Let the Holly Ball begin!

A new guest at the Raptor Rescue

Feeding time for this visitor.

Birthday #14!

Sometimes he lets his ol' mom hang out with him.

Patrick prepares to surf

School is about ready to start. Each year, in the days leading up to the beginning of school, our family does something fun. One year, we spent a week doing different things; every day it was something new.  This year we are using the weekend to play.

Today we went to the Jay Peak Pump House, an indoor water park.  They have a "lazy river", three tube slides, a kiddie pool, and surf pool.  If you don't mind waiting in line, the surf pool is pretty wild.

Slow motion fun

My Catch...biggest of the day

Opa's Catch...first of the day

Ready. Aim. Fire!

After class, we took some shots on the shooting range.

Erika

Sent from my iPhone

Warming up

Celebrating the first day of summer vacation

Nursery Duty Today

Taekwondo Tournament

It's been a few years since I have participated in a juniors tournament.  Master White asked me if I'd go this year, so I did.  I'm not a big fan of sparring, so I only did forms.

There were three rings running simultaneously.  One ring with the girls, one ring with young/lower rank boys, and one ring with older/upper rank boys.

The Burlington gym of the Blue Wave Taekwondo Association took First and Second Place in this group.  I took first place, and my friend and gym-mate took second.  Third place went to a guy from another gym.  It was pretty fun.

Tapping Time!

Patrick and his buddy, Calvin, tapped our sugar maples today. Now all we need is some sun!

Green Stripe Testing

This is my testing for Green Stripe belt. I was totally surprised when Patrick was called out to test me on kick/counter kick!

Name in Lights

This article appeared in the Shelburne News. My mom submitted the article and photo to several local papers, but as far as we can tell only one printed it. Thank you, Shelburne News.

Cool Dude

We have been having Spirit Week at school this week. Each day we dress in a theme.

Monday was Sports Day; show off your favorite sports team.
Tuesday was 70s Day; bring on the bell bottoms and crazy colors.
Wednesday was Clash Day; how many different patterns and colors can you where at one time?
Today was Crazy Hair Day.  I wore spiky hair, but ended up covering it with my hat.

My friends all decided I looked like one of the Men in Black. So when I got home, (today was a half day) I started horsing around with my camera.

Friday is Team Spirit Day; wear the school colors.

The Countdown is On

Taekwondo Black Belt testing is only a few weeks away.  Tonight's practice included a few minutes to do some board breaking.

Fine Arts & Academic Competition

On Friday, my entire junior high class (eleven 7th and 8th graders) went to New Hampshire to compete against eight other Christian schools from Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Connecticut.  There were 213 students total and we competed in 49 different events in 5 categories: Bible, Art, Academics, Speech, and Music. 

Our first competition of the day was hand chimes.  Trinity acquired three octaves of hand chimes over the summer so this is our first competition with them (and our second ever performance).  Everyone participates, regardless of musical knowledge or ability.  Our teacher has been out of school a lot in the past few weeks (due to a family emergency) so my mom stepped in to help us practice.  On competition day,  she was asked to direct us again.

This is me with my duet partner, Sophia.  We played Road to Listoonvarna, which is an old Irish fiddle tune.  Sophia picked the music because it's the only song she can play, and I worked with my guitar teacher (who helped me with song mechanics) and my mom to get it performance-ready.


We won first place.  Not bad for a first ever competition.

This is the junior high class...all eleven of us; eight 7th graders and three 8th graders.  That's me; front row, far right.