Tae Kwon Do

I had a great day at Tae Kwon Do today. I haven't written about it before because I don't have any pictures of me doing TKD, but it's such a big part of my daily life that I wanted to write about it today.

I've had several aborted attempts at martial arts in the past. I started TKD when we lived in Houston, probably did it for about a year, then we moved out to Pearland, and it was just too far of a commute. So then I started Karate at a place closer to us. I did that for about a year, then they closed. So I found a Kung Fu place nearby and tried that out. I didn't like it as much as TKD or Karate, and we were about to start a family, so I quit that after a couple of months. I stopped almost all forms of exercise for the first several years of our children's lives. Now, finally, since we moved here I've found a martial arts center that is right for me. The atmosphere is supportive, challenging, respectful, and friendly, and it's been in the community for a long time, so I'm not worried about them going out of business while I'm on vacation (like my Karate studio did).

After two years of training, I am about halfway to earning my black belt. I go to TKD classes about three times a week, and I've started going to kickboxing classes, as well (about 3 or 4 times a week). The kickboxing is a great cardio workout and a good support for TKD. I teach kids' classes about 3 times a week, too.

Today I attended my weekly semi-private class for instructors. (Our Master Instructor wants all of the instructors to be really good at what we do and to be good examples for the rest of the school, so we get to attend extra classes, and he is super nit-picky about all the details, which helps us tremendously.) In that class today, I was tested on my current form and on fitness, and I passed both tests, so that started off my workout nicely. I'm an intermediate level belt right now (blue), so our fitness requirement is 50 push ups and 50 sit ups. For the black belt test, I'll have to do 100 of each and run 3 miles. The running shouldn't be a problem, but I'll really need to work up to the push ups. After working on the rest of our current curriculum, I stayed for the next class. It was a regular adult class, and the agenda for today was sparring. We wear full protective gear (headgear, mouthpiece, chest protector, gloves, shin guards, foot gear) and always strive for safety first. It's not at all like a fight or a brawl. But it is intimidating to face an opponent and try to hit and kick them and know they're trying to do the same thing back to me. The very first time I sparred as a white belt, I cried after class. I think it was just a release of tension because I had been so stressed and worried about it. I've never had any bad experiences with sparring, but it was never my favorite part of martial arts. Recently, though, as I've improved my technique and my confidence, I've actually started to enjoy sparring and to look forward to it! It is an incredibly tough workout. What we did today was a bunch of 2 minute rounds, switching opponents after each round. Sometimes we'd have to stop and do push ups in the middle of a round, then go back to sparring. We probably did that for 30 minutes without more than a few seconds of breaks while switching partners. It was exhausting! There were only 5 of us there today: myself, Chris (who is about the same belt and ability level as I am), another man, who is an advanced belt and really tall, and two black belt women. Everybody did a good job of challenging and pushing each other, without pushing too hard. It was great. It was a good experience sparring with the men, too. I haven't done that much. For our black belt test, we will have to spar 10 one-minute rounds in a row, with a new opponent each minute, both men and women. So this was good practice for that.

This afternoon (after having lunch with John, who got off work early today - what a great refresher in the the middle of the day to be able to spend time with him!), I went back to help teach a Juniors TKD class. That's for 8-13 year-olds. They were also doing sparring. Their sparring experience is very controlled. They work on one technique at a time (for example: "You're going to be attacked with a punch. Here are 3 possible defenses you can use. Practice.") I enjoyed helping out with that class.

All in all, it was an adrenaline-filled day of martial arts. I loved it. And tomorrow, I get to do two kickboxing classes! :)

Spring Is in the Air

I planted tulip bulbs last fall for the first time ever. It is so exciting to see them coming up!! The last couple of weekends have been absolutely beautiful here. Everybody has been doing yard work, and kids have been out running around the neighborhood in packs. I feel like we've been hibernating since November; this is refreshing.

It snowed in the middle of the week last week, and there's a chance of snow later this week, too, but at least we have breaks of sunshine and 70 - 80 degree weather in between. We spent much of this morning in our yard, and most of the afternoon at a park.

We've planted a few seeds in our vegetable garden - early spring crops that should survive a few more snows and give us some nice veggies in a few weeks. I'm looking forward to the true summer crops soon. I've hardly eaten a tomato all winter because I got spoiled on the ones from our garden last summer, and store bought winter tomatoes just don't taste the same.

The calf next door adds to spring feeling. I often look out to see her romping and frolicking with the neighbor kids. Really cute.

Famous Look-Alikes

OK, I know they don't look exactly alike, but when Helene stepped onto this grate in San Antonio and her skirt flew up, I couldn't resist taking a picture. She had never seen the famous picture of Marilyn in the same position, but she thought the breeze from the grate was pretty funny, and she played there for quite a while.

And that reminded me of this picture I had taken of her right after her bath about a year ago. I told her that her curls made her look like Shirley Temple, and I took a picture of her. But she didn't actually see a picture of Shirley until later, when I found this one on the Internet. I thought it was a really great coincidence that Helene happened to have put her finger on her cheek like that.

Spring Break, continued

Here is the rest of our Spring Break report. While in San Antonio, we spent a day downtown and on the Riverwalk. The kids talked us into going to the Ripley's Believe It Or Not! museum. It was everything we dreamed it would be. I can see why my dad would never pay for us to go to it when we were kids! :) But the kids loved it. Campbell's favorite books to read in bed at night are Ripley's and Guiness Book of World Records, so they had a good time.

And, of course, we visited the Alamo.

My favorite part of San Antonio . . . the Riverwalk.

We got our fill of Tex-Mex this week. I miss it while in Colorado, but it doesn't take too many meals to make up for not having had it in a while.

We planned to go to Sea World our last day in San Antonio, but we pulled up to the gates only to find out it was closed! It had been open the week before, and even that Monday, but not on Thursday, when we were there. The whole situation reminded us of that scene in Vacation, where the Griswalds pull up to Wally World and find it closed. It wasn't that bad, really. We just decided to head on back to Waco early and go to the zoo. The Cameron Park Zoo is my favorite zoo. It is small, but so well done. And I actually like the small size because you can see everything without totally wearing out the kids. Here is the monkey island with the lemur island in the background. I don't think there are any animals in this first picture, but you get an idea of the beautiful habitats that have been created for these animals.

A new exhibit at the Cameron Park Zoo is the Brazos River Country exhibit. You start at the Gulf and work your way up the Brazos River to see different creatures along the way. Here's a puma.

And some Baylor Bears.

And this is Helene's and my favorite part of that exhibit - a slide right through the otter tank. You can slide down and the otters swim all around you.

Our flight departed from D/FW, so we spent some time with Dallas friends the day before we left. We spent an entire day with John's sister and her boys, but I didn't get any pictures! I guess we were just having too much fun. We spent a few minutes with Christy, my college roommate, and her family. I only got one picture of Campbell, Helene and Katherine together. They were on the move the whole time.

Our trip to Texas was a nice, relaxed family vacation, and it was great to soak up some warmth. It has snowed three times already since we came back home! I love Colorado, but I am ready for spring.

Adventures in Homeschooling

We officially started homeschooling yesterday. Campbell has started a blog in conjunction with that. It will be a way for him to review in his own mind what he has learned each day, and a nice way to teach some computer and typing skills. It will also be a nice way to share with any of you who are interested in seeing what we're learning about. (There's a link to his blog on my page - see under "Friends' Blogs".) I say "we" because I am learning a lot, too. For example, I just learned yesterday that the Chinese are credited with inventing paper. We began our studies with China because that's what C's class was studying before spring break. He will probably not report on every little thing we do, so I want to assure you that we are still covering math, grammar, and other basics, in addition to anything you may read about on his blog.

So, related to the Chinese inventing paper, we recycled paper today by shredding old, used computer paper and turning into our own paper. We also experimented with adding designs in another color. We shredded some black construction paper and used its pulp and cookie cutter molds to create the black shapes you see in the picture below. The one on the left is a black cat. It was our first experiment with this process, so it may not be recognizable, but we know what it is! The one on the right (still on the screen) is a capital "I". Campbell thought it would be funny to make a "black eye". Get it?! I wonder where he gets his love of puns from . . .






Another completely unexpected adventure in homeschooling . . . the kids got to pet a brand-new calf today. As we were outside making paper, I looked over into my neighbor's yard and saw a cow. Come to find out, it has been there for 2 days. I'm not very observant, apparently! I think they're just keeping it temporarily. I'm sure it's against the HOA rules. But for now, it's pretty cute. Her name is Annabelle.