Alien Worlds and Androids

Well, I thought it was time to invade Melanie's blog again and post a few pictures from the opening of the "Alien Worlds and Androids" exhibit at the Witte Museum this past Saturday. --Warning: this post is picture heavy-- I decided to take Eric and Natalie to the opening hoping that it wouldn't be too crowded. Well, the exhibit was very crowded so we didn't get to spend much time there. We had to stand in line outside the museum before going in which was not a great sign. Eric had a blast though. While waiting outside he got to wear a "space helmet" (just a toy/costume piece but he loved it).

The exhibit itself provides a lot of information about different planets scientists have identified, discussion of different types of life found in extreme conditions here on earth, and ideas of what might exist somewhere else. It also provides a lot of information about robots (androids) and the various uses we have for robots now, and what the future might hold. There are lots of displays in the exhibit itself, but the exhibit was so crowded we decided to do some of the "member activities."

This includes having pictures taken with a lot of Star Wars characters that were at the museum just for this purpose. I believe they are all part of a club here in San Antonio and were exceptionally patient posing for pictures. Eric had an absolute blast. He was thrilled and overjoyed to pose for pictures. Natalie helped take some pictures and even posed for one picture, something unusual for her lately.

After taking numerous pictures we headed to some of the activities they had for the opening. This included watching some small robots, Eric even got a chance to control one of the smaller robots. The also played with some dough to make "creatures" and could put small lights on them. Although we didn't really spend much time in the new exhibit (we will definitely go back) we had a great time and Eric was on cloud nine.

Valentine's Day

I totally forgot to post about Valentine's Day. Alex didn't have practice that day, so Alex and I were able to get home by about 5pm.

Patrick bought roses to decorate the kitchen island and he also had another vase with roses in the middle of the dining table. Patrick doesn't give me flowers very often and I'm fine with that because I'd rather get stuff that lasts a while, like a new purse or clothes, but I still enjoy receiving flowers. The fact that he put them in a couple of our beautiful vases made them even more special.

I requested salmon for dinner and chocolate fondue for dessert. We didn't do anything special last year, probably because Natalie was going to be in the A Championships the next day. The year before, in 2012, Patrick made chocolate fondue and it was fabulous! He doesn't make it very often, in fact, I only remember the time he made it two years ago, but I think he may have made it some other time in between. He cut up bananas, strawberries, and french bread to dip into the chocolate. Yum!

The kids loved the grilled salmon--one of our favorite family meals, and the loved the chocolate fondue even more. Way to go, Papa! Thanks for a wonderful Valentine's Day meal!

Natalie Back Update

I last posted about Natalie's back pain last week. This week she complained that it was worse. She went back to the doctor on Wednesday. She had X-rays done to make sure there wasn't anything structurally wrong--there wasn't. The muscles in her back were really tight and on Friday, she got a prescription for a muscle relaxant. She's been taking that this weekend, but right now she can't tell the difference.

Meanwhile, Natalie's coach was able to pull her out of the swim meet that was held today plus the swim meet next weekend. She was disappointed, but at least we didn't have to pay for the entry fees this way. The doctor said she should not participate in PE or in swimming until the doctor clears her. Natalie complains now about being bored in PE. She wants to at least walk around the track since she walks around at school all day anyway. Apparently she's been picking up volleyballs and such during PE, so in other words, she probably could be resting more. We'll see what happens this next week.

For those of you that aren't on Facebook, I posted something interesting about Natalie there today. She has a school assignment where she was asking about her relatives' full names and birthplaces. She was being very needy and I had to repeat every name and place at least three times for her. At one point, I was telling her that her Papa was born in Argentina. She said, "How do you spell Argentina?" I laughed because she really wasn't trying very hard. While I was laughing, Eric started spelling "Argentina", and he spelled it correctly. He then said, "All you have to do is sound it out, Natalie!" Later, when I told her the cities where her Lola and Lola (my parents) were born in the Philippines, she said, "Why can't the city names be in English?"

Soccer Again

After many years of soccer games year round, with Anthony and Alex both playing in club soccer, and Anthony playing in high school, we're out of the habit of going to a soccer game every weekend. Alex stopped playing club soccer last spring, so he hasn't been playing in any soccer games until last month when his high school soccer games started. He's played in a couple of tournaments, but no games on the weekend yet. Patrick and I have gone separately to weekday games, but the weekend games have been cancelled due to cold weather. Last weekend, we both went to Alex's away game vs. Johnson, and we took Eric with us.

It was a pretty nice day, windy but with the temperatures in the upper 60s to low 70s. I still needed a jacket, but Eric was fine with his short sleeve shirt on. I took Alex to school at 7:15am, went home to meet up with Patrick and Eric, and then we went to Alex's away game at 9am. His team played okay in their first few games, but often had trouble scoring. They were playing a traditionally good team, so I didn't get my hopes up too high.

Alex's team is coming along, though. They were actually passing during this game and more importantly, they were able to score. Patrick and I thought Alex played well, although he never thinks that he played well. They have some good players on their team, and I'm glad that they are starting to work together. They won the game 1-0. This was a nice change from last year when Anthony's Varsity team lost every game. I went to another game just yesterday, and they played well overall, and I can see that they are getting better and better, but Churchill is always a tough team to beat. They lost to them 1-2.

Eric kept busy during the game by using the bleachers as his jungle gym. He would climb up and down the seats, often jumping down to the ground. Once in a while he would come give me a hug and kiss. He started soccer again just this week, so we'll be going to a few more weekend soccer games in the next month.

February Art a la Carte

Eric's February Art a la Carte class was this past week. This time, instead of being off for the day, I had to work on call at the hospital the night before. Luckily, I got a chance to nap before meeting Eric for lunch.

This time I took a picture of the example that Mrs. R, the art teacher, had put on the bulletin board. The art lesson involved a little information about Norman Rockwell and how he liked doing self-portraits. They were focusing especially on winter-themed paintings.

First, she had the kids look into a mirror to see what shape their faces were. If their faces were more oval shaped, she had them draw around their hands with their fingers close together, and if their faces were circle shaped, she had them draw around their hands with their fingers farther apart. I thought this was a great way to help the kids draw the shape, although the problem was that their hands were so small that they had to draw way around their hands to get heads that were of a decent size.

Eric was very set on certain things. The example hat that they were supposed to draw had a puff ball on top, but Eric modeled his after his Minion beanie hat, so there was no puff ball. He thought about drawing a bunch of Minions on his yellow Minion hat, but in the end, he decided not to. This was probably a good thing because he would have had a difficult time drawing that detail with the chalk pastels.

They were also supposed to add some other colors to the background, such as more blue in different shades, and then snowflakes, but Eric most definitely did not want any of that, just more white. Mrs. R also told them to draw buttons on their coat, but Eric wanted a zipper, like on his coat. I love that he knew what he wanted and he stuck with it.

He wasn't the only one that had set ideas of his own. One of the other boys decided to draw an Iron Man hat and scarf--lots of red with yellow for Iron Man's mask. A couple of the kids said that they really loved art class. I do too, and I love learning a little each time I volunteer.

January Art a la Carte

This is a blog post that I should have written and published last month, but I didn't get a picture of Eric and his art work because there wasn't enough time. I took the artwork pictures just this last week, so now I can share them in this blog post. Meanwhile, I hope I haven't forgotten too much of the details.

This first picture is of a chalk pastel that Eric did last month. His class won an extra art class because of their good behavior. I didn't know about this extra art class until the day of the regularly scheduled January class. I saw this hanging in the area that Eric's class artwork is usually hung and I wondered whose stuff that was. Eric's name is so subtle on this artwork that I didn't see it until I found out that this was from the extra class. I thought he did a pretty decent job with his owl.

I brought the usual lunch for Eric--Wendy's spicy chicken nuggets and vanilla Frosty. For some reason, we started talking about being able to raise one eyebrow. I can raise one eyebrow when I want to. Patrick cannot. When he sees me doing it, he usually starts laughing and then sometimes he will put his hand up to one eyebrow to keep it from moving so he can try to raise one eyebrow back at me.

This picture is Eric's attempt to raise one eyebrow only. He actually did raise one eyebrow at one point, but only when he wasn't thinking about it so hard. I couldn't get a picture when he did that, but I thought this picture was adorable. He looks a little quirky, but still endearing.

The lesson for the January Art a la Carte class was about using repetition in art in the style of Gustav Klimt. The inspiration piece was based on his painting, The Kiss. This required a lot of extra help, and so they had asked for five volunteers, one for each table. I convinced Patrick to come help also. He didn't come for lunch, but he arrived when Eric was finishing up his lunch.

The reason why they needed so many volunteers was that there were a lot of steps involved. First, the kids had to paint the background brown. There was one little boy especially who kept trying to get into the paint prematurely. One of the teachers stayed to watch him and him only, and then the co-teacher came to relieve her halfway through class.

There was also a lot of cutting. They cut the "blanket" out of yellow paper and also the "grass" out of green paper. They did some drawing with markers--the flowers on the grass, and the different circles and spirals you can see in Eric's artwork. The white and black pieces of paper were pre-cut before class. I helped cut some of those during a prep class on a different day.

By that time they were starting to rush because class was almost over. The kids were supposed to draw themselves and something or someone else they loved. One of the kids mentioned a Minion from Despicable Me 2. Eric loves Minions. He was trying to draw one and was particularly frustrated because it didn't look like he wanted to.

Now, some of the other volunteers were being almost too helpful to some of the kids. One of them was basically gluing and drawing stuff on her daughter's artwork. I guess she felt like her daughter should have glued more white and black pieces on or drawn more flowers/spirals. I really believe that the artwork has to be the child's artwork. They aren't being graded on this anyway. They just need to have fun with it.

Even though my OCD tendencies always make me want to reach in there and help Eric all the time, I don't--unless he asks me to. He has so much fun doing this stuff and in the end it usually looks pretty decent and I can say that he did it all by himself. The exception was when I drew a Minion head for him. He started looking a lot less frustrated at that point and started drawing the Minion body and arms. He also drew the side view of himself as instructed by his art teacher. Yes, this art is definitely Eric.

Back Injury

Natalie hurt her back early last week during PE. During part of the “Pacer Test” her back and ankle started hurting. Of course, Natalie being Natalie, she continued to run until she made the minimum number of laps to be considered a “100” for the fitness test before telling the coach that she was hurt. Patrick received a phone message about it and called the school nurse. They told him that her ankle was hurt but they put ice on it and she was back in class. When Natalie came home her ankle still hurt but she was also complaining about her back. She took swim practice off that evening but tried to swim the next night. During that practice her back hurt enough that she only pulled through practice because kicking hurt.

We immediately thought of a couple of years ago when Alex complained of his back hurting. The doctor said then that it was because Alex was growing so fast that his muscles were getting stretched and therefore hurting him. Natalie, although she is physically changing, does not have that same problem of getting too tall too fast. We were concerned about her complaints of it hurting, but she didn’t really look or act like she was hurting that much. We weren't sure if she was just stoic and was really hurting a lot but not showing it, or she was not hurting that much. When she had Swimmer's Ear, she didn't want me touching her ear, but she still kept swimming, and I was told that swimming with Swimmer's Ear hurts a lot.

She still wanted to go to swim practice. Fortunately some practices were cancelled due to weather or conflicting meets so she got some additional rest. This past Monday night she swam again, and again she simply couldn’t kick much without pain. We talked with her about it and told her that she needed to be able to practice fully, or not practice at all. On Tuesday she came home from school saying her back hurt worse than the day before. Patrick made an appointment for Natalie to see the doctor the next morning.

The doctor examined her and said that Natalie strained the muscles in her lower back and that trying to work out with it aggravated the injury and caused it to spread. She said the other back muscles work harder to compensate for the injured ones. The doctor also said no swimming and PE for a “minimum” of one week.

This evening, Natalie’s friend Margot was visiting, and Natalie was complaining about having to sit out of PE because it was “boring to just watch.” Maybe we should have just said she needed to rest her back, but she'll actually do it now that the doctor told her to rest and not just her silly parents. The doctor stressed to her that she needs to let her back heal before going back or she would just re-injure it and have the injury spread.

Unfortunately, she has a swim meet next weekend, so we'll see if she recovers enough to be able to go to swim practice before then or even if she'll be able to swim in the meet. On the plus side, this frees up our week a little. Eric starts soccer practices next week and Alex's soccer season is in full swing with practices every day after school and games once or twice per week.

Beautiful Weekend

After the cold weather this past week, the weekend was beautiful. The cold weather isn't my favorite, but the part I really didn't like was the wet weather and the gray skies. I was really ready for some sun!

These are just a couple of photos that Patrick took of Alex and Eric at our neighborhood park. I really love seeing those two together. Despite their very large size differences, they get along so well. I especially love the second photo because Alex is showing Eric a video he made. Eric was basically talking like a Minion from Despicable Me 2 and Alex added a special effect which consisted of five videos of the same thing within the one video. He even texted it to me.

We actually didn't have anything scheduled this weekend, except for a work thing for me on Saturday morning. Alex's soccer game was cancelled on Saturday and they thankfully let us know about it ahead of time. Otherwise, Patrick would have had to take Eric with him to Alex's school early in the morning when he would have had to drop Alex off for the away game.

Natalie wanted to go shopping so, since it was nice outside, we went to the "outside mall", La Cantera Mall. We went to Barnes and Noble first where I had to keep Natalie from buying all of the 10 or so books that she picked out. She narrowed it down to two. Then, it was still too early and the stores had not yet opened (this was on Sunday at 1130am), so we went to lunch. I shared a pizza with my baby girl then we went shopping at Forever 21. Every time we go to that store, I'm surprised at how cheap their prices are--$70 for two pairs of jeans, three camis, two bras, one shirt, and one lace dress. After shopping we had ice cream at Brindles.

It's turning colder again, but it should warm up again after that. Some people have complained about the warm then cold, warm then cold weather. I like that it doesn't stay cold for long.

First Filling

Eric got his first filling in one of his teeth on Thursday of this past week. Patrick took him to our family dentist. Dr. C said that he often referred his pediatric patients to a pediatric dentist nearby, but he felt like Eric didn't need that. Patrick said Dr. C did a great job showing Eric the different instruments he was going to use, including the drill. He explained what they were for, and even turned on the drill so Eric could hear what it sounded like. Eric is a very good listener.

He had no fear. He jumped right up on that dentist's chair. They put some sunglasses on him to protect his eyes from the light they used to see what they were doing. Dr. C put some numbing stuff on Eric's gum so he wouldn't feel the small amount of local anesthetic Dr. C injected to numb the tooth. Eric just lay there quietly until the end. They said that some of their adult patients don't do this well.

Patrick said they were all commenting on how impressed they were at how calm Eric was and that Natalie had also been a good patient when she had her first filling. Luckily, Natalie has not had any more fillings since then and hopefully Eric won't have any more either. Still, it's nice to know that if he gets another cavity and needs another filling, he will have no problem at the dentist's office.

They didn't want Eric to eat solid food right away since his mouth was still numb, so Patrick bought him a Sonic vanilla shake and kept him home from school the rest of the day. He got Eric some Wendy's to eat later and that was his reward for being such a good boy.

Snow!

This isn't terribly dramatic, but we did have a light dusting of snow yesterday morning. It was mostly melted by the afternoon, with a little of the white stuff still on the roof on many of the houses in our neighborhood. The temperatures stayed right around freezing all day and went below freezing again last night. There was no interruption in schools or work for the most part, although there were quite a few accidents during some peoples' morning commute.

Today, quite a few people said they saw sleet all over their backyard, and there were apparently some road closures earlier today, but everything was open again by the time I went home. Alex's Junior Varsity soccer game tomorrow was cancelled--one less thing for Patrick to do tomorrow. Natalie's swim practice was cancelled tonight.

Of course, this does not even compare to what other parts of the country are getting, including Anthony up in the Boston area. He had his regularly scheduled classes today.

Snow Day

Anthony actually sent me pictures yesterday (Wednesday). He texted us on Tuesday that Wednesday was going to be a Snow Day for him. He welcomed the small break since he has been super busy lately. He is taking two Mechanical Engineering classes and one higher level Math class this quarter, and because he also has an on-campus job and he's pledging with one of the fraternities, he doesn't even have time to Skype with us.

When he sent me these photos, I asked him if he had "played in the snow" yet. He said that he would play in the snow once his homework was done. Priorities!

This is a picture of Anthony's dorm building covered in snow. Since I had taken pictures of his dorm building with a lot of green grass in front and all around this summer, I asked him for a photo of it now.

Tomorrow I'll share a photo of the snow we got here at home.

Super Bowl Party

So much for trying to post more often! Life has just gotten in the way. Later this week I hope to have a short blog post about some of the little things that have happened in the last week.

For today I want to write about the Super Bowl Party that we went to this past Sunday. Patrick had always planned on making his chili for Super Bowl Sunday. We were going to have a small gathering at our house, but then our good friends Al and Alicia invited us over to their house. They have a media room that Al finished out next to their garage.

Patrick still made the chili and then brought it over to their house along with margaritas. I decided to make some Sausage-Stuffed Jalapeños also. I looked up the recipe online but a friend made something quite similar a few years back and I've been wanting to try it since then. I also made the Rum Glazed Banana Cake that used to be a favorite a few years ago. That's another recipe that I haven't made in years. It's funny how life gets in the way...

We went over shortly before kickoff. Eric played with Sofia and Natalie hung out in Anna's room. Her friend Margot was also there because Margot's parents went to a different Super Bowl Party. Margot understandably chose to hang out with her friends instead. In fact, the girls never really came out of that room except maybe once to get something to eat.

Al, Patrick, and Alex hung out in the media room. Alicia and I chose to watch on their other big screen TV in the living room so that we could be closer to the food. I was so stuffed but I really enjoyed all the food, so I paced myself and kept eating.

Eric and Sofia got creative when we didn't allow them to get on electronics. They played with this play tunnel. First they put a remote control car on the floor and put this tunnel lengthwise on top of the car. When the car moved, it pushed the tunnel this way and that. They got tired of that game so they started taking turns dragging each other across the floor.

The football game wasn't very exciting, so after halftime, I decided to go home and get Eric ready for bed. I was getting a bit sleepy myself since I didn't get to take a nap due to all the cooking and baking. It was a low-key Super Bowl Party, but we enjoyed spending time with our good friends.

BB Champs Part Two

We learned on Sunday morning after warmup that Natalie was chosen to be in the 200 yard Medley Relay doing the backstroke (first) leg. The girl who was originally on the "B" relay team got moved up to the "A" relay team, so Natalie replaced her on the "B" relay team. Natalie loves relays. They're more exciting and she really gets into the team spirit aspect. Unfortunately, the relays were scheduled to be the last events, so we had to pretty much stay for the whole morning session. That meant that we didn't finish the relays until around 1:30pm but then we still had to be back for the warmups before the Finals at 3:15pm.

We've learned that in the past, Natalie does better if she leaves the meet, even if she is only at home for a couple of hours. Of course this time, we didn't even have that much time. She decided to stay in the tent while I went and got her lunch. Her friend Renzi was in the same boat since Renzi had been on her relay team (which got third place--more on that later). They may look asleep in this picture, but they weren't. They didn't nap at all, but I guess at least they rested.

I thought I would take one last photo of the "tent". My back was against one wall of the tent, so this is a view of the whole length of the tent. There weren't as many people packed into the tent today. We thought that was probably because it was much nicer outside on Sunday than Saturday, and that people either sat outside in the sun or sat outside in other tents that they set up themselves. We actually had some leg room today and I didn't have another folding chair so close to the back of me that the corner was stabbing my back.

Patrick brought Eric to Natalie's first race, the 50 yard Butterfly. She was seeded something 14th place out of 21 with a time of 33.86. In the prelims she got a time of 34.13. She added 0.27 seconds. We were happy that once again she did not act pouty and disappointed like she has done in the previous few meets. She qualified for the evening finals, which is what was important. In the evening, she competed in the consolation final and finished with a time of 33.73. She dropped 0.40 seconds from her previous best time and came in 10th place overall (out of the 16 girls at the finals). She wasn't ecstatic, but she was not unhappy.

Unfortunately, her friend Ally got disqualified because "her foot moved before the start of the race". Natalie tried to comfort Ally the best that she could. Patrick had just been talking about how he did not like the officials at this race, because he felt like they were unnecessarily nitpick and which he didn't feel was good for the young kids.

This is Natalie with Ally on her right and Renzi on her left. There was a little unnecessary drama amongst her and her friends during this meet, but they appeared to have worked it out for now.

We had to wait over three hours before she swam again (for the prelims). In the meantime, Patrick left with Eric so Eric could go to Faith Formation class at our church, then he took Eric home to stay with Alex and he came back for Natalie's 50 yard backstroke race. Natalie was seeded 7th out of 27 with a time of 34.34 seconds. In the prelims she dropped 1.14 seconds to come in first overall with a time of 33.20 seconds. That was an "A" standard time and Natalie was ecstatic and so were we!

To top it off, she swam in that 200 yard Medley Relay a short time later. Since she swam in the first (backstroke) leg, her time "counted" as an official time. She swam her 50 yard backstroke in a time of 33.03, for even more of a drop in time. We were so happy for her! In the evening final, Natalie got first place in the championship final with a time of 32.53 seconds! She dropped 0.67 more seconds for an overall drop of 1.81 seconds! Wow! She wanted a medal and she got the first place medal!

Interestingly, even though she now has "A" standard times in the 50 and 100 yard backstroke, she decided not to go to the A Championship Finals in three weeks. That is on Valentine's Day weekend and Natalie wants to go to the dance at her school and spend time with her non-swimmer friends. We're glad that she seems to have other interests as this will make her more well-rounded. Her friend Ally has faster times than Natalie does in everything except those two races, but she was disappointed that she didn't get any "A" times. She wanted to go to the A Champs in place of Natalie. Ally's mom said that they might notice since Ally is a head taller than Natalie with blond hair and blue eyes.

So, this was a very tiring weekend, but after not dropping any significant time in any of her events in the last few meets, it was nice for Natalie to make some measurable progress at this meet. I guess that makes spending the whole weekend in a tent worth it.

BB Champs Part One

Whew what a day! Natalie has the BB Championships this weekend. This meet has preliminaries and finals, meaning that if you make the top 16 in the preliminary races, you get to come back and swim again in the evening.

This was the first time we've been at the Barshop Natatorium on the campus of the University of Incarnate Word, and this will probably be our last time. Their pool is 25 yards long and has 11 lanes. There is barely any room on either side of the pool for spectators to sit, let alone the 419 swimmers and their family expected at this meet. It reminded me of one of those houses that they build in popular areas like West University or Bellaire near Houston, where the houses are box-like in shape to maximize the square footage on the tiny lots. The warm-up/cool-down pool was only the two lanes on the end, lanes 10 and 11, where in other natatoriums, they have warm-up pools that are the same size as this competition pool.

The worst part was that to accommodate the swimmers and their supporters, they put up heated tents in the parking lot. That many people inside the Natatorium at one time would violate the fire code. Our swim club had the largest contingency of swimmers, over 180, so we got the largest tent, supposedly 5000 square feet. Unfortunately, there was another group of swimmers from the Wave swim club (over 80 swimmers) that were in our same tent. The tent supposedly held 500 people. At one point, one of the guys in charge came into our tent and told us that there was plenty of room for everyone and that we should stop complaining. Let's see--260 swimmers and their families and a tent that can hold 500 people. That comes out to less than one parent/supporter per swimmer. Someone can't do math and someone doesn't realize that many swimmers come with more than one parent and sometimes with extended family and other siblings, too.

On the plus side, we got to sit next to two of Natalie's good friends, Ally and Renzi. We also got to meet some new people, like Michelle and her nine-year-old daughter Paige who also swim with the same club. Michelle helped me to initially find space to sit. Some people ended up sitting in their car rather than try to find space in that tent, but I wanted to at least try to be social.

Natalie also did well in her races today. She swam the 50 yard freestyle first. She had a seed time of 31.17 seconds and had a time of 31.26 seconds today (+0.09 sec). We were pleased that there wasn't a hint of disappointment or pouting after this race. She was in a great mood. She said she didn't "expect much". She went into the 50 yard freestyle event knowing that she was number 30 out of 40 and that she would most likely not make it into the finals. Her final status was 31st place.

Her second race was two hours later, the 100 yard backstroke. She was seeded 9th out of 34 swimmers. Her seed time was 1:15.70 and she dropped 1.63 seconds for a new personal best time of 1:14.07. She was really happy after that race. That put her in 10th place for the prelims, which earned her a place in the consolation final. Being in the consolation final meant that she would not come in any higher than 9th place since the first eight places belonged to the eight girls in the championship final.

We went home, for a couple of hours then came back with Eric in tow. I think he wanted a change in scenery and/or wanted to play on my iPad that I brought with me. In any case, he was a good boy for the four hours we were there tonight. Natalie ended up first in the consolation final heat with a time of 1:11.25. That was about three seconds faster than she swam this morning and a total of over 4 seconds faster than her seed time coming into this meet! That time was actually the second fastest amongst the 16 girls in the consolation and championship finals in the 100 yard backstroke, but for the reason stated above, she was officially in 9th place overall in the 100 yard backstroke.

Natalie sort of hit a plateau in her swim times before this meet, so this improvement today was a very nice change. We're hoping that this performance will boost her confidence which can only be good for her swimming. In the meantime, we're back to that tent tomorrow. Wish us luck!

Ice Day

Last night, the forecast called for temperatures in the upper 20s with rain. The key word there is "rain". The cold wasn't that bad if you bundled up, but the rain made going out dangerous. We didn't get any sort of instructions at work as far as what to do if the weather turned out as icy as the forecast said it would. I guess I always knew that no matter what the weather was like, I was going to try to go to work no matter what. The last time the weather was like this, I was only one of three anesthesiologists that made it into work.

I was worried enough that I woke up at about 4:30am, way before my alarm rang. I looked on the internet for school closures. I couldn't find the info on the school district website but instead on the local news website. Because Patrick was getting up to go to the bathroom anyway, I turned on the TV and got the definitive news--many of the area school districts, including ours, were closed. Unfortunately, I had to go in to work anyway.

Luckily, I had no trouble at all getting to work. I left around 5:10am, about 20 minutes earlier than usual. There were less cars than usual on the freeway. The roads were wet but not icy at all, except for maybe some of the overpasses. I didn't feel like I lost control of my car at all at any time. The only way I knew there might be ice was that the car in front of me at one point looked like it moved from side to side very briefly. There were some cars stopped on the side of the road, I guessed from last night, which made everyone go even slower than they were already going.

I got to the exit from 410 to I-35 South and that exit ramp was closed. Everything else was open. I had to figure out how to get back on track after that detour but again, I didn't have any trouble and I got to work after about a half hour trip (my usual time is about 20 minutes). Surprisingly, there was a "Cowboy Breakfast" to commemorate the beginning of the Rodeo in town, and there were a ton of people in the parking lot of the Cowboy Dance Hall where that was being held. Apparently, later on, many of the area freeways were closed, causing people a lot of trouble trying to get where they were going. So, it wasn't the weather so much as the roads being closed that caused the trouble.

After I got to work and parked in the parking garage, I noticed that the covered (but still outdoor) walkway was closed. I did not want to walk across the wet street instead and leave myself open to being hit by cars and getting rained on, so I went under the Caution tape and walked across anyway. I thought it was silly that the walkway was even closed. Apparently later, they had someone standing out there preventing people from crossing. Really? That is a great use of limited manpower--not.

This is a picture of the "Board" at 2pm. We had way more anesthesia personnel show up than OR staff, so we started with running 8 operating rooms plus two trauma rooms. The higher ups called and told us to hold two trauma rooms in case we got a bunch of trauma cases related to the weather. We actually only got one case for the whole day--except that one case came to the OR twice. We heard a few more trauma calls to the ER later in the day, though, when people started getting on the roads. I called Patrick in the morning and told him not to go out. He had contemplated a trip to the library. He held off on the library trip until the afternoon when the temperatures climbed to above freezing.

We started more operating rooms as more OR staff arrived. I was chosen to run "the Board" and I was so busy all day that I couldn't even go to the bathroom without receiving a couple of calls. The staff we had were pretty stretched, but everyone worked together as a team and that was wonderful. A few more anesthesia personnel showed up also, and by about lunch time, we were running all the rooms we were supposed to--I think it was 24 rooms plus two trauma rooms. All our staff that were designated to work late also arrived, which made me breathe a sigh of relief because that meant the rest of us could leave on time.

As you can see from the picture, everything was running later, but it looked like it would taper down to a manageable level by about 5pm, which is somewhat typical. Of course, just before I left, there were two emergency cases, one that was possibly related to the weather, but another that was not, so I'm not sure how things will turn out tonight. I was so happy to get home (and it was an easy drive too), even though I had a terrible headache. I lay down as soon as I got home and took a nice nap.

It's supposed to be a little warmer tonight and then even better tomorrow. I hope so--we're going to be spending most of the weekend in a heated tent for Natalie's swim meet--more on that later.

Swim Friends

Today the kids were off school for Martin Luther King's Birthday. Natalie doesn't get to spend much time with her friends outside of swimming, especially her swim friends, so today was the perfect opportunity. Her friends Renzi, Aspen, and Ally spent most of the day with us. Renzi and Ally arrived around 1130. Aspen didn't arrive until around noon since she still had school (home-school). They did some silly things like take selfies while standing in the middle of the street in front of our house and singing to their favorite songs. Three out of four wore their matching "What Does The Fox Say?" shirts. They mostly spent time in Natalie's room with the door closed, but at about 1pm they decided they wanted to go get ice cream.

We haven't taken a trip to Brindles in a while, so we went there, and I took Eric along as well. Natalie got her usual Red Velvet ice cream. Her friends all got the Cookies and Dream flavor, which is like Cookies and Cream except with Dreamsicle ice cream instead of the "Cream". It was a beautiful day so we all sat outside to eat our ice cream. The girls went into the Half-Price Books next door and Natalie came out asking if I would buy them matching bookmarks that said, "Life is too important to take seriously" with a picture of silly birds sitting on each other's heads--silly bookmarks for silly girls.

We were originally supposed to take them all to swim practice on Monday night so their parents could pick them up there, but swim practice got cancelled, so they got picked up at our house at about 5:30pm. Natalie had a lot of fun being a normal girl with normal friends who just happen to swim.

Lego Shopping

I used to blog a lot more often, with shorter entries that were often without photos. I'm going to try to do that again, mostly because I want to be able to record more little stories--stories that are too short for a scrapbook page but too long maybe for a Project Life pocket page, but still stories that I want to remember.

Today, I took Eric to Faith Formation class at our church, or "church school". It was only when we got there that we found out that his class was cancelled due to the holiday weekend. Anthony took him to church school last week when Patrick and I were at Natalie's swim meet, so they may have said something then, but of course Anthony would not remember that sort of thing.

I had planned to run a few errands while Eric was at school, so I took him with me instead. One of our stops was WalMart. We usually go to Target, but last weekend a friend showed me the Minion bandaids that she got there and WalMart was closer to Costco where I got gas, so we went to WalMart instead of Target. I needed to get those Minion bandaids for Eric. :)

Eric always wants to go to the toy section, especially the Lego section wherever we are. He doesn't remember going to WalMart even though he's been there before, so he asked, "Do they have Legos at WalMart?" Why yes, they do. They have a whole long aisle where one side has sections for the various Lego themes. Eric is really into Lego Ninjago right now because he received one set for Christmas and because he has been watching the Lego Ninjago shows.

He saw two sets that he was interested in, one was $90 and one was $60. I told him he didn't have enough money for those sets. He said, "What about the money from Grandma and Grandpa?" Um no, you're not going to spend that much money on Lego sets. I told him, "Why don't you save your allowance instead?" At first he was going to get a cheaper $20 set, but I didn't want him to buy something he didn't like as much just so he could get something. I asked him if he really wanted that $20 set or if he liked the other sets better. After a pause when he was thinking about it, he decided that he wanted to save up for one of the bigger sets. Good choice. We didn't buy any Legos (or other toys, for that matter) today.

It's pretty tough for kids to learn the value of money. I don't know if he'll make as wise a choice in the future, but I hope he'll continue on the path to knowing how to make wise choices.

Commitment Core Value Award

This past Monday or Tuesday, I was driving Alex home and he said that he needed to be at school early on Wednesday (Jan. 15) for "some little awards ceremony" and that we didn't need to go. I started thinking of what awards ceremony that we might have attended with Anthony at this time of year. I asked Alex, "You mean the Core Value Awards?" Anthony always got his in the last quarter of the year, so Alex getting it after the second quarter threw me off. Alex of course doesn't understand that we will always try to go to any awards ceremony where he receives an award. Luckily, I was already scheduled to be off work on Wednesday for Eric's monthly Art a la Carte class, so I was happy about the timing.

At Alex's magnet school, they have four "Core Values", which are Perseverance, Integrity, Commitment, and Kindness. Each quarter, the teachers pick one student that they feel demonstrates each core value. The student can't get more than one award for each core value and they can only get one award per year. A few students get all four core value awards--Anthony did.

They had the ceremony in the same classroom that they've had it in for the past four years. They have a breakfast spread to one side with pastries, cake, coffee, and juice. The parents get to sit in the chairs and the students all have to stand up in the back of the room and on the sides. The room itself has stairs so that the back is higher than the front--for easier viewing. I elected to stand this year instead of sit, so Patrick and I both were able to stand next to Alex.

The mystery is always which teacher picked him and for what award. Alex strictly forbade me to take any photos, and especially no photos with his teacher. Sigh. Alex's teacher for Web Design, Mr. V gave him the "Commitment" core value award. In the past, Anthony would allow me to take a picture with his teacher after the ceremony. This year I had to get more creative. I took a picture of the little certificate that Alex got as well as the pin. I realized that I have never actually taken a picture of the pins before. Patrick and I always get a pin also, with just the school name and symbol on it, not the core value award. I think Anthony put his on his backpack or something like that. I have no idea where Alex is putting his pin.

After Alex left to go meet his friends before school, Patrick and I went up to his teacher to say hello and to thank him for recognizing Alex. We've met him before, of course, when he was Anthony's teacher. He told us that he picked Alex for this award not only because Alex is doing well in his class, but he showed extra effort and commitment in coming in after school to work on projects plus Alex also worked on those projects at home. Alex had a 100 in the Web Design class for the first semester, apparently one of only five students who have ever been able to do that. Patrick doesn't think Anthony was one of them.

Alex has said that his goal is to get better grades than Anthony. He seems to be well on his way.

2014 Title Page

I finally finished my 2014 Title page this past week. I've followed the same format for the past few years. I get a picture of all four kids, then I stamp their hands directly on the page. Last year and this year I decided that the handprints might last longer if I heat emboss the ink, so the handprints are shiny in real life. The hardest part for me the last couple of years has been to figure out how to fit the handprints on the page, since Anthony and Alex's hands are pretty big. I had to ask them to squish their fingers together, so that made Anthony's hand look thinner. I should have done an actual comparison and had them put their hands together. I probably could have arranged the handprints a little differently here, but I wasn't about to do this again. The kids surely would have balked.

The kids all then write their names next to their handprints. Eric decided that his name was too far from his handprint, so he drew an arrow. Alex was in his own world as usual and automatically wrote out his whole name and not just his first name.

Usually Patrick will get the heights and weights for me, but he was busy preparing dinner, so I did that this year. Alex was disappointed that he and Anthony were the same exact height--71 1/8 inches tall. They had just weighed themselves when Grandma and Grandpa were here, so they didn't want to get weighed again. Anthony was 147 pounds and Alex was 157.5 pounds. Alex has always had more "meat" to his frame, so this was not surprising.

Natalie has made the most physical change this past year, I think, and I'm not referring to her height and weight. She and Eric both grew a couple of inches and she's gained about 15 pounds since last year--all muscle from swimming, I'm quite sure. I asked Anthony if he thought Eric had changed while he was gone. Anthony replied, "Not really."  When I asked him if he thought Natalie had changed, he said, "Oh yeah."

Eric is just a little guy. He is 45 inches tall and 44 pounds. I just looked it up and Natalie was about that height and weight at the same age. Anthony was that size at about age 5 1/2. Alex was at that size around when he was 2! Eric is still growing, though, slowly but surely. We can certainly tell that he is maturing by the way he talks and moves around.

Yes, my babies are growing, which is good. Whether or not I make another scrapbook page this year, this page is still the most important.

Short Course B Champs

This past Saturday and Sunday, Natalie swam in five events for the B Championships. I don't really take pictures of her swimming anymore, since I have so many of those, so I ended up taking pictures of all of us waiting. There was a lot of waiting. There were also a LOT of people there, as you can probably see in the background of this first picture.

On Saturday morning, Patrick brought Eric with him to the meet since there would not be anyone at home. Anthony brought Alex to school so his school soccer team could go to the south side of town for a tournament. That gave them some time to stop by one of Anthony's old haunts, Benny's Tacos, for breakfast.

Natalie had two races on Saturday morning. She swam the first event at about 0830 and the second at about 0930, so luckily that meant that we could go home early, since we had to return in the afternoon for two more events. Her results for Saturday morning are as follows:

Event 1--100 yard IM--Seed Time 1:21.53--Time today 1:21.07--Difference -0.46
Event 5--200 yard Free--Seed Time 2:37.26--Time today 2:41.78--Difference +4.52

Patrick went to Alex's two soccer games on Saturday (one at 12:00 and one at 4:30), despite having a really bad problem with allergies. Alex actually got to play, which is not the usual case with freshman, so we thought that was a good thing. Anthony came to the Saturday afternoon session with us, so Patrick missed those races so he could watch Alex's game and then pick him up.

Eric is acting a little goofy in this second picture. I was charging my iPad and he didn't want to play on the old iPad, so he kept himself busy trying to rest his legs on Anthony. Because he was doing that, Natalie decided to rest her feet on her friend Ally's legs. She didn't want me to take a picture of her feet, though, so she asked Ally to put her feet on Natalie instead. I love that the two girls look happy in this photo even though most of the time they were far from smiling. Ally is mostly serious anyway, and Natalie was not happy with any of her races on Saturday.

Natalie's two Saturday evening races were at about 6pm and 7:30pm. Her friend Ally had to swim even later than that, but we couldn't stay because we really needed to get Natalie and Eric to bed. Natalie's results for Saturday evening are as follows:

Event 35--100 yard Free--Seed Time 1:09.43--Time today--1:10.52--Difference +1.09
Event 45--100 yard Fly--Seed Time 1:23.94--Time today--1:22.69--Difference -1.25

She really didn't do badly at all, but in her mind she still wants to drop time each time she races, and she was so close to a BB time for the 100 yard Free that adding time meant she wasn't going to get that BB time. She even got some new cool red and black goggles, but that didn't help her confidence or her performance.

Natalie didn't have to race until 1030 on Sunday morning, but she came early to support her friend Ally, who swam in the first event. Ally's mom had to go pick up her other daughter, so Ally stayed with us to support Natalie for her one race on Sunday. Natalie's seed time for the 200 IM was 2:53.76. Her time today was 2:57.99 for a difference of +4.23. She was not happy at all, but having her friend there really helped.

Ally's mom Elana and I joked with each other about how Ally will smile for me even when she won't smile for Elana. The same thing was true for Natalie with Elana. It's a good thing we were there for each other's daughters! It's all a growing process and Natalie is getting lots of experience. Patrick and I are super proud of her and her dedication at such a young age. Next step--BB Championships in two weeks.

Title Page Photo Outtakes

I've been meaning to post these photos for a week now, but alas, last week was the first week back to school for the kids, and the first week back to work for me, so we were very busy. Alex had soccer practice every day plus he got to play in a tournament on Thursday night, Friday during the day (he missed almost the whole day of school) and most of the day on Saturday. Luckily, having Anthony still around helped us manage shuttling the kids around plus still allow Patrick to watch most of Alex's soccer games. Alex actually got some good play time in--when his team was already winning by quite a bit. Natalie of course had daily swim practice plus a meet last weekend--more on that later this week.

Last Sunday, January 5th, I gathered the kids in front of the tree for their yearly photo. I plan on using that photo for my yearly Title Page for my scrapbook album. In the last few years, that page has pretty much been the only page that I had in my scrapbook album, but I still like to do that one page. I'll share the actual page when I actually finish it. Like everything else this week, I didn't have time to put it all together.

Before I proceeded with the group photo, I took some test shots to get my camera settings, white balance and flash the way I wanted them. The first picture is overexposed on Alex's half of the photo and underexposed on Eric's half. How could I throw away that photo, though? Their poses are hilarious! Alex will often make funny faces like that one for photos, and Eric likes to pose his body in different ways, too. The second photo is one of Eric's funny faces. He likes to open his mouth nice and wide.

Of course I tried getting Natalie to pose first. They were all folding laundry in the living room at the time. I asked her to step closer to the tree. She was not really willing and the only photo I got of her was blurry. Anthony would have been willing, but he was actually folding laundry.

This is the photo I'm going to use for my page. We did the yearly height, weight, and handprint for each of the kids. Hopefully I'll finish that page soon.

Meanwhile, notice Natalie's red jacket--she loves that jacket and wears it for most of the year, even when it's super hot outside. Also notice that Natalie's and Eric's socks don't match. Natalie and all of her friends apparently mismatch their socks on purpose--for fun. Eric liked that idea, so he started doing that too. Natalie is also wearing one of her favorite shirts, "What does the Fox Say" after the now famous viral YouTube video. Her hair is half up and half down. Her friend Margot has been telling her that she should wear her hair down. She knows that I don't like her hair down because it gets messy, but I told her it would be okay if she wore it half up and half down. Sometimes she listens to me...

Notice that Eric is wearing his Green Bay Packers shirt. After the Packers won their game the week before when Eric wore this shirt, Patrick made sure that he washed that shirt so Eric could wear it again for the Wild Card Playoffs that Sunday. Unfortunately, the shirt wasn't as lucky as Patrick had hoped and the Packers lost. Still, he loves that Eric has a Packers shirt too. Natalie asked for one for herself. Patrick loved that.

The photo doesn't really reflect this fact, but notice also that Anthony and Alex are the same size. When Anthony first came home for Christmas Break, Alex wanted to see how he measured up against his brother. He was upset that they were the same size. Alex really wants to be taller than Anthony. Someday soon, he will be...

Fiesta Texas Season Passes

The weather was beautiful this weekend, and even though it did get chillier on Sunday, the sun was still out. We took this opportunity to visit the local theme park, Six Flags Fiesta Texas. We have had season passes for many years, and last Friday, we went there to process our season passes for 2014.

For the first time we didn't have to wait in line to get our season passes processed. This was a Friday afternoon, so maybe everyone had to go back to work. We were glad we didn't wait until the weekend. For the first time also, they didn't need to take photos of all of us. They're switching over to a fingerprint identification system instead of the photos. I still remember when Alex was a toddler and we didn't make him get out of the stroller to get his picture taken.

After we got the new season passes, Anthony, Alex, and Natalie went off to ride on The Iron Rattler. The ride used to be called The Rattler and was a wooden roller coaster, but they put a new steel track on top of the previous wooden structure and made the drops steeper as well as adding a portion where riders are turned upside down. Anthony had not ridden the new coaster since it opened, so he really wanted to give it a try. Natalie said she didn't want to go at first, but her brothers convinced her to go and of course she loved it.

Eric didn't understand why he couldn't go too. We tried to explain to him that he was too little and that the bigger rides were not as safe and not made for smaller people. He even asked if people could be too big for some rides and we definitely said that was true.

Instead, we took him to the kiddie area. He and Patrick rode on the ZoomJets ride (first picture above) where the seats were red airplanes that went round and round and up and down. The next ride was the Kiddie Koaster (second picture above). When Eric saw the ride, he said, "That's not a good roller coaster. It doesn't go upside down." We thought that was statement was hilarious! We also saw our future of Eric riding on all of those big roller coasters that went upside down and which way, just like his older siblings.

For now, he seemed happy enough riding the kiddie rides. We also saw a big Christmas tree. Too bad we didn't see it at night when it was lit up. Just like when he saw the big Christmas tree in the Galleria in Houston, wondered out loud how big this tree was. We didn't know, but Eric seems fascinated with quantifying things.

Ironically, despite no line to process our season passes, the line for The Iron Rattler was quite long. We rode all of those rides with Eric plus walked around plus he played at this one playscape type of area. I'm guessing it was around a hour that we waited for the kids to finish riding that one ride. Eric rode on one more ride, the "Yosemite Sam's Wacky Wagons" that was a mini-ferris wheel. Neither Patrick nor I wanted to ride with him, and Eric didn't mind riding by himself. This ride was near the exit for The Iron Rattler, and the other kids came out just before Eric finished with his ride.

It was a short visit but it was nice to enjoy the weather and each other's company. The kids started back to school again today, and Anthony goes back to Boston next Monday. We'll be back to our busy schedule soon enough.

More New Year Memories

We got home yesterday, and although it is always nice to sleep in my own bed, I miss my family already. My sister Cynthia is such a wonderful hostess, and once again we have left stuff at her house that she has to mail back to us. I guess that means we want to go back soon, right?

I want to tell a few more stories of what we did when we were in Houston plus I want to share a few more photos. In this picture, Eric is playing with his Legos on the floor in Cynthia's room. Eric received a few Lego sets for Christmas and he wanted to play with them while he was there. We were worried that he would lose some of the pieces because he isn't very good about putting his toys away. Cynthia let him play on the floor of her room with the Lego pieces on top of the poster board to keep them together.

My Mom and Dad drove to my sister Melissa's house because it's closer for them, and then she brought them to Cynthia's house for New Year's Eve. On New Year's Day, they were all about to go back to Melissa's house including my niece Emily whose Dad was going to pick her up so they could spend time together on New Year's Day. Dad wanted a photo with all of his grandkids, but the big boys weren't up yet, so at least we have this photo of the girls with Dad. We should have gotten a photo on New Year's Eve, but I didn't even think about it.

My nephew Nick recently "rediscovered" their Nintendo Wii. They had not played on the Wii in years, but when his PS3 stopped working, he started playing his old Wii games. Here he is playing a Star Wars game with Eric, which of course Eric LOVED. Patrick decided to let Eric stay up an hour longer than he would have, just because they were having so much fun. What other opportunity would they have to play together? Anthony and Alex were at a movie at the time, and when they got home, they played on the Wii also. Our Wii isn't working, so they "rediscovered" the Wii as well.

We mostly hung around the house during our visit. The big boys played with their electronics, and the girls hid out in Aly's room. We did manage to go out on the evening of January 1st. I went shopping at the local outlet mall with my sisters and Alex. It still amazes me that Alex is my one child who always wants to go shopping. Still, Cynthia and I agreed that Melissa has the most shopping stamina. The cell phone reception was spotty there, so we had trouble reaching each other. Alex had gone shopping on his own and I went with my sisters, mostly to be able to chat and socialize with them. When we met up with Alex again, he said he was ready to go an hour before, but he figured we still wanted to shop.

Meanwhile, Patrick took Aly, Natalie, and Eric to see the Disney movie Frozen. Natalie and Eric had already seen the movie, but Patrick and Aly had not. Natalie and Eric didn't mind seeing the movie again, especially Natalie, who had seen the movie a second time with her friend Margo already. This was her third time seeing the movie. After they got back, Anthony drove Alex to the movie theatre to see Anchorman 2. Nick had already seen that movie with his dad, so he stayed home to play on the Wii.

I took this photo before we left on January 2nd. Emily had originally planned on coming over then, but she was invited to her friend's house and she decided to do that instead. It's too bad we didn't get a photo of all of the cousins together.

Right before I took this photo, I called them all to come to the living room to get their photo taken. The younger kids automatically gathered on the sofa. Anthony and Alex were the last ones to get into position. Alex was still fixing his bedhead and was the last one to come downstairs. I told the big boys to stand behind the sofa and crouch down. Anthony fussed at me, saying that didn't make sense since they were the tall ones. He thought they should be the ones sitting on the sofa and the other kids standing up, but the other kids were already sitting on the sofa. I love how this turned out.

January will be a busy month for us, with swimming championship meets coming up and high school soccer games starting. I'm not sure when we'll be able to visit family again, so it was really nice to be able to spend a few days with them over the New Year holiday.