So here is a little bit of news about Thomas. Baseball just started up again this spring, and he and Steve decided on a new team name. They are now the Storm, and have some pretty sharp new uniforms. Check them out:
These were taken right before their first game. Thomas happen to get TWO HOMERUNS this game! Grammy even got to see them.
Oh ya, Thomas chipped his tooth too. I took this picture to show the dentist. He just laughed and said "ya, most boys get a chip in their tooth at some point". Thomas didn't get this from a baseball in the mouth. No, he simply ran into the side of the house.
Joshua has been studying Texas history a lot in the past month, and he came home from school with this "postcard" today. It's so cute that he thought of Yvette to send this to. And he seems to think she lives in Sacramento! :) Here is the front of the card. The setting is the late 1800s and he is showing all the wonderful things that Texas has to offer. Notice the "good life" he refers to. And here is the part where he is trying to get aunt Yvette to move to Texas! (click on it to enlarge if you can't read it) I especially love the "take a vacation from California and come live here, PLEASE!" Hmm..it seems like Yvette might have heard something like that from other family members before! :) One last thing. Every kid in his class was given a speech to memorize from a famous character from the Alamo. Then they performed all of these "Voices of the Alamo" at school. Joshua was William Barrett Travis. The sound isn't great, so turn up the volume.
We didn't take a big trip, or even do much around here. But we did have a really great Spring Break. The boys did a lot of sleeping in and movie watching, and we were lucky enough to spend the first weekend of spring break with Liz and the "Perry" cousins who came to visit. In spite of the rain (which it did the WHOLE time they were here) we had fun bowling, playing ping pong, going to the movies and seeing a show at Medieval Times. There were also a LOT of ipods, DS's, video games and a few card games going on. I didn't pull out my cameera one time while they were here, but I did get one tiny movie clip. It's pretty cute. Check it out:
We are so glad they came to visit and missed them as soon as they left. Hopefully we will see everyone again at Easter!
After the Perrys left, we were lucky enough to have a visit from Grammy. The boys always love to see Grammy. Our only real "big" outing was a trip to the zoo on Friday. We actually drove over to the DART train station at Central and 635 and rode the train all the way to the zoo. That train ride was as much fun as the zoo itself. It took us about 40 minutes to get there, and it dropped us off right at the front gates. The weather was gorgeous and the boys had a great time. We even got to buy "nieve" from the little guy with the snack cart while waiting for our train back.
Joshua participated in Destination Imagination (DI)this year for the first time. Most people don't know what DI is. Here is a short explanation:
DI is a global (yes global) competition that kids in Kindergarten thru 12th grade can enter. With the guidance of a Team Manager, who serves as a facilitator, not a coach, the team creates an action plan and works together to create everything needed for their Presentation. There are different categories to choose from, but all Team Challenges can be broken down into two parts: the Central Challenge and Side Trips. All DI Challenges have different required elements that teams must include as part of their solutions; these requirements comprise the Central Challenge.
The kids have to prepare a skit of some kind that includes costumes, props, and the script itself. They perform this in front of various judges who are judging them on their creativity as well as how well they followed the rules of the topic they chose and got their message across. Every aspect of this is 100% kid directed and executed. Our team chose the "instinct messaging" category. They had to choose an animal and creatively show how this animal communicates with each other. There were MANY steps involved in this including having 3-d props, two "sidetrips" etc. The kids chose seahorses for their animal.
Needless to say, the costumes and props they came up with were outstanding. And the judges thought so too. Our team not only came in 2ND PLACE for this category, but they won the coveted Da Vinci medal for their outstanding props. This is a REALLY big deal. These kids worked on this for almost 6 months. They competed against 23 other elementary schools in this category. Just placing 2nd place was outstanding on its own, but to be awarded this Da Vinci award is quite impressive. There were only 3 or 4 of these given out in our entire regional competition. We are talking 50 plus schools, and our 4th and 5th graders at Bluebonnet got this award.
Way to go "Go Lows" (that is their team name). We are so proud of you!!!
Joshua and Julia do some last minute repairs to the seaweed habitat! The two male seahorses get their costumes on. About 30 minutes before the performance. Here is a side view of this great seahorse costume. In addition to the seahorses, there was an angelfish in the performance...
and a clown fish too! So clever.
Here it is! Click play to see all 7 minutes of their fantastic performance.
