Karate Tournament

(Big thanks to Kerry for taking pictures, and for taking Miss D home so I could stay for my part of the tournament!).

Miss D went to her second Karate tournament last Saturday. She had been to one last fall, when she was only a yellow belt, but now she is an experienced blue belt. She practiced a lot for this tournament, and I was really impressed with how focused she was.



There was some kind of snafu with her division and she wound up getting bumped up two divisions from where she was supposed to be. Then there was another snafu with her Self-Defense competition, and her partner didn't know how to do the moves she was doing, so she had to teach the girl the moves during her performance!





But despite all that, she scored a bronze medal in Self-Defense and a 4th Place in Forms.

Mama hung around all day to do her competition and ended up winning two gold medals (Forms and Self-Defense). Of course, it helped that Mama was the only one in her division!!! Next time, Mama will have a higher belt (hopefully!) where there was actually a healthy amount of adult competition.

Another long blogging drought.

I don't really know why these happen. I plan posts in my head, have pictures ready to go, and then .... nothing. Radio silence. Life gets busy. Whatever. It's stupid, 'cuz I want to use this 'blog to remember these times in my family's (and my!) life, but if I never make time to sit down and blog, then I won't have much to remind me, will I?

Ah well... at least I've broken the drought. Now tomorrow I will make time to actually post some long-overdue stuff.

Miss D & Friends at her b'day party

Miss D's birthday party was late this year, April 17, even though her b'day is April 11. Just so happens that her birthday was on the Sunday at the very end of school's spring break, so we waited until the next Saturday to have her party, so more of her friends could come.

She chose to have a LadyBug party at Red Butte Gardens, and I have to say that I think it was the most perfect b'day party we've ever done. The lady at Red Butte's Sprout House ran a terrific b'day party. They read stories, they played outside, they held worms from the compost pile, they painted a small pot, they planted a plant in it, they played outside some more... it was a beautiful sunny spring day and I think the kids all had a lot of fun (I know I did!).

Daddy-J took this picture on his cell phone.


Miss D on the left, her friend Miss A in the middle, and her friend Mr. H on the right! These three had such a great time running around, climbing on lizards, going into the tree house, hunting for ladybug eggs in the dirt... it was a great day!

I have more pics on the other camera, but will have to upload those later (maybe save them for another post!).