Carson and Alana are both doing swim team this year — the first time for both of them. The first meet — an intra squad affair — was held last Wednesday. Both kids swam in four events and, overall, enjoyed themselves (we’re enjoying the forced improvement of their swimming skills).
Carson
Pre-swim body art (it was an intra squad meet, so there was a “green” squad and a “white” squad):
With friend/teammate Alan:
Diving for freestyle:
Freestyle
Backstroke
Alana
Striking a pose for the camera:
“Diving”
Freestyle:
Notice that her goggles are on her forehead for backstroke:
Back in the fall of 2008, I tackled a pretty ambitious project to add built-in shelves with a window seat to our office. The woodworking and painting was finished within a month, but the accompanying accessories have dragged out for a while — the need to find the right fabric and find the time to do the work. As of a week ago, the project is finished! Cushion, pillows, and window valances all coordinated:
Last week (while I was in California), he took a tumble from a RipStick — scrapes and scratches…and now similar damage to his top two incisors:
The silver lining: he was wearing a helmet (all three of our kids are pretty well conditioned to a “wheels means helmet” habit), but he’s commented several times since the incident that it was great that he was wearing it! So, we’ll take that sort of learned reinforcement.
Within a day of the start of summer, Carson had taken up with a kid that’s one cul de sac over. They’ve ridden the same school bus, so were comfortable acquaintances, but they’ve been roaming between houses and around the ‘hood constantly for the last week. They’ve done a lot of critter-collecting, too — mainly tadpoles, but they stumbled across this turtle (undoubtedly a former pet of someone) in a nearby creek:
They returned the turtle to the creek from whence it came.
Over the Memorial Day weekend, Benton was busy with baseball and various friends, Carson was really busy with new friends (more on that in the next post), and Alana…was bored. We filled the time by multiple projects in the kitchen:
We started by making gingerbread cookie dough (not really the season for that, but it’s what Alana picked out of the cookbook I gave her to leaf through). While the dough was chilling, we tackled chicken tenders — flour, egg, breadcrumbs, deep fried. Alana did both the chicken-coating and the frying:
After eating, we tackled the gingerbread cookies:
Alana did some, er, interesting decorating:
On Monday, we made tortillas (Alana had her first run at actually cooking / flipping them), refried beans (she helped with the initial sorting of the beans), and sopapillas (for which she did the measuring/mixing, cutting, and frying).
She’s on her way to becoming quite the independent little chef.
The last day of school for the kids was last Friday. I’m a week late on getting anything post on that front because Julie celebrated our 17th anniversary that weekend by leaving me with the kids and going to her mom’s. It all worked out, though, as she did ultimately come back home late Monday night. I then flew out to California early Tuesday morning for work and returned yesterday evening. I’ve got a few posts and pics from the last week, so stay tuned.
Starting with the last day of school, Julie snapped a few pictures of Alana:
She was *really* excited about the end of school party that day:
She officially completed her first year of school. Has she grown/changed since she started back in the fall? You be the judge by checking her first day of school picture.
Somewhere between 6 and 12 seconds after stepping off the bus after school, Alana announced she was bored.
Benton’s definitely getting me to the point of, “Gee, when I was in school we didn’t do anything like that!” stories!
One of the classes he’s taking (the same one where he had to develop a web site), includes doing various video projects. The last assignment of the year was to shoot a silent movie. It’s worth noting that none of the 3:01 below were actually shot outdoors — heavy use of the green screen! The beauty of the internet — rather than putting our kids’ artwork on our refrigerator, we can put their artwork on the internet, and their artwork can be videos!
The story (that Benton tells) is that the original assignment was to do a movie that was 2 to 5 minutes long. Benton’s group’s movie was 2:20 on the next-to-last day they had to work on it…and then they were told it was supposed to be at least 3 minutes long, BUT that they could fill that time with credits. They got, er, creative with their credits-lengthening!
If you’re getting this post through e-mail, you will likely need to click through to YouTube to view it.
9:00 AM — Benton’s first soccer game of the end-of-season tournament
Sanga (Benton’s team) wins…although the camera caught Benton getting burned by an opposing player right in front of the parents’ sideline (for which he received some lighthearted ribbing…and proceeded to almost get the giggles on field):
10:30 AM — Benton’s second soccer game of the tournament
Again, Sanga wins, so they remain in the tournament.
Benton and one of his really good friends (as in “go-to-the-farm good friend”) were the defenders for the duration of the tournament and showed some really good hustle:
Benton commented as we were driving home that he really enjoyed his teammates. A high five with Brandon after Sanga scored a goal:
Carson keeps himself entertained
Carson split his time between the playground at the soccer fields…and practicing his newfound anime-drawing skills:
11:00 — Alana’s last game of the season
Not the most aggressive player, but she did get a breakaway and make it all the way down the field to score a goal.
12:00 PM — Benton’s third game of the day
Sanga lost a close game, which ended their run in the tournament (if they’d won, they would have played in the championship game):
His “ballsiest” play of the day…:
Alana took Julie’s phone and found some shade to pass the time:
We then headed home with instructions to all three kids to go veg’ in any way they saw fit (I got to fight a week’s worth of heavy lawn growth with the mower, while Julie finished getting the garden planted). Then, at 4:45, Benton and I headed down to Ohio State for the start of the Dublin Dodgers baseball season.
6:15 PM — Benton’s first game of a doubleheader to start the baseball season
Benton pitched the first three innings of the first game and had a great outing (and it’s not just that he looked great with his pinstripes and eye paint):
In his first pitching outing of the season: 3 innings, 10 batters faced, 1 hit, 35 pitches thrown, no runs, no walks, 4 strikeouts. So, he’s looking at an ERA of 0.00 and a WHIP of 0.33. That won’t last, but we agreed that I’d get into the batting cage with the pitching machine if he goes the whole season without a walk (that won’t happen…but I’m also on the hook to embarrass myself that way if he hits a double; if he hits a triple this season, he gets to invite his teammates to come watch). The team went on to win the game and then drop the second game of the doubleheader. Benton’s offense wasn’t quite as strong, as he went 1 for 4 with 2 walks, a popup, and reached base on an error, so he’s starting out batting .250 with a .500 OBP (all of which is pretty meaningless after two games…but I can’t help myself). He was as bubbly about baseball on the drive home as he had been about soccer in the heart of that season.
He went straight to bed when we arrived home at 11:30 PM.
June 12, 2011 
Posted in Alana, Carson 
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