Happy Easter 2013

Happy Easter to all our friends and family!

We went to church this morning at 9am. Even though we got there by around a quarter till 9am, there were no seats left, at least not where we could all sit together. I'm sure the little ones would have rather been able to sit down in a pew instead of on the floor, but for me, I prefer staying together than being comfortable. I told them that we are better able to stand than a lot of other people that came after us, so at least Natalie was satisfied with that.

I took this photo after we got home and before Natalie had a chance to change out of her dress into jeans, sneakers, and a hoodie. Eric and Anthony were fine with what they were wearing. Every time I take one of these photos, I realize that I still need lots of practice. The kids are blurry! Ugh. I'm still happy I got at least one photo of them. I didn't dare ask for more.

I was a lazy mom this year. Usually I buy them little toys and things to put in their Easter baskets, but I was fresh out of ideas. We try to get them more toys than candy, but I also didn't want to buy more junk toys that would be left all over the house. I didn't even buy them any chocolate bunnies. Luckily, our local natural science museum, the Witte Museum, was selling these chocolate eggs filled with little chocolate dinosaurs as part of their current dinosaur exhibit. They were even on sale. Even though Eric is the dinosaur-crazy child, we got one for each of them. Anthony was the first to eat his egg. That's his hand in the picture.

Eric wanted to eat the dinosaur egg, but he said he had to eat lunch first. (Our brainwashing must have been effective.) He did ask to have lunch right away, but we were invited to our friends' house. She has to teach Sunday school until about 12:15, so we're not heading over there until 12:30. They only live around the corner from us, so we'll probably just walk. Meanwhile, Eric was very interested in Anthony's egg and the little dinosaurs inside.

Our dinosaur-crazy boy is turning six soon. Easter is extra special for me because Eric was born the day after Easter six years ago. We are planning a big birthday party for him, although Patrick had to gently explain to him this week why we couldn't have a party on his actual birthday (since it's on a Tuesday). I'm sure I'll post to my blog again before then. Happy Easter everyone!

Eric's First Conference

At our local elementary school, instead of the traditional parent-teacher conferences where the parents sit down with the teacher, they have "student-led" parent-teacher conferences where the student sits with their parents to show a folder of expectations and work done. Eric had his first one this past Thursday. Patrick, the fantastic husband and father that he is, knew that I was on call Thursday, and so scheduled the conference in the morning so I could also attend.

I've been telling friends recently that Eric is the perfect youngest child because he lets me get some cuddle time, even though he is already almost six years old. This was not the case with his older siblings. When he saw Patrick and me approaching his classroom, he ran to me with a big smile, and gave me a hug. Isn't he a sweetie?

We got there a little early, so we waited until the rest of the class could go off to another area of the school. Only four or five kids were left awaiting their parents in the classroom. When his teacher came and got us, she said, "They're all very excited." I could imagine a bunch of five and six year olds bouncing off the walls, excited and nervous about their first conferences. When we walked in the classroom, Eric was sitting at one of the tables. When he saw us, he gave us a huge smile and again ran up to me to give me another hug. Love! He then proceeded to show us his binder full of his work. One of the worksheets showed that one of his goals at the beginning of the school year was to be able to draw dinosaurs better--a surprise, I know. He had colored in almost all the boxes showing that he drew dinosaurs many times. The goals were simple. Another one was to be able to trace his hand better.

This book was at the end of the binder. Of course the pages are illustrated. Eric was practicing his goal of drawing dinosaurs. The title is misspelled, but reads "Tyrannosaurus Rex Dusent Cair" (Tyrannosaurus Rex Doesn't Care). The book only has three double pages in it. On the first page, a Spinosaurus roars and says to a T Rex, "I Wel eet you up" (I will eat you up). On the next page, a Giganotosaurus tells the T Rex "I wel eet you up too" (I will eat you up, too). The T Rex replies, "I Dont Car" (I don't care) in both of those first two pages. On the last page a Tyrannotitan says, "I wel eet you up too" (I will eat you up, too). This time the T Rex replies, "I ran away from a Spinosaurus Gigantosaurus and I will run away from you." I'm not sure how correctly he spelled everything on the last page, because all the letters and words were running together and it was hard to read. That's what he said the page said, but the words don't read that way. He also had to tell me what types of dinosaurs were on the pages because of course, I don't know as much about dinosaurs as he does.

On the table was also a sheet for parents with suggested questions to ask their child about their work/presentation, but after what seemed like only a few pages of his binder, he was done. He didn't feel like answering any more questions. He had probably expended his nervous energy on what he had already presented plus the title page had lots of big words that were difficult for him to read.

I asked Patrick to take a picture of Eric and me before we left and he took the first photo above. I was happy with that, but then Eric said, "I'm going to hug Papa too." My hands must have been a bit steadier than Patrick's, because the first picture was a bit blurry. ;) I took the second picture of Patrick with Eric. What a sweetie!

Blue Lagoon Shore Excursion

It's been almost two weeks since we got back from our cruise and I'm not yet done documenting it on my blog. Today I'm going to talk about our stop in Nassau, The Bahamas. This time we signed up for a formal shore excursion, and it was a good thing. We went to the Blue Lagoon beach, a private beach that was 30-45 minutes away by boat. It was windy again, but at least warm enough for us to wear swimsuits. There were a ton of other people on the two deck boat. We were sitting on the top deck and it got a bit chilly during the boat ride. The kids started huddling under the beach towels we brought. They played music and Eric really got into it at one point, dancing and entertaining the rest of us, even the other passengers.

The water was still a little cold, so Aly, Natalie, and Eric mostly played in the sand. At one point, Nick also joined in. Alex and Anthony mostly just walked around, exploring. There were other activities, like an obstacle course and a dolphin encounter, which cost extra and which we did not participate in. We did pay extra to rent these big water bikes (see below). Aly, Nick, and John took off in one while Emily, Natalie, and Patrick took off in the other one. They were all gone for a while, going to the other side of the lagoon water area and back. When they got back, Emily and Natalie decided to do other things. The big boys arrived from exploring at that point, so they took off on one of the water bikes. John got off the one he was riding and at one point, Nick and Aly got stuck on the rope surrounding the obstacle course area. With some help, they were able to free themselves and ride around some more.

There was a little place to eat there, so some of us ate lunch while we were there. Cynthia and I wanted to wait until we got back on the boat to eat. In all, we were there for around two hours, just long enough to have some fun without getting tired of being there.

Last Week's Recap

With all of this blogging about our cruise, I have neglected what's going on now. Today I'll detail last week's events and later this week I'll do the same for this week's events. Last week seemed very chaotic. I usually prefer not to be away for a full week of vacation, because I have no time to catch up on the house or the usual activities. We got back into town on Sunday, March 17th in time to go out to dinner at El Mirasol and not much else. Patrick usually wants to celebrate his namesake day, St. Patrick's Day plus we didn't really have time to cook or anything. Patrick started doing laundry and we didn't really have a chance to unpack before going back to work and school on Monday, March 18th.

I came down with some sort of cold/allergies as soon as we got back in Texas, so all week, I tried to get some extra rest so I could heal. That put me further behind the usual schedule. On Monday, Natalie started a stroke clinic at a different location than her usual swim practice and I realized that there was more traffic traveling to the other location--not fun. That's pretty much all I did.

On Tuesday, Alex had a track meet. Thank goodness that only the boys were running in the meet, because as it was, he didn't get home until after 9pm. There was a fundraiser at the local Willie's Icehouse, so I took the little ones there before swim practice. I had to bring Eric with me because Anthony wasn't yet home from soccer practice.

On Wednesday, we had the usual schedule. I came home from work. Natalie left for swim practice before 5:30pm, but this time with Patrick. I stayed home with Eric and actually got to spend time reading with him and to him. Anthony picked up Alex and they came home by around 5:30pm. We repeated that schedule more or less on Thursday. I struggled to get blog posts up and get ready for bed at a decent time because I was still battling that cold. Luckily, I was getting better.

On Friday, I had to work late. I got off work after 6pm and went straight to Comalander Stadium where Anthony played in his last Varsity Soccer game. I had not been able to go to any of his games this year. Patrick was the one who had gone to those other games. Since I came straight from work I did not have a chance to get my camera, so I have no pictures at all of Anthony playing soccer this year. :( I also had not had time to eat dinner. Anthony actually played almost the whole game, but unfortunately, they lost 0-6. The other team was bound for the playoffs the next week, so they really had no chance. Anthony and his teammates have been pretty frustrated all season mainly because of their coaches' lack of experience (and maybe understanding) of soccer. That's what happens when you have football coaches coaching soccer. Still, it was a little sad that it was the last game, and Anthony's last high school soccer game ever.

Meanwhile, the other kiddos were at home. Alex had not had track practice after school, so he got to come home on the bus, for once. They were all asleep by the time I got home, however. I felt like I had to keep choosing which child I could spend time with. I spent time watching Anthony play soccer, so I didn't get to see the other three. The rest of the week I spent with either Natalie or Eric, and barely got to see the other three then also.

As for other news, the kids all got their report cards last Friday. Anthony's grade in Calculus BC increased by 10 points by his teacher somewhat arbitrarily so he could get an "A" just because. Actually, she knows that he and his friend John are in the back of the class not paying attention to her and teaching themselves Calculus, so honestly, they deserve the best grades. Alex also happened to get an "89" in Rocketry because of a missing assignment that wasn't really missing. Patrick remarked on how Alex is so smart that he can get a "0" for a missing grade and still manage to get an "89" in the class. So yes, our kids are very smart and we are so blessed.

Also, Anthony found out he was accepted to RPI (Rensalaer Polytechnic Institute) while we were on vacation. He also found out he was not accepted to MIT. Last week he found out he was accepted to Rice University. Just yesterday he found out he was accepted to WPI (Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Both RPI and WPI offered him substantial scholarships. We're still waiting on Stanford.

All Ashore At Freeport

Our second stop on our cruise was Freeport, in the Bahamas. This stop was NOT picturesque. There were cargo ships and cranes to load the cargo ships. We were pretty relaxed on this one and took our time getting off. It seemed like other people were hanging out on the boat too, because we didn't have any lines getting off like we did when we got off at Key West. We even checked out the ship a bit. This photo was taken from the "adults only" spa area outside. We didn't spend too much time there since it was still very windy and as a result, a little too chilly for pool time for the kids or adults.

Instead, we went ashore and did a little shopping. Natalie bought this shark made out of wood. There were lots of shops selling mostly the same sort of things--T-shirts, wooden items, dresses, cheap jewelry. Alex bought a couple of necklaces there. Nick bought a big shell. I bought a couple of T-shirts of Anthony and me. Anthony bought a big wooden lizard that they carefully packaged in lots of paper--but that ended up with a small piece missing anyway when we got home. We spent a lot of time just looking at everything, just so we could spend some time off the boat.

There were a couple of photo opportunities. Anthony found this one and he was the first one to pose for a picture. I love that he can be a ham sometimes for photo ops. Eric saw him and practically ran over there to pose too. Patrick had to lift him up in order for Eric to be able to put his head where it was supposed to go. Natalie took a turn after this. The families also took turns posing next to a "Freeport" sign and Eric also posed with a big adult-sized frog statue (see both above in the blog header).

So, Freeport wasn't a very exciting stop, but it was still good to get off the boat and stretch our legs for a bit.

Key West Shore Excursion

Our first stop on our cruise was Key West. We hadn't booked a shore excursion because it looked like we could just walk to where we wanted. It was a long walk, especially for Eric, but we headed for the beach. Along the way, the big boys decided to go back closer to the boat because they hadn't worn swimsuits and really, Alex just wanted to shop. I had not worn a swimsuit either, but I wanted to go along anyway.

The beach was at a public park. We paid $2.50 per person. Eric ended up being free. The girls were the only ones who had worn their swimsuits. Melissa had actually stopped to shop for a swimsuit for Emily before joining us, because Emily had not brought a swimsuit. We all mainly walked along the beach and climbed on some rocks (see Nick in the background). It was very windy, which made it a bit chilly for the kids when they did get wet. Emily decided not to get in her new swimsuit after all, which allowed Natalie to wear Emily's new rash guard when Natalie's shirt got all wet. We had not brought any towels. The adults were content to just enjoy our time off the boat and to enjoy the nice weather, even if it was a bit too windy.


I had been trying to get a picture of the whole ship, and I had to resort to this panoramic shot with my iPhone. The ship was so big that otherwise I would not have been able to back up enough to get a picture of the whole thing. This was very picturesque port. In back of me as I was taking this picture were a line of shops that were all basically right outside of the ship. Alex bought his sister a shark necklace. I also bought Natalie a new rash guard--red, of course. I had to go to the boys' section to get it since my little girl does not like the typical "girl colors".


Cynthia took this picture with her iPhone. It was a pole with a bunch of cool signs pointing in the different directions of different cities. The girls luckily allowed the picture to be taken. I think Natalie was trying to look serious. I was just happy they were all looking at the camera and not trying to hide their faces.

When we got back to the ship, Alex and Anthony were waiting. I had everyone's passport in my purse. Anthony had a picture ID in the form of his driver's license, but Alex did not, so they wouldn't let him back onto the ship. All in all, we had a good time even if we had not planned anything in particular.

Cruise Activities

Although the cruise ship had "rooms" or "clubs" for different age groups (Camp Carnival for ages 6-11, Circle C for ages 12-14, and Club O2 for ages 15-17), the kids mostly enjoyed each other's company, so they didn't really participate in many of the organized kid activities. There was a library on the ship, but there weren't many kids' books there. What they had were lots of games that could be checked out and played with and then returned at the end of the week. One of the games the kids picked up was Uno, and the other was Sorry. I think they pretty much wore these out by the end of the cruise. Eric didn't go in the "club" for 5 and under because he wanted to hang out with his cousins.


Besides the Sky Course that I described yesterday, there was also a miniature golf area. The day I took this picture, it was very windy, as most of the days were. Still, we were able to play six of the nine holes. We didn't know where the other three holes were until another day when we discovered them on the floor above, near the Sky Course. Eric didn't really know how to play miniature golf, so Patrick tried to show him. I thought it was hilarious how Patrick moved Eric's legs and arms into place but in the end, Eric played however he wanted to play.


The girls especially loved the arcade area, called The Warehouse. This is a game where they stomped on the lighted area in time with the music. Their favorite was probably the Air Hockey table. The adults wished that we could have bought an "unlimited pass" for that game, but alas, it wasn't available. Aly and Natalie also enjoyed another game that was basically like a rollercoaster ride. The seats moved as if they were rattling on some tracks and wind blew in their faces as if they were going down the track. I have a video of them being shaken as they sat in the seats, looking at the screen.


My brother-in-law John particularly enjoyed the various trivia contests on the boat. The first day or so he won the Sports Trivia. He got his "ship on a stick" or a "solid 24 karat gold plastic trophy". He joked about how if he could replace his knowledge of useless trivia with more important information, he could have become a doctor or a lawyer. In this picture, the kids are listening to the "Useless Trivia" questions. The girls were especially excited about the Harry Potter Trivia--they even studied for it. Alas, a group of truly nerdy Harry Potter fans won that trophy.

My sister reminded me that the cruise staff had several names for the "ship on the stick" trophy. They would chant (which the girls subsequently recited over and over) something like this:

Ship on a stick
Vessel on a trestle
Thingy on a dinghy

John won four total trophies. He kept one for himself and gave the other three to the three girls. They loved it. He almost won a fifth trophy in another sports trivia contest and he came close to winning another bean bag toss trophy. Let's just say that he provided entertained us with his trivia knowledge and bean bag tossing prowess. :)

Finally, one of our other favorites was the Bean Bag Toss. There was a Family Bean Bag Toss in the morning, and another contest for those ages 18 and over. John won one of those contests. The kids' games were mostly for fun, although one time they gave a medal or a "ship on a rope" to all of the kids that participated. One family contest had about 40 entrants, so these were popular.

The girls and Eric also enjoyed watching some movies on TV in the cabin and they went in the hot tub at least once a day. The pool was too cold for them and they must have used salt water, because Natalie complained that her dry patches from her eczema stung a lot the couple of times she went in the pool.

I'm not even sure exactly what the big boys did. Patrick said they just "hung out". A couple of times they were mischievous. Cynthia and I were looking for the girls and the big boys started following us "like little ducks". Another time, Patrick said they sat in the area near the glass elevators and enjoyed watching the elevators stop on every floor since they had previously pressed all the floor buttons. Alex and Nick disliked the Circle C for their age group. They found other things to do though, because they usually stayed out until after midnight. Anthony really enjoyed Club O2. He made some friends and stayed out very late every night talking to them. We were surprised the first night when he didn't get back to the room until almost 3am, but I was pretty shocked the one night he stayed out until almost 4am! Patrick and I didn't feel compelled to stop him since we were on vacation except for the last night when we had to get up early to leave. If I haven't made it clear with these posts yet, we all had a great time on our cruise!

Random Cruise Photos

I've only done two cruise posts and I'm already losing steam! I've been fighting a cold/allergies that hit me as soon as we got back to Texas and I need more sleep! Because of that, I'm going to share just a few random photos and call it a blog post.

This first photos is of Natalie on the "Sky Course" with her Uncle John behind her. This was a rope course high above the rest of the ship. Shortly after I took this photo, they closed the course because of high winds. Actually, they stopped allowing more people to line up for the course before I took this picture because of high winds. Yes, even with that wind blowing right through her, she still carefully but fearlessly did the entire course. That trait definitely did not come from her mother.

When we docked at Nassau, The Bahamas, we went on a shore excursion to a beach called the Blue Lagoon. Everyone stayed on one side of the beach. This was the other side where people weren't allowed to go in the water because of the winds and waves. It was still gorgeous over there. The big boys discovered it when they were exploring and they wanted to show it to me because they thought I would want to take pictures. My boys know me!

This is a picture of Eric near the Sky Course I mentioned above. All he wanted to do was play on the iPad in the cabin. I wanted to watch Natalie and the others climb on the Sky Course, so I made him come outside with me. He was unhappy at first because he couldn't see the screen because it was so bright outside. Where there's a will there's a way, however.

That's another thing--Eric became obsessed with an app on the iPad called Scribblenauts Remix. Alex used to have that game on the Nintendo DS and now we have it on the iPad. One of the features of the game is that you can type an item in, complete with adjectives, and the game would create that item. So, what did Eric type? He typed items like "flying rainbow T Rex" and "gigantic triceratops". The amazing thing about that was that he learned how to spell all of those words all by himself. Those dinosaurs would have nothing to do with the game, but he liked playing with them once they were inserted into the game. Sometimes they would eat each other and end up as a piece of meat. I thought that was hilarious!

I did use some filters on this photo, but this was also from Nassau, The Bahamas as we were leaving the port. The water was amazingly beautiful. I think that was one of the best things about going on this cruise, seeing cool places we hadn't seen before and doing cool things we hadn't done before. More photos to follow this week!

Towel Animals

This is my very favorite photo from the whole vacation. One of the fun things that the cruise staff did for us was leave a different towel animal on our bed every night during the turn-down service. On this particular night, Eric made a comment about the towel dog and I asked him to pose like the dog. He has the most adorable expression on his face, doesn't he?

Eric and I tended to get up before everyone else, mostly because we went to bed before everyone else. We would go ahead and go to breakfast so we didn't wake anyone else up. One morning, we saw this sight at the pool area. Every lounge chair had a towel animal on it! They even had a towel animal floating in the middle of one of the pools.

Eric loved seeing this towel dinosaur, and of course, he had to pose with it! Yes, the smile is a bit cheesy, but I think he's adorable anyway.

We even went to a class on how to fold a towel animal. We made a dog first and then an elephant. This is a picture of Cynthia and John folding towels side-by-side. Patrick had to help Eric out. Melissa helped Emily. Natalie and Aly were able to fold the towels all by themselves. There were some extra staff on hand to help out once in a while. It was a really fun class. They were even selling a book on folding towel animals, with the proceeds going to charity.

We didn't save all of the towel animals, just the last few. On the last evening, they left a heart with chocolates inside. Eric wanted to get a picture with all of them. The elephant to his right is missing an eye. There is a different type of dog (than the one in the photo above) right in front of him. To his left is a stingray, and then of course, the heart. It's these little touches that made our week that much more fun.

Spring Break 2013

We just got back home today from our Spring Break cruise on the Carnival Magic. I will try to post at least one story a day on this blog. Today I want to talk about our first day, which was last Sunday, March 10th. We left San Antonio last Saturday and stayed at my Mom and Dad's house in Houston. We went to Galveston, Texas on Sunday morning. As you can see from this photo, it was an icky, cloudy, rainy day. We left earlier than we needed to, just in case the weather affected our driving time. We got to Galveston too early to try to get on the ship, so we drove around to the Seawall. Eric was fascinated with seeing the "ocean", but he was worried that he didn't see the ship that we were supposed to go on.

We're still not sure why it happened, but we were on our way back to the cruise terminal where we were supposed to check in for our cruise, when Eric suddenly started complaining about not feeling well. Luckily, I had plastic bags with me, because he started throwing up. A couple of drops fell on the carpet of the new van, but we were able to clean it fairly easily. We were already going to stop by Starbucks for my last fix before the trip, so we stopped there to let Eric's stomach calm down for a bit before proceeding to the cruise terminal. He got sick again in the evening during dinner, but thankfully, he was better after that.

There was a super long line of cars to drop off people and luggage. My sisters left after we did and we were closer, but they got to the cruise terminal before we did. We were all very happy to see each other. We were waiting around for John, Melissa, and Patrick to park the cars and get dropped off by the shuttle buses.

We were all looking forward to spending a lot of time together in the coming week. My sisters and I also applied our scopolamine patches (medication for seasickness). We were especially worried because of the windy, rainy weather. My niece Emily is also prone to motion sickness, so her mother put a half patch on her too. We were glad we had those patches, because even people who had been on a cruise before said that this one was pretty rough. The boat rocked quite a bit for most of the trip, and everyone had to be careful when going up and down the stairs especially, but luckily, none of us got sick.

This is a glimpse of our cabin on the ship. Eric got the top bunk and Anthony got the bottom bunk. Eric is so used to sleeping on the top bunk anyway. Alex slept next door with my sister Cynthia, her husband John, and their son Nick. We got to have the dividing barrier opened on our balcony so we could be free to go from one cabin to the other. All the girls were in my sister Melissa's room which was two cabins away from Cynthia's cabin. It wasn't as easy to go over there because of the cabin in between that belonged to someone else we didn't know. The big boys tended to hang out with each other, at least during the day.

My sister Melissa took this photo of the girls. They had two twin beds plus two bunks whereas Cynthia's and my rooms had a queen bed and two bunk beds. The girls were supposed to rotate beds so they would all have a chance to sleep in the twin bed and the bunk beds. They did have a few disagreements, but for the most part, they really enjoy each other's company. The cruise wouldn't have been as much fun without all our family around us.

The weather was mostly windy and in the low 70s, so it was a little too chilly for pool time. The kids took full advantage of the hot tubs, however, since those were warmer. I'll describe more of the rest of the trip this week.

Alamo Cup

Another three-day swim meet has come and go. I'm sure all of you are getting tired of reading about these as I am of documenting all of the results. I still would like to keep these results for the future, however, so here's a recap:

Friday
50 yard Freestyle personal best was 33.14 seconds--got 34.23 (+1.09)

Saturday
100 IM was 1:28.26--got 1:27.37 (-0.89)
100 yard Freestyle was 1:16.54--got 1:18.25 (+1.71)
100 yard Breaststroke was 1:48.01--got 1:46.01 (-2.24)

Sunday
200 yard Freestyle never swam before--got 2:48.44 (BB standard time)
50 yard Butterfly was 35.91--got disqualified but would have been 36.45 (more on this below)
50 yard Breaststroke was 47.19--got 49.51 (+2.32)

So, lots of ups and down this weekend. She started on a new team this week, Team Athens, with a new coach (Coach A.). Patrick saw him coach this week and remarked on how he was impressed with him. He was really looking at each swimmer individually and giving them individual attention and feedback. That's usually tough to do with a team of over 30 swimmers. Her previous coach, Coach Kris told her that it was like teaching a puppy to be good and then giving it away.

For the 200 yard Freestyle, Coach Kris was the one that signed her up for this event, so it was neat to see two coaches verbally rooting for her during her race. Natalie was very nervous about this because it was so long and she wasn't sure she could do it. Her friend Renzi came up to her before the race. Renzi gave her a shocked look when she said she hadn't yet competed in the 200 yard Freestyle. Renzi said that she first swam the 200 yard Freestyle when she was eight years old. I hope that gave Natalie and example that she could definitely swim this race at the ripe old age of ten.

For the 50 yard Butterfly, one of the officials said that she touched the wall with only one hand, and you're supposed to touch with two hands at the same time. Patrick said that she sometimes touches with two hands and then one hand. Since the officials look at more than one lane at a time, he may have only seen her touch with the one hand. She was crushed because she really thought she had a chance to get a better time in the Butterfly. That's also her favorite stroke and she gets more emotional when she does really well or really badly. Her friend Aspen was swimming in the lane next to her and did well. Natalie was also hoping to do well. Oh well, there's always the next meet.

For the 50 yard Breaststroke, she had improved so much in her time yesterday with the 100 yard Breaststroke, so she was expecting a lot today. Pretty much any time she adds time to her personal best now, she is reduced to tears. With this one today, she told Patrick that she felt like she was going so fast but she still didn't do as well as she did before. She really wants to do well in this stroke, but she feels frustrated when her times don't improve. She is in such a hurry to improve, but everything takes time.

She was asked to be in a relay in the TAGS swim meet to be held in the Woodlands (near Houston) this coming week/weekend even though she doesn't have any times as fast as the TAGS standards. We had to turn it down because we couldn't go to the meet. One of the main coaches that assigns the relays asked Patrick when Natalie turns 11. When Patrick told him Natalie would turn 11 in August, the coach said to put the Summer TAGS meet on our schedule, because he felt that Natalie would qualify by then. He knows that good things will come with time. Hopefully Natalie will remember that.

Dress-Up

Natalie has another swim meet this weekend. I'll recap that tomorrow. Because we were at the swim meet all morning, I didn't get to see much of Eric. When I got home, I found Eric in the game room watching a dinosaur show on the iPad, of course. I asked him if his big brothers had ignored him all morning. He told me that he didn't say anything to them (probably because he was playing on the iPad). Poor thing! He's happy enough on the iPad, but his big brothers are usually doing their own thing and leaving him to fend for himself.

Later in the afternoon, he was wearing one of the foam dinosaur masks that I had bought for him a few months ago. He also showed me another dinosaur mask, a plastic one that used to belong to Alex. He then put the second mask over the first one. Alex walked over to us wearing a bunch of different parts of costumes and other dress-up stuff. Of course I wanted to take a picture and at first Alex didn't want to let me, but then he decided it was okay and I took this wonderful picture of Alex and Eric.

Eric then wanted to put on all of the stuff that Alex had on, especially the Hulk Hand. He took everything off Alex and started putting a few things on. Then, Alex decided to help him put on pretty much all of the stuff that he had been wearing. I love this picture because it shows Alex interacting with his little brother. Dare I say that he was "playing" with his little brother?

This is the final result. I'm not sure what the story is behind the peace sign that Eric keeps doing in these pictures, but it's cute, just like many of the things Eric does.

We went to the mall shortly after these photos were taken. Eric continued to wear the Triceratops mask in the mall while he was walking around. Being a five-year-old can be fun. You get to get dressed up in costumes whenever you want and no one cares. In this case, he got his big brother to play with him instead of leaving him to fend for himself. As their mom, I think that's cool!

New Situations

I was trying to post more to this blog, but we've had some new schedules to get adjusted to. Last week, on Wednesday, February 20th, Alex started Track and Field practice after school. It's nice that he is involved in something active once again. He himself admitted that he is out of shape. He was so sore for the first couple of days that he could barely go up the stairs. He turned down our offer of ibuprofen, but he must have been worse off on Friday, because he gladly accepted the ibuprofen. It's also nice that his coach told him that with some training, he could be really good at running the 400 meters. Alex needs encouragement and I liked that he actually accepted someone's compliment.

Also scheduled for last Wednesday was a meeting in the evening for Alex to choose his classes next year. He'll be going to the same magnet school that Anthony goes to now. One of the teachers actually told Alex that he didn't look as "nerdy" as his older brother. That was something that Alex enjoyed hearing. Anthony himself admitted that was the case. Again, it was nice that Alex was able to accept a compliment.

Patrick and I spent a few hours on Friday looking at cars at a local Toyota dealership. I was on call for 24 hours on Saturday, so that took up a lot of my weekend. Finally with lots of problems on the part of the dealership in obtaining the colors that Patrick and I both wanted, I finally got my new red Toyota Highlander Limited on Tuesday. Patrick got his new green Toyota Sienna XLE yesterday. He had to be the one to get all of the paperwork filled out and signed, since I was at work. Excuse the mess in our garage, but I had to take a picture of the cars side-by-side. I took a similar picture last week of our "old" cars side-by-side in the garage. We traded in Patrick's Honda Odyssey because it had over 120,000 miles on it, despite being just under 6 years old. We would have had to have a lot of work done if we had kept it. We kept my Lexus RX 330, because even at over 100,000 miles and being over 9 years old, we haven't had any problems with it at all. The Blue Book value was about what we would have spent for a car for Anthony to drive, and at least we knew the history of this well-loved, well-used car.

This week, the younger three kids have had early dismissal from school for parent-teacher conferences. Alex still had after school track practice but then he waited at a friend's house until Anthony could pick him up. On Monday, Anthony drove Alex to school for the first time without his parents in the car. We were at home nervously awaiting Anthony's text that he had parked in the school parking lot, safe and sound. That evening, Anthony and Alex texted that they were on their way home, but that they were going to drop by HEB first. This is what they came home with--junk food. I had to laugh because that was so typical of my boys to get junk food. They hadn't eaten dinner yet, of course, so of course they were hungry. We have a lot of new situations to get used to this past week, thankfully they're mostly good!

Our New Driver

This post is a bit late in coming (sorry Melanie) but my dear wife wanted me to post a bit about Anthony's driver's test which was almost 2 weeks ago.

Anthony was not in much of a hurry to get his driver's license at first, but after a bit, he really wanted it. I made the mistake of trying to put the personal responsibility for signing up for driver's education on him. I learned from other parents that this was not the way to go, but by then it was a bit too late and we ended up doing "parent taught" driver's education. This was in part due to all of his activities keeping him from being able to take any sort of regular driver's education class.
It took us a long time to get his driving hours in. This was largely because of the large number of activities he participates in. Then there is the fact that he goes to a magnet high school and the trip to school takes us over a very busy stretch of freeway at some of the worst times of day. Once we found the time to get some driving in, he quickly got to the point that we were confident enough to have him drive back and forth to school. After we felt he was safe enough on the freeway, it was time to go ahead and take the test.

After some snafus, Anthony didn't get a piece of paperwork from his school so he could take the test over Christmas Break, we finally got a test scheduled and I simply picked him up from school to take his test. It is incredibly inconvenient that testing times are only during school hours. I was pleasantly surprised that we really didn't have to wait long, Anthony even started his test shortly before his appointed time. After doing some paperwork we went out and Anthony parked the van along a chain-link fence behind another driver to wait for someone to give him the test. The woman that came out to give the test ahead of him, was pleasant, good humored, and seemed to be in a good mood--not really certain what she was doing working for the DMV. I was surprised at this and had high hopes that Anthony would also have a pleasant tester, this was NOT to be the case. The woman that came out for Anthony looked angry and unpleasant. Then the father of the boy she just failed came out to speak to her. We could hear her tell him that the boy was speeding in a school zone (automatic failure). Then after she spent some time talking to them, and getting in an even worse mood, it was time for Anthony's test. I could tell Anthony was nervous before she even got into the van.

I watched Anthony pull away to the area where they do the parallel parking, an activity used so often that they have to set up their own special area to test it because there is no where nearby. He clearly had problems with the parallel parking. My thought while watching was, "oh, well, looks like we come back and test again." Time went by as I waited for their return, and finally I saw him pulling the van in and parking. I walked out to the parking lot to greet him, and saw a very animated dialogue from his tester so I held back, quite certain that he failed at this point. Then they got out of the car and she said, "He did a good job, but was clearly nervous." --He passed! Honestly, I was surprised, and very happy for him. Later I told him that I was very impressed he could pass with a tester that was so ... "happy."

It took us little time to take advantage of having a new driver. Letting him take his brother to a movie and pick him up afterwards, and this week he has even driven his brother and another boy to school. Yesterday when the boys came home they stopped at HEB to buy themselves some junk food and relish in their new-found freedom. I am still nervous every time he drives off, but I suppose that will fade with time. Today, I brought home a new car for my lovely wife, something I am sure she will post about on her own. This means that now we have 3 cars, so I suppose we will have to loosen the chains even more and let him start driving himself back and forth to school.

"A" Championships Days 2 and 3

Natalie is starting to have little routines before she swims in a race. She usually cracks all her joints, including her neck. Today she started stretching and jumping up and down as well as shaking her arms and legs individually. That's all well and good, but what has also developed as a routine, at least for the meet this weekend, has been the tears and disappointment after almost each race. Frankly, this behavior stresses me out.

Yesterday she swam in the 100 yard backstroke and the 50 yard butterfly. She added time to her previous personal best in both. This meet has so many really fast swimmers, so swimming slower than her personal best didn't make the cut. At least she was able to qualify for the consolation final for the 100 yard backstroke--14th place out of 25 swimmers. She was still not happy and was still pouting before her next race. For the 50 yard butterfly, she already started 27th out of 27 before the race, but after the race, she dropped to 35th place. She was inconsolable. Finally, Patrick and I had to be completely straight with her. It was okay to be disappointed, but it was not okay to let it affect your other races. She agreed, but it will take time.

We had a little break before coming back to swim in the 100 yard backstroke final. She got to rest at home and play on her Kindle. For the final, she came in second in the consolation final, for a 10th place overall. With a time of 1:19.32, she dropped almost one second off her previous best (1:20.18). At least she was not unhappy. She felt much better--still disappointed that she didn't do "better", but at least satisfied that she had a new personal best.

Today, Natalie's only individual event was the 100 yard butterfly. She was seeded 20th out of 21 with a time of 1:24.98, so I warned her not to expect too much. Her time was barely an "A" time, and all of the other swimmers had "AA" and "AAA" standard times. Of course, even if she knew that, she didn't feel that way when she came in dead last, over six seconds over her personal best (1:31.74). She placed 20th out of 20, just because one of the swimmers was sick and didn't swim.

The saving grace today was her friend Devin. Devin came to visit partly to support Natalie, but also to sell girl scout cookies. Natalie hung out with her after the race. She chatted and she got to laugh with her friend. In the meantime, four of the swimmers dropped out, probably because this was the last day of the meet and they were from out of town and wanted to go ahead and head home. That meant that Natalie would again get to come back in the evening for the third day and swim in a consolation final. She had another chance to improve her time.

She also swam in the 200 yard Medley relay, with three girls that she already knew and could chat with while they awaited their turn. During her leg, doing the 50 yard butterfly, she did very well. It wasn't her personal best, but at least she showed that she could swim an "A" standard time in the 50 yard butterfly again. Her mood was lifted again, and so was mine.

For the 100 yard butterfly consolation final, she came in last again, but she had a slightly better time than her previous personal best (1:24.95). She was in better spirits, thank goodness. We got to go on our now traditional post-meet dinner at Panera Bread followed by a trip for ice cream at Brindles. She's looking forward to a day off tomorrow, and so am I. Patrick and I logged in about 18 hours of volunteer time during this meet, but even the long hours were less tiring than our daughter's emotional roller coaster. We ALL get a day off tomorrow from that.

"A" Championships Day 1

How do you teach your child how to balance a drive to succeed with having realistic expectations? Patrick and I struggled with this today, the first day of the "A" Championships. Natalie only had one race today, the 50 yard backstroke. She hasn't competed in this event since December and she went in seeded 24th out of 32 with a time of 37.54 seconds. Most of the swimmers that were seeded in front of her had much faster times. We told her not to expect too much. They expected 744 swimmers at this meet, including many teams from out of town. That's a lot of swimmers, and many would be much faster than her.

After she swam in the third heat this morning, she didn't know what her time was. The touchpad had failed or she did not touch it in the right place, because the scoreboard didn't display a time or a placement for her. When the results came out online, we found out that her time was 37.15 seconds and that she was 16th out of 32. That meant that she qualified to swim in the consolation final held this evening. She was not happy, even though she improved her time by 0.39 seconds. In fact, she was disappointed and on the verge of tears.

I kept trying to reassure her that at least she qualified to swim this evening and that she would have another chance to improve her time. She pessimistically replied that she would also have another chance to add time. Patrick tried to tell her that she is getting so fast that she shouldn't expect to drop seconds off her time anymore. She should expect improvement only in small increments. We think she set out to prove him wrong.

Swimming in the consolation final means that no matter how fast you are, you aren't going to place in the top 8 and therefore not get a ribbon or medal. She finished first in the consolation final with a time of 35.34 seconds. She had dropped 2.2 seconds off her seeded time. You'd better bet she was happy with that. Never mind that she had the third best time in the 10 and under category. If she had qualified in the top 8 and been able to swim in the final, she would have gotten third place and a bronze medal. She didn't seem to mind. She had an "A" Standard time coming into this meet and now she has a "AA" Standard time. Now she has set her goal for the 50 yard backstroke at 34.59 seconds, which is a TAGS Standard time. That's less than one second away, after all.

So, how do you teach your child how to balance a drive to succeed with having realistic expectations? Patrick and I still don't know the answer to that question.

Smart Kids

I've been writing a lot about Natalie and Anthony's achievements lately. I want to give some time to Eric and Alex. We got a letter today telling us that Eric qualified for the Gifted and Talented (GT) program. I know that even if he hadn't made it, we would still be proud of him. After all, GT is only one class, a couple of hours a week. We already know he is a smart kid. What makes this cool is that his GT teacher has also taught his other three siblings. It's amazing to think that Anthony was in her class back in 2002. She still remembers him, too. When Alex found out, he gave Eric a high five, and he told Eric to tell the GT teacher that "Alex and Anthony said 'Hi'." Eric had the biggest smile on his face and he was giggling. He thinks it's cool too that he'll have the same teacher as the rest of his siblings!

Alex also applied to a several of magnet high schools, and he got accepted to both. He has decided to accept the position at the same magnet school that Anthony currently attends. We're excited for him because this magnet school has been very good for Anthony and we're sure it will also be good for Alex. Most importantly, Alex seems to be excited about attending that school.

We always want the kids to be excited about school. It is much easier to learn when they are excited, and it is much easier for us to get them to do their homework.

Valentine's Prep

The younger two kids get a Valentine's Day party tomorrow. I never like to give kids too much candy, and those parties always end up giving the kids too much candy. This year, when Natalie and I were shopping, we decided to get these Skittles boxes where you could put a label on the Skittles bag and use that for your Valentines. That way they get just a little bit of candy plus the Valentine. Eric started writing his name on his labels this past weekend. He finished up today then started applying all the stickers. I let him do that all by himself. I've let go of perfection--his labels were not applied neatly or even straight, but he enjoyed doing them himself. That's what counts.

This is what they looked like. His teacher requested that he only put his name on the "To" portion of his Valentines. That way they could distribute the Valentines more quickly, not worrying about which one went to which kid.

Natalie has the same Skittles bags, but she didn't label hers at all. Her teacher said that he wasn't allowed to give out a list of all the kids' names? I've never heard of that before. I have a picture of the list that was posted on his door during the Meet the Teachers night in August. Natalie's been too busy to use that list. She's fine with just giving out the candy anyway, but I probably could have spent less money on regular Skittles bags.

Tonight I've also been making Red Velvet Cupcakes for the kiddos to eat tomorrow. I even made some Cream Cheese Frosting, although I think I should have just bought some. Frosting is not my forte. I hope the kids enjoy them. Happy Valentine's Day!

Oh, and two more things. Anthony got a letter yesterday saying that he qualified to be a National Merit Scholarship Finalist. As to whether or not he actually gets some scholarship money from that is still to be decided. Today, he finally tested for his driver's license. Patrick will have to do a blog post on more details, but Anthony passed. We added him to our insurance tonight. The next bill will be scary--as will the first time we let him go driving completely on his own.

Build It

There was a special activity today at the local Witte Museum with "hands-on science and techy fun". The flyer said "Delve into wondrous inventions, engaging engineering, and exciting technologies. Join us to discover these and other exciting hands-on activities brought to you by local engineers and scientists." This also included students from local technological high schools. Alex wasn't interested, so Patrick and I only took Natalie and Eric. The first table that they spent a lot of time at was of course, the Lego table. Natalie built a bus and Eric built a house with a garden. If that seems unusual for Eric, it was mostly because there were some plant-type Legos already on a baseplate and he just continued with it. We don't have anything like that, only regular Legos and Dinosaur Legos, so this was different for him.

It was a drizzly, misty day, but we went ahead and checked out some of the outdoor activities. There was a table where they had pieces of egg cartons with each egg holder cut apart. You could put together a "boat" with however many egg holders you chose, taped and wrapped up with tin foil. There was a kiddie pool nearby where you could see if your boat floated. They then had marbles that you could put in your boat to see how much it could hold. It was a simple exercise, but the hands-on part of it was something the kids really enjoyed.

Eric's favorite part was building a rocket out of construction paper, including the fins and the cone part at the top, and launching it using an air compressor. This is Eric with his safety goggles on, about to hit the button to launch his rocket. His rocket flew up pretty high--hopefully Patrick was able to capture it on video. Natalie also built a rocket, but for some reason, she wasn't interested in launching it. One of the guys that had put this event together was there and seemed disappointed that we couldn't see how high her rocket could fly.

Natalie and Eric each also took a turn steering this robot. Natalie had a heavy hand at times and the robot's "handlers" had to stand in front of it to keep it from going too far too fast. Eric was a bit more controlled, maybe because he was more hesitant.

This is probably as good a time as any to mention the "geek classes" that Natalie and Eric are wearing in the different pictures. They were giving out "geek glasses" along with stickers that said "Geeks Rule". They were basically regular plastic rimmed glasses (with plastic lenses) with tape applied to the nose bridge. Natalie liked the glasses so much that she wore them the whole time plus she asked for and received three more pairs that she planned on giving to three of her friends tonight. She is currently at a sleepover and presumably having fun (with or without the glasses).

The Witte Museum will be unveiling a new special exhibit in two weeks called "Dinosaurs Unearthed". Because they are in the process of putting together the displays, there were these walled off areas in the museum with teaser signs about the upcoming exhibit. My dinosaur-crazy five-year-old had to pose in front of one of the signs. He also got a little excited when one of the men helping with the rocket launching said that he was a "dinosaur paleontologist" by trade. This was a fun day for Eric and Natalie but they will both be even more excited two weeks from now when the dinosaur exhibit opens!

Ubiquitous

Last night, Patrick took Natalie to swim practice, and that left Eric with me. We picked up Anthony from school at a little after 7pm. He didn't have after school soccer practice, but he stayed after school anyway to work on his Model UN stuff with his partner delegate. Alex had also stayed after school to watch the Girls' Basketball games, so we picked him up after picking up Anthony.

Eric was getting tired, so he did his usual complaining that his back was hot, so Alex tried to distract him with a game looking for the letters of the alphabet on signs and on license plates during the drive home. At first Eric didn't want to participate, but then eventually he did. They got stuck on "Q" so they started saying everything with a "Q" in front of it, like "Queric", "Qualex", and "Qanthony". It was actually Anthony's idea to do this, and it was wonderful to hear the boys all getting along so well, laughing together. We arrived home and suddenly, I heard Eric say "ubiquitous". He was across the room, and I couldn't hear him very well. I thought I must have misheard, so I asked him what he had said. He said "ubiquitous" again. Alex looked bewildered and said "I don't even know what that means." I think (I hope) Alex was half kidding. I posted this to Facebook saying that I didn't even know where Eric might have heard that word. Dawn, one of our neighbors who is active in the PTA, replied that "ubiquitous" was from the "Seven Habits" that they learn , as in be a leader "everywhere all the time." I guess Eric has been paying attention at school!