum called Dynaikum.  I had heard about it for awhile and we were finally able to go.  The boys, and I, LOVED it!!!  So much they were ready to go back right away!!  We met some friends there for her son's birthday.

The boys were really excited to see their friends!!

The animal for Pirmasens is the bull, there was one out in front of the museum.  While we were driving to McDonald's afterwards AJ scared me half to death when he saw another one.  I thought a car was going to crash into us with how loud he was.  :-)

This place was all hands on.  The cool thing was that it was in German and English, so we could read about all of the experiments.  Here the boys are rolling it up and letting it drop, then watching as it bounces up again.

Michael being silly with some of the materials.

There was a cool slide there, one was straight and the other has a big dip.  It was showing that both slides have the same speed.  There was a smaller version that you put two balls down it. 

This was showing a pendulum, if one person starts to swing then the other will swing also.

AJ making waves!

This one was really cool, you move the handle and the rope goes in different directions.

Okay there were so many cools ones, this one you had to peddle fast enough and it makes your own hover craft.  It was really hard to get enough air in there to make it hover.

AJ checking out the bone structure while riding a bike.

This one AJ was producing his own electricity.  He was able to power each one individually.

I liked this one, it is a relaxation one.  Whoever is more relaxed the ball goes away from that person, so you want to be the relaxed one.  And the screen measures your brain waves.  There was also a quiet box where you stick your head in it and it is all quiet.  I told the boys that I need one of those at home.  :-)

A little meditating before we leave the museum.

It was a beautiful day!!!  We stopped at the outside play area.  After that we headed to McDonald's for lunch.  We ate with everybody and then stayed a little while longer to play some Kings in the corner.  It was a great day!!!  There were a lot of cool experiments in the museum, some that we didn't even get too!!  So it will be one that we go back to.  The boys also said we had to take Daddy there!!