Liberty Championships

Calissa participated in her first gymnastics competition on Saturday. It was one just for the students at the gym and gave them an opportunity to see how the competitions work. Calissa was very excited (and a little nervous) to compete. Here she is before it started with her friend Ellie.

Lined up and ready to go. Calissa was first because she was the shortest in her age group

(7 and up)

Competing on the Uneven Bars.


Her floor exercise. (They didn't practice too much as you can probably tell).



Here is Calissa on the vault.

She came in fourth place in uneven bars, 8th place in vault and floor exercise and 10th place in beam (Travis said she was robbed).

Calissa with all her awards. She came in 8th place overall. She was very excited and is already talking about how she is going to do better next time.

Calissa and her teacher Amanda. Glad it was a good experience for her and she had a great time!

Minor Rays TOC Game

Conner's team played in the Tournament of Champions (TOC) Game last night in Walnut Creek. They played against the A's from East County. You never know how the kids will stack up to other leagues, but they did a great job. They started off strong and never looked back.

Here they are as they announced each child before the game began. Just like the big leagues! They also played the National Anthem.

Conner's first at bat.

He walked his first time up. Good eye Conner!

Conner played catcher the whole game and did a great job.

He had a walk, and a sacrifice hit (RBI) - I'm sure Travis will correct me if I'm wrong. They ended up winning 6-1 and play again on Friday night. Exciting times!

Great job Conner and the Minor Rays!

Hairy Summer So Far

It's been a "hair"y summer so far. How so? Let's start with hair lice. We woke up Saturday morning to go to closing day ceremonies for baseball. Calissa was complaining that her head was itchy, so Jen started to check it out. She had some red marks from where she was scratching it...but then, something moved! As we looked closer, we found several very small bugs. Even though we've never had it before, we realized it must be hair lice. Yuck! We headed down to closing day and warned everybody to stay away from Calissa. It was kinda sad because the friends she always plays with at the baseball fields wanted to play with her, but we wouldn't let them. I'm sure she felt ostracized.

Anyhow, we had heard about a place called Love Bugs that specializes in removing lice, so after closing day, we called and made an appointment. The whole family got checked out, but only Calissa had the buggers -- sweet blood, they claimed. She got a treatment and we bought some lice -repelling shampoo for the whole family. Jen found a few bugs the next day, so we took her back on Monday, but everything looked fine. Jen's been checking each day this week and it appears they are gone, but we go back in tomorrow to be sure.

Hopefully, our bout with hair lice will be short-lived. But we certainly haven't been saving any water since we washed basically everything in the house on Saturday and then have washed Calissa's bedding several times this week. At least her room is very clean -- for the moment! Here's Calissa with her hair up since they said to keep it pulled up as much as possible.


If that wasn't hairy enough, Parker was sliding into home at his first all-star practice and got hit by a baseball just below the kneecap. He was down for a while and then went into the dugout to ice it. After icing it for a few minutes, he went back onto the field and finished the last hour of practice. That night, it was pretty sore. The next morning, it was really sore so Jen took him to the Minor Injury Clinic. They took an X-ray (see below) and sent them home thinking it was just a deep bone bruise. A couple hours later, they called back and said the radiologist had found a hairline fracture -- "hair"y incident number two for the summer. He goes back in next week to have things checked out and we're still holding out hope that he will be able to play in a couple weeks. The fracture is difficult to see in the picture below (it's not surprising the doctor missed it at first), but it's on the top right of the bone at the bottom of the X-ray (the tibia). If you look closely, you'll see a very faint line in the corner.

We're hoping the rest of the summer goes much better than it has started. Speaking of hairy, I'm about due for a haircut -- maybe this weekend...
(Posted by Travis)

All-Star Brothers

Today was closing ceremonies for the baseball season. It's always good and bad when the season comes to a close. Although, by June, I admit I am ready to be done. Then comes the all-star announcements. For some reason, the extra practice of all-stars doesn't seem to bother me. Probably because we don't have to get up for school and have a lot less commitments.

Conner's team came in first place in the Minor division. They got monster sized trophies. They play other division winners from other Little Leagues next week. Go Rays!!

To our excitement Conner and Parker were both selected for the all-star teams. Conner is on the 9-10 year old team and Parker is on the 12 year old team. (The one that can go to the Little League World Series.)

Congratulations Parker and Conner!!

Parker's Awards

Parker just finished his 6th grade year at Sequoia Middle School. He really enjoyed middle school and is looking forward to 7th grade next year. No problems this year, except he thinks he can stay up way late now, but we still try to get him to bed at a decent time. He is pretty good at procrastinating though and finds ways to stay really quiet so Trav and I don't realize he's still up. We're on to you Parker!!

Parker's school had an awards assembly the last week of school and Parker received the award for Excellent Achievement in World History from his Core class. He also received a certificate for Academic High Honors for his 4.0 GPA. The next day he came home with another award from the 7th grade awards assembly for Excellent Achievement in Pre-Algebra. (He's in the 7th grade class). He was pretty excited about that one.

We are very proud at how hard Parker works at his schooling. Great job Parker!!

Rockies Team Party

Parker's team party for the Major Rockies was held on Wednesday, June 10th at Round Table Pizza. I finished the DVD's on Tuesday night and finished burning them on Wednesday during piano lessons. Parker had a great season individually, but his team didn't. He didn't get discouraged. I asked him about half way through the season about how he felt about losing and he said, "It's not fun to lose, but at least we're out there playing baseball."

Parker played short stop this year for his team and didn't sit out one inning. He's got great instincts when it comes to where the ball is going to go and has a good arm on him as well. He did a lot better hitting this year and even was the team leader with 21 hits this season. He also was 2nd in RBI's and 2nd in Batting Average with a .333.

Here is Coach Steve talking about Parker. This is what Calissa did during the party. She took about 20 pictures of the things that she got and several shots of herself as well. At least she was occupied!!
Happy and sad that the regular season is over. Great season Parker!!
We're proud of you!

Last Day of School!!

It was a bittersweet ending to the school year. We were busy, busy, busy so glad to end the school things, but sad because we're loosing some terrific teachers from Monte Gardens. Calissa's fabulous 1st grade teacher lost her job due to budget cuts and she is one of the most talented teachers we've ever had. I made this book for her for the end of the school year. Each child answered 10 questions about Ms. Prichard. (I made one for Conner's teacher for Teacher Appreciation Week).Here is the quilt that Calissa's class did for Ms. P.

Here's the one we did for Conner's class. I actually let the 3rd graders help me cut it. I know I was feeling brave and they did a great job!

Here is Calissa at her end of year ice cream party.

Calissa's class. Ms. Prichard being her crazy self.

Calissa going wild on her last Dance Breakdown!

Conner's 3rd grade class the last day of school.

Conner got a perfect report card this year. Great job Conner!

Calissa's was almost perfect ... although there was that one 'N' we need to work on over the summer. She is a fun girl, just sometimes a little too fun!!!

Great job Conner and Calissa and great job Ms. Prichard and Mrs. Urias. Can't believe we're already done and on to summer.

Calissa's Birthday Party

Calissa's birthday party ended up being almost two weeks after her "real" birthday. She wanted to have it at her gymnastics studio and they were closed Memorial Day weekend and were booked solid the next weekend. It was well worth the wait. She had nine friends and her two brothers at her party and had a great time. They got to do gymnastics with Peter (her favorite instructor) for one hour and then had pizza, cake and opened presents.

Parachute fun

Here is a fun clip my mom got of the parachute at the end.

Conner trying to climb out of the foam pit

Parker swinging into the pit

There goes Calissa

Calissa and her good friend Naomi.

The gang all sweaty. Must mean that they played hard!

Ray's Team Party

Conner's team party was on Saturday. They celebrated at Gehringer Pool by swimming, eating, watching the DVD that I made for their team, and getting game balls signed by all their team mates. His team came in 1st place in their division so they will be getting a gigantic trophy on Saturday at Closing Day.
Coach Chuck and Conner (being shy?)

Conner mostly played catcher and some short stop. He also played outfield every once in a while. Conner has a great attitude and is a great player! Great season Conner!

Piano Recital

The Spring Recital has come and gone. Always fun, but always glad when it's over. It motivates me each year to get my yard in shape and flowers planted and also to wash those windows! No one really cares, but me.

Parker has taken over the first spot in the recital. I usually have my best students go first and last. He played really well this year and no broken bones. Hooray!!

Conner played toward the end and did really well too. He is coming along, but still doesn't understand that mom's job as his piano teacher is to point out things that are wrong. We're working on that. Calissa is going to start piano next week. That could be a disaster waiting to happen!

Here are all my students as I was passing out awards. They all did a really nice job.

Here is Conner playing one of his songs. My mom captured his songs on her camera. Forgot about it until after Parker played so she missed him.

1st Grade Field Trip

Travis and I were both able to go on Calissa's last 1st grade field trip. They went to Newhall Park and went to 9 different stations and had a BBQ. Travis and I were in charge of the paper airplane station.

Here is Travis showing them how to make an "awesome" paper airplane!!Here is me holding the hula hoop and trying not to get hit by flying airplanes.

Here we are enjoying the BBQ with Calissa and some of her classmates before we left to go home.

Song Flute Concert

The 3rd graders at Monte Gardens learn to play the song flute during the year and have a concert the last week of school. Here is Conner (who is a very good song flute player by the way). They had their field day that day as well and they had made tie-dye shirts to match. Getting ready to march on to the risers.After it was over. Handsome kid!

During the performance. I'm proud of you Conner!

Donuts with Dad and Muffins with Mom

On Tuesday, June 2nd Calissa's class had Donuts with Dad or aka "Donuts with Dudes." He got to go to Calissa's class and spend some time with her. They ate donuts and did some fun centers. Calissa loved having her dad there!Right before Mother's Day, I got to go for Muffins with Moms. Calissa made me this beautiful hat. (I'm sure Travis was jealous that he didn't get a hat too.)
Fun times in 1st grade. I can't believe that she is our last 1st grader!