Spartan Race

Ellie, with almost all of her all-star soccer teammates, ran a Spartan Race on Saturday. The race was within Dodger Stadium and included a mile of obstacles and feats they had to accomplish. It included balance beams, stairs, walls to hop over and walls to climb over, hopping win a rubber band around your legs, running through the seats, ducking under cargo nets, running, carrying a sandbag up and down stairs. And all of this twice. 

She LOVED it!! 

Pancakes

Calvin was kind enough to cook breakfast for me.

Last day of swim

Today was Ellie’s last day of her 3rd grade swim lessons. They apparently had testing yesterday to document their progress. Today the class played a game of water polo and all the students received medals.

Blindfolded

Last week myself and Calvin’s teacher were impressed he could do the binomial cube blindfolded. Apparently this week he mastered the trinomial cube blindfolded as well. I didn’t believe his teacher...doing the trinomial with sight is difficult. So she sent me a video. 

Apparently he takes the blocks out and sorts them by color before being blindfolded and doing the puzzle. He uses his visual memory to find the right pieces and put them in. I asked if that was cheating, at least a little. Her response was that she teaches the kids to organize the blocks but no kid has ever done it before. So Calvin actually listened and followed directions. Apparently it is all the rage to do the trinomial blindfolded, except C is the only one who is successful at it. 

Nimbus 2000

Ellie is currently about to start reading the end of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. You know the chapter where Harry and Dunbledore head off into a giant scary cave filled with all sorts of magic creations put there by Voldemort. They then search for the Horcrux and battle horrible stuff. Then when they return to Hogwarts the Death Eayers are there and the guy kills the other guy (no spoilers here). 

She is about to read some deep, dark, and heavy chapters. 

I think I’m going to only allow her to read it at home. I think she knows what ultimately is going to happen, but reading it is just so terrifying and so much. I have been reading the book alongside her and finished it tonight. I forgot how tragic the whole end is. 

When not reading Harry Potter she has been practicing Nimbos 2000 fromnher Harry Potter score piano music. It’s actually a pretty tough piece for little hands but she has worked really hard and it getting pretty good at it.

Love of baseball

Calvin is loving playing tee ball. This past Saturday he had some great hits off of the coach pitched ball. He also has decided that every time he comes home, he has to slide. It’s cute and everyone always laughs and his coach says, “way to get dirty Cal!”...so then he does it again hoping for an even bigger reaction. 

I love the 80s

Tonight was Webster’s school dance which had an 80s theme. Nick took Ellie shopping for clothes. Her classmates and school mates did not dissapoont with the costumes, nor did the parents. It was fun, Calvin made friends with the DJ, and we had a good time.

Binomial Cube

In Montessori, there is a work task that is sensory at the young level and physical manifestations of algebraic equations when they are older. It’s so awesome. To the kids it’s the binomial cube and it’s a puzzle. It’s a difficult puzzle to be accurate. 

Well Calvin has mastered it...blindfolded. 

His teacher sent me the photo today. He has also started addition work. 

State testing

Today was Ellie’s first day of taking the State tests for school. Obviously she was excited about it.

Sick

It started with Nick who had a stomach bug on Saturday. But he seemed to be pretty much better on Sunday. But then Ellie got hit and the poor thing vomited at a play date and had to come home. Then I got it Sunday evening. Ellie and I both had fevers and bad headaches. Monday morning I thought I was fine...but it came back with a vengeance in the afternoon. Ellie stayed home from school on Monday but was back today. However, she wasn’t 100% and opted not to participate in swimming. 

But before we all got sick we had a good weekend with a baseball game for C, annual portraits for the kids, and soccer tryouts for E (she was happy to see old teammates). 

The fifth movie

Cal said he had a great first day back. His friends were very very excited about seeing him and he was happy about being back. Although he was worn out and beat by the end of the day. Ellie practiced diving again at swimming, after swimming 100 yds as a warm up. 

It was a typical Friday with pizza and a movie. 

Except E was counting down the minutes until her brother went to bed and she could watch the 5th Harry Potter movie. 

The boys are back in town!

Nick and Calvin are back in town! 

Of course as soon as they got home there was only a couple minutes before Calvin and Nick headed out to Cs baseball practice. Apparently Calvin wa snappy to tell all his baseball buddies about to go two baseball games and seeing the Cubbies win. 

We then all headed out to dinner where Mr Popular (Calvin) ran into baseball friends AND his good friend from school! So he sat in a booth with all his buddies and had a grand old time. I think he’s happy to be back in Pasadena.

Ellie, at swimming today, worked on diving skills. Apparently the diving coach was impressed by her pointed toes, thanks to ballet. She, reportedly, did some diving backwards today. This kid definitely is athletically talented and fearless when it comes to athletic endeavors. At school apparently a couple of cows came and visited with the students. 

Cold Cubs Game

Nick and Calvinnattended the Cubs night game today. Cubs won and C saw some home runs. Nick met the Cubs owner and Calvin played catch in front of Wrigley. 

Book 5

Ellie finish Harry Potter Book 5 tonight! 

She has been inseparable from the book since the weekend and has carried it everywhere with her hoping for a chance to read. 

She said it was scary but amazing. She also, during dinner, told me how great of a writer JK Rowling was with her descriptive use of language and all the details she includes. 

She also asked for Book 6 tonight. I’m going to have to look for it to give it to her tomorrow, I don’t think she wants a break. 

Calvin had fun today at a play date with Nicks HS friends son, Marvin, who came over to Nicks house. Nick also headed to Chicago for the actual Cubs opener (no snow today). Calvin said he taught Marvin baseball (Marvin is about 6 mo younger than C). Calvin also helped cook his snack apparently.

Ellie the ninja warrior

Back when we were in Austria, one night in Lienz we were too tired to go out to dinner and ordered pizza (don’t judge, also Lienz was part of Italy longer than it’s been part of Austria; side note, the gelato was awesome) and searched for a TV show that was in English and not talking about the Mexico City EQ. We didn’t succeed, but we found Europe’s version of American Ninja Warrior, which doesn’t really need to be in English to understand what is going on. Ellie was fascinated and intrigued, but wondered why we didn’t see any women competitors. Well, I knew of one American female who had been successful so we googled her, and E spent the next 30 minutes watching YouTube videos of American Ninja Warrior. 

Fast forward to New Years when a friend is taking about a new Ninja Warrior gym that had a kids day. Ellie was jealous and has asked every weekend since to go. Well, finally stars aligned and we had a free weekend and the gym had a kids class and free gym time. So I took her. She loved every minute. From getting tips from actual American Ninja Warriors on running the warped wall, to kicking butt on her first obstacle and being the only kid, and girl, to complete t on the first try, to getting halfway across the adult sized peg board, to trying the salmon ladder (which was harder than she expected it to be), and finally making it up the warped wall (twice!). 

She was very sore the next day. But she wants to go back ASAP. 

Calvin played in the snow today. Unfortunately because of the snow the Cubs home opener was cancelled today due to snow but they will play the game tomorrow, when hopefully it’s not as cold.