Spring Break - Skiing!

For the end of spring break, we took a small ski vacation. I went up Thursday with the kids to Solvista, a small resort that caters to families with children (and is also much less expensive! than the big resorts). We ended up spending the whole day on the bunny slope, which costs only $10 per person. The kids gained a lot of experience skiing, as well as with riding the lift. Thursday was a sunny, warm, beautiful day (I got sunburned ;-p).

We spent the night at a condo in Winter Park. The patio of our condo had the biggest icicle ever, and Owen had to pull it down and play with it.

John joined us after getting delayed for about 3 hours on I-70 due to an accident.


Here we are having a lovely french toast breakfast at our condo.

Next day we went skiing at Winter Park - not a cheap proposal. But the kids felt they were ready to go up a big mountain, and Winter Park has a lot of variety in the green slopes (less so at Solvista).

We got a fun gift for Christmas this year - Video sunglasses. So, John wore them while skiing this time.
Here we are on the lift:

They aren't exactly the smoothest video camera ever, and John never seems to look directly at someone with them. But they're fun!

Next comes a pieced-together video of the end of our ride up on the lift and then down the mountain. Unfortunately, one whole fun section in the middle would not save in to the format I need to upload here. It involved a massive yard sale with John and Elise ....

I also see that I got one section in here twice. Ah well, I spent too much time editing this video t oupload here, and I am NOT going back to fix it.

Not much video of Owen skiing, as after Elise and John wiped out, Owen got way ahead of us - he thought he was behind - and we didn't catch him til nearly the end.

And, at what seems to be the top of the world.
Actually, it was only halfway up the first mountain at Winter Park.

Loelle's Birthday

Here is my lovely necklace with hand-drilled (with the kids' new handy-dandy rock driller) tigerseye stone from the kids.

Oh - I've always wanted a 20-ton jack - oh, that's not what is really in the box, is it?


The girls gave me two eggs on my birthday.

John making creme brulee for my brithday dessert:

Amazing.

Owen learning how to use the torch.

Elise wouldn't do it!

I think the kids were reading to Oliver here.

4th Grade Recorder Concert

More on the Owen theme this week.....

This one is Elise's favorite, so I put it first.

Ode to Joy, aka Black Belt.

The method of learning is known as Recorder Karate, therefore as the kids learn new songs they receive "belts", aka plastic beads. Each kid has all their belts attached to their recorder case.

Beginner Belts are: White Belt - Hot Cross Buns Yellow Belt - Gently Sleep
Orange Belt - Merrily We Roll Along Green Belt - It's Raining

Intermediate belts are: Purple Belt - Old MacDonald Had a Farm Blue Belt - Oh When the Saints go Marching In

Advanced Belts are: Red Belt - Twinkle Twinkle Brown - Amazing Grace Black Belt - Ode to Joy

Super Advanced Belts are: Tie Dye Belt - Star Wars Pink Belt - Low Rider Light Blue - Yoda's Theme Hot Pink Belt- Jupiter Theme Wooden Belt - Minuet (These last belts were all added by our music teacher due to kids gaining belts too fast!) Owen has them all except for Wooden Belt - only 4 kids so far have gotten Wooden Belt, which is a duet.

Some of the more advanced belts - Low Rider and Jupiter:

More advanced Belts: Star Wars Theme Song and Yoda's Theme (Dagobah):

I like to call this photo "A Study of Opposites" - Owen (tie-dyed, obviously), and friend M, in the suit :-)

Intermediate Belts:

Some of the Beginning Belts:

More Beginning Belts:

And The Grand Finale - The Whole Grade playing!:

Owen's Art

Owen proudly pointing to his artwork at the Curtis Art Show this Friday:

One wall of Runyon's Artwork:

Owen's work up close, with flash:

Owen's work up close, without flash:

Our front of the gallery.

Shadows.

Mother-Son Challenge 2010

Our school has a mother-son event every year. This year we went to a local gymnastics place that has a "challenge arena" where we got to do lots of fun games and stuff. I avoided anything spinney, as you can imagine, but got pics and videos of everyone else doing it :-)

Owen and friends spinning:



Boys contemplating the ball pit while listening to instructions:

Mayhem IN the ball pit:


Getting ready to spin:


Owen "flying":


A few anonymous ;-p Runyon moms spinning:


Owen and B racing in cars:


Then here is Owen and mom flinging each other about:


And finally, Owen spinning with more friends:


Sara swinging about:

Gymnastics

Since I haven't posted much lately, I took my camera out with me yesterday and took a bunch of videos.

Started out at the kids' gymnastics classes this morning.

Elise on the beam:And A too - they landed in the same class this session :-)

Owen doing the various flips and whatnots they do in Boys Extreme gymnastics:

Oooh, am I behind

I see I haven't posted for nearly a MONTH! Whoops. Things have just gotten busy, and I am way behind in everything. Blog comes last.

Unfortunately, my camera also hasn't come out much. I'll see what's new from my camera and post about that, and see if anything else comes to mind.

Elise's reading has taken off in the past few weeks - she reads whole chapter books in a day or two, and is always looking for more.

Of course it helps that everyone else is always reading, leaving her with no one to play with, so I guess it's sort of a defense mechanism on her part....

She loves anything by Dr Suess, of course.

Kids posing with some sort of face decoration. This was right after we saw Avatar, I think it might be related. I think they were cats, hiding in the forest.

Elise made a diorama for school - they are studying mammals, and Elise's report is about Chipmunks.

Elise posing in some of her favorite clothing , as well as mine.....

This is the memorial quilt we made for Grace. We met on Monday to see the final project. Misty pieced the quilt togther and did all the sewing. Amazing. It turned out so nicely.

My big project lately is organizing class projects for our school auction. We have some great volunteers and some wonderful projects coming up - I'll be sure to post some pictures later.

4th Grade worked with copper last week - the kids did a really nice job.

Here is Owen's square:

I helped with 2nd Grade yesterday, and 1st Grade is coming up soon. Pictures to follow, I promise!

Finally, I have learned a new Nia routine, Infinity, which has amazing music, and different yet interesting choreography. I plan to play with it for another week or so (especially next week - St Patrick's week - for it is Celtic/Brazilian music!), then return to some more familiar routines before learning another. Also, for the next 6 weeks I will be teaching another class, 2 times per week for a friend. I'm looking forward to the experience I gain, adding in 2 more classes per week, from working with a new group of students, and seeing how my body responds to teaching that often.

Namaste for now~

Valentine's Day 2010

This lovely scene greeted me as I came downstairs this morning.

Two in FREE deserts!!!!!?

Here are the desserts available: chocolate-mint covered strawberries, agave nectared cantaloupe with chocolate chips. Both with a slight sprinkling of fresh snow.

The decor was charming at this diner.

And my honey knew just what to get me....

Here are the kids enjoying the contents of their valentine's boxes from school on Friday.

Valentine's Day parties

Today at school are the kids' valentines day parties. I'll have to miss them due to a meeting of my own :-( But I've been to plenty in the past and I know what goes on there, and I don't need to be there.
The kids went all out this year on their boxes. Owen went for the 3-D cat-shaped box, decorated with duct tape, so Elise decided to follow suit. They turned out great! Note how the cards are put through the cat's mouth, by depressing the tongue.....

Elise's was a bird's wing. Not sure what kind, but it might be a Flickon wing (a mythical bird that Owen made up for school - maybe I'll post THAT some time....)

And Elise's box opens up with a hinge to retrieve her valentines. Clever, eh?

Just had to brag. Some days they do absolutely amazing creative things.