HEADS!!!

This summer/fall Jazmin choose to play volleyball. This was her first game.

From Pictures for Blog

Warming up.

From Pictures for Blog

her first time up to serve. Can you see her legs shaking? She told me later they were. Just nerves, because she has a pretty strong serve!

From Pictures for Blog

From Pictures for Blog

stealing a moment with her friend, to pose for me.

From Pictures for Blog

It is a bit blurry, but Audrey took, it and I kind of like the shot, with the net and all.

From Pictures for Blog

I am still not sure if she is playing Volleyball or doing the latest dance crazy. This could be a version of the walk it out? Right?

The teams play for a full hour. The first 3 sets score is kept. They won 2 or the 3. The rest of the hour, is just 'practice'. She has a good time. That's all the matters. She has fallen in love with the sport. That pleases me.

This one's for you mom... wake up, or you'll miss the "Grape Day Festival"

I think that must be like the Garlic Festival, or maybe like the Date Festival. But this one, I actually took the girls to. Lots of vendors/booths. I bought an awesome new necklace. Not a butterfly, it's flower, but it'll do. It makes me smile. I wear it and PJ likes to hold it. She does not pull it, just holds it in her little hand. I also bought a pair of new earrings. I can't wear them around PJ as they are good for pulling. But they are wonderful!

From Pictures for Blog

From Pictures for Blog

There were fun things to do for the kids also. We were going to stomp grapes with our feet, to make wine. We wanted to do it last, as there would be some dirtiness involved, and who wants to walk around the whole festival at Grape Day Park, with grapey feet? Not me. But by the time we left, it was well over 100 degrees, and we were ready to go. And just plum forgot. So no stomping of the grapes for us. We did however eat some wonderful organic grapes. YUM YUM YUM. PJ even liked them!

This was the boy scout's rope walking 'booth'. Audrey was slow and steady, and Jazmin was fast, fell once, get to the end!

From Pictures for Blog

This was a karate booth, where the kids got to try and break a piece of wood with their hand. Jazmin did great! Clean thru first try! Audrey on the other hand, tried and tried and tried... eventually the person working the booth, broke the wood for her.

From Pictures for Blog

This was the painful bouncing around after the first attemt.

From Pictures for Blog

From Pictures for Blog

We ended up at the Grape Day Playground.

From Pictures for Blog

There is a great 'vine' for the kids to play on!

From Pictures for Blog

From Pictures for Blog

And a slide that looks like a bunch of grapes!

From Pictures for Blog

A military tribute statue. Audrey got a slight burn when she touched the metal.

From Pictures for Blog

We were also going to eat but choose to go to Red Robin instead, where we could sit at a table, have cold water, and someone wait on us. What a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon!

...Up above the clouds so high...

Like a diamond in the sky...

Okay, no I am not going to start singing nursery rhythms... well not always, and not here.

I was just doing some meditating and I was thinking about being still and at peace. And realized that I felt that while flying last month. What a strange time to feel at peace and at still. Most people would not find being thousands of feet in the air going hundreds of miles an hour the most relaxing place. But I do. I did, at least.

I looked out my window, and was just in awe of the tops of the clouds. Puffy. Giant. So much depth. And all out of something so simple. Water, in a gaseous state. Just by altering the state of water changes something so simple into something so complex. (OK... this is not a science lesson)

I remember flying once when I was a kid, and looking out the window, and thinking that the clouds looked like a castle. I found windows, and doors, draw bridges. Sure part of it was my imagination. Part of it might have even been my love for Care Bears. Put I am sure that I really found a castle in the sky, in those clouds. I might have even see LoveALot Bear, or a few of his friends. Maybe a rainbow or two.

Clouds can be so much, while being almost nothing at all. We usually look up at clouds, or look at them from the sky. From the ground looking up, they look flat. Mostly. Large white spaces in the middle of a blue ocean of sky if you will. Looking at them from the side, you can see more depth, more shape. This is typically the best angle to find shapes and patterns and objects in the clouds. But flying, looking down on clouds is a whole different world, that you can only see a) if your a bird or b) from an airplane.

Spending a few minutes in the plane looking at clouds, finding a memory, being still and feeling peace has demonstrated for me again, how important it is to look at something, examine it, and study it from all angles, before determining what it truly is.

I could have spend hours when I was a kid looking at the clouds out the window of the airplane. I think I might have. I know I did on my plane trips this summer. I wonder what my castle in the clouds would have looked like from the ground up.

Cheers!

School Daze!

As summer comes to a close, and fall typically starts, so does school. I often think about a Pink Floyd song this time of year.

Another Brick in the Wall

We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers, leave them kids alone
Hey, Teachers, leave those kids alone
All in all its just another brick in the wall
All in all you're just another brick in the wall

Perhaps it is the Pink Floyd Laser Show that I have seen many many times at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle. I don't know...but that's what comes to mind first at the start of every year.

Anyway!

From blog pictures

The first day of school this year was bit different for us. Jazmin is now at Jean Farb Middle School, while Audrey is still at Joy Bright Hancock Elementary., and PJ is now with us.

First I walked Audrey to school. She was super excited because her BFF (best friend forever) is in her class and she was worried all summer long that they would be separated. As we were looking for the class room line to wait on, until the bell rang the panic set it. She got nervous at the thought of me leaving, before she went into the classroom. I found this odd because she is a returning student here. But the unknown is always hard. So we waited. That was just about the time that her BFF showed up. She gave Audrey a giant hug, and bless her young little heart, she started to cry while hugging Audrey. 5 weeks were too long for them to go with out seeing each other. We had planned to have a few play dates over the summer, but alas it did not work out. We were out of town when they were in and vice versa. So with out any more rambling about Audrey's first day of school, here's a few thousand words more!

From blog pictures

From blog pictures

From blog pictures

Then PJ and I walked home, and got in the car with Jazmin to take her to her first day of middle school. Jazmin has been ready for middle school to start since two days before school was let out in July. It's like when you are done counting to ten when you are 'it' in hide 'n seek, and you scream, ready or not here I come! We find a parking spot, shuffle out of the car, and are on our way in. Jazmin decided that a line she saw was the longest line she had ever seen. It wasn't that long, the line for Atlantis at SeaWorld is longer, and she didn't have to stand in that line. Needless to say, she did get in a line to get her schedule.

From blog pictures

She wasn't so happy about me taking that picture, as you can tell. It was embarrassing, and now that she is in middle school... you know these things matter. I put it away after that respecting her wishes. We found her Advisory (read: homeroom) class, went thru her schedule, and waited for the bell. Then the first bell rang. And Jazmin asked me if we were allowed in the room yet. I had to explain to her about first bells and second bells and passing period. That brought on the panic. And the wave of kids. Then we were let in the room, and after she found a seat, got settled a bit, and morning announcements, I left Jazmin to make good positive choices on her own at middle school.

Art at a Rest stop?

Over the last couple weeks we have been here, there and everywhere, and visited all the rest stops in between. Here is a couple of shots from the more... intersting ones.

Art in the bathroom, notice there is no ceiling. Interesting.


This little guy is not technically art, as he is real. And he had many friends. Just as colorful.

I did not get to take a photo of the rest stop that was INFESTED with grasshoppers EVERYWHERE! You could not walk, with out stepping on them, and we were in a hurry to close the car doors, as they kept trying to get in. GROSS!!!