Week 50

12/9 - 15

Tuesday was homeschooling day at the Crocker Art Museum, the theme of the day was Illusions. This performer was wonderful!  More to come soon. 

 We took advantage of being downtown and went on a walk down to the capitol. 

  

The boys also had their last classes in Rescue for the semester. 

 On Saturday, Cody had his first football jamboree.  They played 4 short scrimmage games so the coaches could get a feel for what they need to work on.  More to come on this as well. 

Saturday afternoon the boys went to a birthday party at Granite Arch.

 

Saturday night was the annual Momtourage Christmas party, a preview of the ugly ornaments. 

Our tree for the year, decorated and still standing!  

(Ha, I kid, I kid.)  It has settled in with a bit of a lean, but it really hasn't tipped any further.  

We will be searching out a new tree stand for next year.  

Monday brought a visit from Aiden and Annabel for the day.  

 

Freddy the Elf, part 3

Freddy must have been excited that I finally put the lights on the tree as we found him camped out next to it. 

 Then he spent a couple of days in the toy room, riding around on his dino friend. 

 Too much time in the toy room and he fell off his dino! 

He made friends with Keith's ugly ornament (a spectacular unicorn wearing leaderhosen) for a few rounds of tic-tac-toe.

Hanging out on the Christmas tree

We think he was trying to see what life was like as a snow globe as we found him perched in the opening, stuck in a jar.  

Week 49

12/2 - 8

It's Advent Calendar time at our house, a mix of treats and activities. 

 Ty wasn't feeling very good on Tuesday and spent a good part of his day like this.

 

Later that afternoon he was up a bit and we did a bit of Candy Cane science. 

 What happens when you put a candy cane in boiling water, hot/warm water and cold water.

Cody finally had his first football practice on Saturday.  He had a great time, smiling the whole practice and his coaches are awesome.  They are very helpful for the new kids and encouraging.  

 Saturday we went to the Fair Oaks Christmas parade and tree lighting. 

Sunday was Ty's first gym meet of the season.  

 5:15am wake up caught up to him on the way home.

Monday night we headed over to Dovewood Ct to see the lights.  

It's not Christmas until we see the lights!  

Freddy the Elf part 2

A fun game of Sorry with the snowman as he hung out on Saturday.

Sunday we found him with good wishes for Ty as we traveled to his gym meet.  

 Freddy has great form! 

He enjoyed a day fishing for Tech the betta fish.  

Tuesday he must have read the calendar to see we were headed to the Crocker Art Museum and he painted a picture for the boys. 

Wednesday we found him watching over the toy room on his tire swing.  

More days to come as we continue the countdown to Christmas.

2014 Boys Season Opener

Tyler had his first official meet of the season this past Sunday.  We headed back to Petaluma to Redwood Empire Gymnastics for the Boys Season Opener.  

It was good to see the boys perform better than they did at our Intersquad a couple of weeks ago.  It's still pretty rough going for these guys, hopefully they will figure some things out over the next month before their next meet in January.   

Tyler had some great highlights during the meet, even if his scores didn't show it.

His high bar looked good from our seats, but the score was awful.  

He had a bobble after he saluted to the judge before he even touched the bar, not sure if that counted against him, but it might have.   He did however nail his kip like a boss and we were super excited for him!  (Swinging below the bar and doing a sort of kick move that puts him on top of the bar in a support hold.)  He also stuck his landing without moving his feet.  

He has a lot of form issues in his swings that are costing him points and he added a extra swing that counted against him.  

Floor went ok for him, he stayed on his feet on both his handsprings.  

He rushed a bit which made for sloppy moves, something that can be corrected.  

Pommel was his 2nd highest score for the day.  He nailed his 5 circles on the mushrooms to start off.  His leg swings were high on the pommel and he didn't sit on his cut moves, but still struggles a bit with those and his front pommel swings.  

 Unfortunately, someone waked in front of me when I was recording his mushroom and when I was juggling the camera to get it back to a point to see him I must have bumped it as it stopped recording. 

Things were starting to unravel a bit with rings.  He had a bad start with miscommunication with his coach that kind of threw him for a loop.  He didn't hold his elements long enough and his swings were low.  He did stay on his feet after his fly away dismount, even with the step for balance.  

Vault was his high for the meet, placing 6th in his group and the 2nd best score for the team.  

He needs form work, like everything else, but he stayed on his feet!  

Parallel bars ended his day, and he was ready for it to be over.  

His warm up wasn't very good and it carried over to competition.  

Hopefully he'll be able to find his handstand and figure out how to keep his legs together for next time.  Hands down on the landing sealed another bad score for the meet.  

He did have a fun time, which is the most important part.  

 Hopefully the coaching can come together over the next month so that we can see more red jackets on that podium next time!

The 5:15 wake up call finally caught up to him on the way home.  

Video.....

Next up is the Cal Benefit Cup in Berkley on January 10th.