Gift from Grandma

Evelyn received a package from her Grandma yesterday. We were warned in advance to get the camera ready...

Grandma Aixa and Great Grandma Vida got crafty and crocheted some cute flowers onto a white hat and green shirt, and stitched some balloon-shaped buttons onto another shirt. Evelyn thinks the hat and shirts are just great!

Tired Babies

OK, I guess they are not babies anymore. I think this is the last time they will fall asleep on me simultaneously.

Turkish Competition

Kenneth is one of only a few non-native-Turkish-speaking students in the 6th grade Turkish language program. They recently had an oratorical contest where students had to choose a (lengthy) poem, memorize it, and perform it in Turkish with emotion, diction, and all the good things that you are supposed to do when performing a speech. Unfortunately, the digital video of his performance was corrupted, but I was able to take a couple of photos. I'm sure we will have more opportunities to video these types of performances. We are very proud of him!

Kerrville --Spring Break Part I

We visited Kerrville for the first couple days of Spring Break and had a relaxing visit with Grandpa Merle, Grandma Linda, Lisa, and Haley. The kids got to see the arrival of 70 chickens, which were shipped by U.S. Mail (surprise). Kenneth got in some more practice with his bow and arrows. Lisa and I took a spin on the ATV and managed to choose the one time of day when little icy rain was spitting at us. Freezing!

Fun with Mannequins

Glen Rose Trip

We took a day trip out to Glen Rose a couple of weeks ago. Glen Rose, TX has a state park with dinosaur tracks that showed up during some excavations. More than that, it has hiking trails and campgrounds. At some point down the road, we might do an overnight camping trip out there. Evelyn was quite adventurous: climbing everything and wading in the streams. Kenneth spent a lot of time trying to perfect his stone skipping. Of course, (like everything else that requires natural physical talent), Kenneth was able to get his stones to skip 3 or 4 times on a regular basis, while I have zero luck with that sort of thing. It is good to see that genetically we don't always pass along our less fortunate capabilities.

Destination Imagination

Evelyn recently participated in an activity called Destination Imagination. It is basically a group improvisational team. Her team practiced after school once or twice a week for about 3 months and finally had their competition a couple of weekends ago. While it is all improvised, they could practice based on a set number of topic; for example, they knew that they were going to get 1 of about 10 topics such as "endangered thing" and they knew that they'd have to incorporate a "super-power" that would be thrown at them about half way through the improv. They had to create props using only themselves and their body language and acting. Additionally, there were certain character types that had to be represented, such as "the absent-minded person" or "the contrarian." During the actual competition, they got "landline telephone" as the endangered thing and "spinning spiderwebs" as their superpower.

They worked very hard and had a great time doing it. It was neat to see them perform for the judges and use their quick-thinking skills. The ability to speak in front of an audience is such a valuable skill.

No, I Wouldn't Do That

[In response to seeing me take my wet hair out of a towel turban, before getting a chance to brush it.]

Evelyn: "Mom, I don't care what you look like in the morning, even if you look like you look right now. I wouldn't even care if you took me to school like this. I would just tell people your hair wasn't brushed yet. I would only care if you brought me to school if you were naked. But you wouldn't do that, right? No, you wouldn't do that."