June recap part two

We love going to playgroup with our adoption friends.  One of the places we went in June was to the Salem Pond.  It has a fun little beach and lots of shade if you’d rather not be in the sun.  Liam loved it and got totally wet and played in the sand so much that he had sand everywhere! 
His stick that he had to bring home and still has outside somewhere I’m sure. 
“Helping” Sarah make a castle.Requisite feet picture…like my tan line?  I never could get rid of it.  more help for Sarah and her castle building.
His “hot tub” in the sand.  I’m so glad we did this!  I have all kinds of plans to go back this summer, but we were so busy that we never made it.  We’ll have to settle for feeding the ducks this Fall or something.
One of the coolest things we got to do all summer was see Jason participate in the Summer games.  He competed in three categories and got three medals.  The first category he did was traditional forms.  He did well, but sharpness has never been his strong suit and the judges were really tough.  One of the judges that did that category was an international judge so she has seen some amazing skills I’m sure.  He got a bronze medal in that event.  During the opening ceremonyMy camera isn’t fast enough to not end up with blurry pictures. 
On the podium. 
His second event came fairly quickly after the first event.  This one was weapons forms.  He made this form up himself and practiced it tons.  This was the form he felt was the least impressive.  He got a gold medal with it.  Funny how that works.  After all the contestants had performed they had Jason and one other boy come do their form again because they had and exact tie.  Something about what Jason did gave him a little bit better score the second time and so he got first place.  It was so fun to watch him.  Definitely a proud Mom moment. 
They had to “inspect his weapon” before he could start.  His weapon forms were done with Kamas.
this is where she’s telling them they have to do it again. 
He had a cool spinning kick in the form.  This is the best shot of it I could get.  The podium again.  Triumphant!
His third category was also a weapons form.  One of them was open weapons and the other was traditional weapons.  I think this last one was the one considered traditional weapons forms.  Before going down his Karate teacher told us we should be done fairly quickly since he wasn’t sparring, but boy was her wrong.  We waited, and waited and waited for his final competition.  There were five people signed up in his age group and three of the others were sparring and since sparring takes precedence we had to wait for them.  I don’t think they were actually sparring, but just waiting for their turn to spar for most of the time so I’m not sure why they couldn’t come do their form for five minutes while they waited…but it wasn’t my call.  We waited for HOURS and that is NO joke.  We were all annoyed and I was REALLY frustrated when they let the two GIRLS compete, but made Jason, who had been waiting for hours wait for the other boys to be finished.  In the end I think the waiting and the nerves got to him because somehow he forgot part of his form and instead of faking it he said, “oh crap!”  Since there were only three of them he still got a bronze medal, but I wish they would have just let him compete with the girls when they went (I even went over and asked if he couldn’t’ just go with the girls since all the other groups had been mixed sexes and this one was supposed to be too, plus we’d been waiting for hours, but they pretty much ignored me)  Regardless we were very proud of him and it was a great experience for him.  I think he’ll want to try again next year. 
Emily took a guitar class through the city in June while Liam took a kindercraft class.  They both had a blast.  Em got to perform with her class at the big concert at the end of the classes.  She did great. 
She was nervous, but she played great and I think she learned a lot too.  Hopefully she’ll keep up the practice so she doesn’t forget.

Liam also had swimming lessons.  He already thinks he’s invincible in the water.  He has been fearless of the water since he was a baby.  I was so relieved when my friend Sherylynn said she’d teach him lessons last year.  He learned even more this year and is a great little swimmer, but I still have to keep an CLOSE eye on him near water.
  Jumping in is his favorite
Whew!  You made it!  Thanks for not giving up!

June recap part one

Mass blog posts aren’t my favorite, but honestly I’m so far behind right now I’m too overwhelmed to think about everything!  So, I’m going to recap each month (I think June will need two posts) until I’m caught up and by then I’ll probably take another hiatus if my past blogging record is any indication. 
June ended up being a pretty busy month for us!  It’s a good thing I took some pictures or else I wouldn’t remember what happened all month.  First of all Liam learned to ride a two wheeler.  It was no surprise to me that he caught on quickly.  I knew he would.  It just took some convincing to get him to try.  Once he did it he was super excited and then he refused to ride at all for awhile—that kid is a mystery to me.  Now we are back to riding and hopefully soon he’ll learn to start off on his own and then he can ride whenever he wants to!
The next fun thing we got to do was Jason and I got to go to Salt Lake to the Little America hotel for a night all by ourselves.  His parents gave us a stay there for Christmas and told us they would watch our kids so we could go.  It only took us 6 months to find a time when we could work out a time that we could both do it.  It was worth the wait.  The hotel was so nice and it was awesome to just hang out with each other and not have to worry about kids for a little bit.
  The view from our room – I know it’s just a parking lot, but at least there’s trees in it!  The room
We decided to go walk around downtown after we checked in.  We ate dinner at the Blue Lemon in city creek.  The food was good!  Then we walked around a little bit at the Gateway because we decided to go watch one of their laser light shows.  While we were waiting for the show to start we checked out some of the exhibits there.  They had these places where you could take pictures that looked like you were on Mars (doesn’t Jason look thrilled?)and on the Moon (this face is because I told him to look happy)  somehow I have NOT ONE picture of myself or of the two of us either.  Probably because Jason isn’t a big fan of pictures (can you tell?)  So, back to the laser light show.  It wasn’t at all what I was expecting it to be like and it actually made me feel sick a few times.  Oh well…now we can say we’ve had the experience, right? 
We had a great nights sleep and I slept in late because we had been up late ordering room service for a second dessert (it was my first time!).  We headed down to the breakfast buffet and it was delicious!  Man, I could have sat there eating all day long and not gotten tired of the food.  Lots of variety and everything was good. 
After we checked out we went to the Leonardo museum.  I had heard about it, but never been there.  It was actually really cool and would be a great place to take big kids, but probably not too much fun for little ones since most everything was geared towards older ones.  Again, somehow I didn’t get any pictures (I can’t remember for sure, but I may have forgotten my camera in the car) I think it would be a really fun place to go with a group because several of the things there would have been more fun with more people.  I was not ready to head home yet, but we couldn’t figure out what else to do so home we went.  It was a great trip!
I was so happy to have a chance to visit with a friend of mine from when we lived in married student housing at BYU.  We had a wonderful chat and I got to meet her parents too!  It was fun.  I think her daughter Julia tolerated Liam really well and he thoroughly enjoyed collecting pinecones from the tree we were sitting under while we caught up.  Thanks so much for taking time to see us!