Mothers Day was rather quiet this year. After church, we went to Van Lierops to see the flowers, but they were mostly gone. It was still a beautiful day so we bought a few cut flowers. We also went to brunch, eating outside to enjoy the sunshine.
Lauren’s Prom
Before her Senior Prom, our niece Lauren and her friends gathered at Pioneer Park for pictures. The weather was perfect and the students looked great in their fancy clothes. We took a handful of pictures and offer them for your enjoyment here.
David’s Perfect Pitching
On May 10, David had his first experience pitching this season. His coach had him scheduled to pitch the first two innings, thinking that, like most kids in the league, he’d face a lot of batters and be tired at that time. At that age, control is a serious issue and the games tend to involve a lot of walks and a few hits. David was on! He faced only six batters and struck each of them out. Above is an excerpt from the score card. For those who don’t normally read them, a “K” indicates strikeout – “KC” means it was a called third strike; “KS” means the batter swung at strike 3.
David’s Field Trips
Karshner Museum
Pioneer Farm
David’s class took a field trip to the Karshner Museum, which is a facility within the Puyallup School District. He learned about Native American life, especially how they used the buffalo. They also went to Pioneer Farm, where they saw how things were done in the “old days.” He took his camera to Pioneer Farm. He had a great time learning on both field trips.
Spring Fair
We all look forward to the Fair. The Spring Fair is quite a bit smaller, but still fun. Daniel and David enjoyed the rides (of course), and the food was great. Here are just a few pictures (click the one shown) and a little bit of video of the boys on a couple rides.
Easter 2012
On Easter, we went to Van Lierop’s bulb farm for pictures (tradition!). The boys also had an egg hunt in the house, in which all the plastic eggs had coins in them. They made a haul, of course. Later, Joany, Lauren and Alyssa came over for an early dinner and playing with the Wii. The boys also taught the girls a bit of juggling. It was a beautiful day to celebrate the Lord’s resurrection. Check out the photos and the video as the kids had a great time together.
St. Patrick’s Day Run
Waiting for the start
Daniel signed up to run a 5K – his first – on St. Patrick’s Day in Tacoma. He had never run that far (3.2 miles), but trained for a couple weeks and was confident he could make it. David did not sign up because he had a soccer tournament scheduled. When the tournament was canceled at the last minute, he signed up to run the 1K “Fun Run.”
The 5K start was an incredible mass of people. There were 1,691 people of all ages and body types running the race. Fortunately, Daniel was able to start up near the front with the other fast runners. The weather was cold and wet, with rain and snow mixed – not exactly running weather. The course started out downhill toward the waterfront so the runners had to finish by coming back up the hill. We really didn’t know what to expect from Daniel, but his track coach figured he’d finish with a time near 20 minutes (an excellent time, especially for a kid). Daniel finished in 19:43, which put him first in the 14-and-under age group (out of 45 runners) and 19th overall (out of 1,691). Amazing!
David then lined up for the fun run and looked a bit out of place. All the other runners were smaller kids, but he just kept a smile on his face and set about to run as well as he could. The 1K was not timed, but he ran hard and enjoyed himself. Next time (June 9), he’ll be running the 5K with Daniel.
On the video, we wanted to show the entire starting group of the 5K, but it just kept going and going and… well, let’s just say it got a bit boring so we cut it very short. The finish was exciting, as he passed a couple people near the end of the race. To see more pictures, click the one above. We picked through them to reduce the number.
David’s Heritage Project
David’s class did a project in which each student displayed their heritage. David did an incredible job creating a doll with traditional Ethiopian clothing. He modeled it after clothes we bought in Ethiopia, and used fabric Sary-Jo bought just for the project.
His display was chosen to be exhibited at the Spring Fair. He also spent a few hours at the fair talking to people who were interested in Ethiopia. It was very cool!
Daniel’s Science Project
This year, Daniel was not required to do a project for the Science Fair, so imagine how proud we were when he said he wanted to do one anyway! Science is his favorite subject so we should not have been surprised. He worked on his project about the same time we were painting the boys’ room, so he chose to test the claims of Frog Tape – specifically, that paint does not bleed through with Frog Tape as it does with other tape.
He did a great job of framing his question, conducting his tests, and documenting his results. He demonstrated that Frog Tape really does prevent bleed-through! Here are a few pictures of him working on his project.
The boys have moved!
We moved the boys from the smaller back bedroom into the room that used to be Janel’s. It is much more spacious, and the boys really didn’t use it as a play room nearly as much as we thought they would. So it just made sense to put them in the larger room. We had fun shopping together for paint, with Daniel & David each picking a favorite color. When all was said and done, the colors seem to match the Seattle Sounders’ colors (must have been just a coincidence). Randy did a good portion of the painting, but Daniel & David pitched in. You can see some of the painting in the video.
After they moved in, we expanded the lower bunk to a full-size and added a storage drawer underneath. We also added some sports decals, curtains and a rug. We love it!