Tag Archives: Lex

Black Belt – Shodan-ho

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Lex got his first black belt today! He had a two hour test with an hour of demonstrations afterwards. Parents were invited to the demonstrations and award ceremony. He did AWESOME! I am so proud that he was brave enough on the very first day to put on the gi, and persistent enough to continue going even when it got hard, and committed enough to do a year of karate lessons on Zoom just because he knew the pandemic would end eventually and he wanted to get back to in person lessons.

Well, for a few months they have been in-person at a local park and recently they reopened the dojo as well. Tonight his bravery, persistence, commitment, and hard work paid off – black belt!

Karate in the park.

Running through the basics.

Nai han chi

The board breaking isn’t part of the test, it was just for fun. Lex kicked the middle right out of the board, splitting it into three pieces!

Kudos from Sensei

New belt!

Ari gato gozaimasu (thank you very much)

Look at this amazing person!! 🖤

Then and now

This is the probationary black belt, which is the normal process. They stay at this black belt for one year, then test again for the final belt with their name embroidered on it. Lex will be rocking that belt next summer. Dad, save the date! :)

Sixteen!

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Here it is. The big day. Sixteen years ago right now I was holding an hour old baby. Now I’m looking at a handsome teenager. We had a low-key day, just school, presents, pizza, and ice cream cake.

Happy birthday kiddo. I’m so glad to know you.

A Birthday in Burlington

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Baby Zig is turning 16 this week! It’s hard to believe how fast the years have flown by. Per usual, he doesn’t want a party and he mostly just wants Legos and books. One different thing he did want this year is some extra driving practice time, so we decided to take a day trip to Burlington. A random idea turned into an awesome day with family in an adorable city. We walked Church street, ate delicious bagels in the park, Lake Champlain chocolate ice cream and macrons, opened birthday presents, visited the science museum and the Earth Clock, spent about a minute and a half at the World’s Tallest Filing Cabinet, and finished the day with dinner at the Olive Garden. Yum!

You’ve come a long way baby!

Whales Tails along the side of the high way. I love Vermont.

13ft tall, African black granite, pretty cool.

All three kids had fun with this exhibit. Feeling strong. 💪🏻

Eek! He let me take an “almost 16” picture. I’m such a lucky momma! 🤗🤗

The Burlington Earth Clock. Probably would have been a little more effective if the sun were out.

It took some work to figure it all out.

This is a fun picture. :)

One of the stones had a heart hole in it. 🖤

The World’s Tallest Filing Cabinet, apparently a VT tourist attraction. Who knew?! I guess we can check that off the bucket list now. 😂

We had a beautiful drive home, with Lex behind the wheel.

Sunday morning Legos. Happiness is.

Done! A double decker London bus, complete with gum under a seat.

After a year of Covid and quarantine it was nice to get out and sample a little bit of normal again. I’m looking forward to a lot more of that as the summer comes.

Musical Theater

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Lex’s script binder and the program.

Another year of musical theater has come and gone. This year it involved outdoor rehearsals, unknown locations, prerecorded singing, clear masks, limited audiences, livestreaming, and day of quarantine concerns. Lex designed and ran the lights again. B’Lake was on the tech committee, but due to an unfortunate Covid exposure he had to quarantine this week and miss the play. He gave us some good inside info while we watched the livestream last night. Tonight I got to attend in person! They were allowed to have 20 people in the audience, but for some reason limited it to district teachers only. No complaints here! The show was fantastic, the audience enthusiastic, and my view of the stage was primo!

Friday night, watching from home. Live theater from the comfort of my couch.

Next year Lex will do lights again, B’Lake wants to do crew again, and Eve wants to (maybe) be in the show!

Lex

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My last post had a bunch of pictures of Eve, no good ones of Lex, so I thought I’d share this from tonight. His First Robotics Competition team has been meeting via Zoom for the past few months and working on a Covid-alternate competition involving mini robots. Lex got his robot (a Romi) and a Raspberry Pi kit this week and has been having fun building and programming it. Tonight he had it running and “interacting” with the cat. It was funny. I should have made a video, but I didn’t. Oh well. Here he is hard at work tonight. His career path seems pretty clear. :)

Mema, maybe he’ll have it running and ready to roll over your toes when you come visit next month. :)

Wisdom teeth

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On Wednesday Lex had six wisdom teeth removed! Six! I said, “No wonder you’re so smart!” He was not amused. :) He had four that had cut through, and two others behind them, still in the gums. The dentist gave us the whole run down of all the possible things that could happen during recovery, but Lex got through it with minimal problems. The dentist talked about face swelling, bruising, bleeding, etc. He did have bleeding the first day, of course, and the regular meds to knock him out. He slept for most of the day Wednesday, then played some Minecraft quietly. I tried to keep him from talking, since he had gauze shoved in his mouth. :)  I kept him home from school on Thursday, but he decided to do some remote learning anyway. Friday (a remote day), he was exhausted and skipped his classes. I don’t think he realized that he was supposed to take both days off!

It has been weird having him in charge of his own medications. We reviewed it a bunch of times, then I left him Thursday to dose himself. He did great and has continued ever since. Sometimes it’s the little things that make you realized (again!) how fast the kids are growing up!

PS. There are no photos because he asked me not to take pictures. He was worried that he would do weird things, like you see people do on YouTube after a dentist visit. He was worried he would do that, and wanted to be sure I wouldn’t take any pictures or videos. :)  A valid concern! I was good though and didn’t take any pictures. :)

Oh what a week! (and it’s only Tuesday!)

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The last few days have been a whirlwind of emotion and activity. As you may have heard, presidential election results came in and sanity, civility, honesty, and kindness won! Hallelujah!

On Saturday Eve and I went for a long walk in the beautiful sunshine. I feel like we haven’t done that in quite awhile. We went down to the river, around the village, and back up the hill.

This tree used to have two big bumps. I was surprised to find that the innards of one had fallen out (rotted out?), so now it has a bump and a handle. :)

Then I made an awesome boozy birthday cake for my friend Elizabeth. It’s her 50th birthday (today!) and she has been super bummed about covid-restrictions squashing all her birthday ideas. So I baked her a cake and invited a friend along to delver. The three of us saw outside in the amazingly beautiful September November day, enjoying the cake and each other’s company.

Chocolate Devil’s Food cake with a Bailey’s Irish Cream butter cream frosting and a chocolate ganache filling. Sooooo good!

Sunday evening I got an email from my school principal (the whole staff got the email!) saying that there are some children in our community who have been removed from their home and need emergency foster care.  Fostering is something I’ve thought about a lot off and on in the past, so this felt like a really great time to step up and help. I talked to Lex and Eve about it first, and they agreed that it would be a good thing to do.

I spent Monday squeezing in phone calls and paperwork between my regular work. Paperwork was done, everything approved, and I made a plan to pick the boys up after school Tuesday (today). When I got home and told Lex and Eve about it, and who the kids are, they were both cautiously interested. :) Then Lex said, “In other good news, I got accepted into the Honors Program!”  Sweet!!!  He worked really hard deciding to apply, writing his essay, and collecting recommendations from teachers, parents, and coaches. I’m super proud of him for doing that much, and now he’s excited to be doing even more. He also built me two Adirondack chairs this week. Mema and Joyce sent them to me for my birthday, and Lex put them together. The weather is so nice they might get some use this weekend!

Happy Birthday to Me!!

Today was spent trying to figure out details, such as bedding for two extra kids, schooling, transportation, etc. We have a pretty amazing community though, all of whom love these kids and want to support them. I got a set of bunkbeds, two twin mattresses, four sheet sets, pillows, blankets, and winter clothes all donated. This weekend we’ll spend getting their proper sleeping arrangement set up. They came home with me after school today and had a great time playing with the VR headset and the XBox. I haven’t seen Lex socialize this much in a long time! All four kids were laughing and talking all afternoon/evening. I even made a proper dinner! If you count Annie’s mac and cheese, peas, and tofu a proper dinner. :)  It has been a wild two days!

Tomorrow is Veterans Day (thanks Joyce!) and we have no school, so of course I scheduled appointments. :/ Life of a teacher! Lex will be getting his wisdom teeth pulled tomorrow morning. All four of them! I’m not sure what to expect exactly, but I suspect tomorrow will be a sleepy day for him. Hopefully it will be a quiet day for all of us. I’m ready for one!

 

Fall Concert

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The high school band and choir have been practicing outside all fall, doing their best to promote music and stay safe. I’m so glad they are making this effort! When I talked to Lex about remote learning or hybrid learning (alternating at-home/at-school) he choose hybrid and one of his big reasons was so that the could continue with band.

This weekend they put on an outdoor, socially distanced, Fall Concert. The band and choir are both small this year because some students are remote learning and because those who are there in person were asked to choose band or choir this year, but not both.  Many kids in the past have done both. Due to the hybrid schedule they also practice in halves, which Lex calls “red band” and “blue band” because the hybrid schedule is split that way. Lex goes on blue days and is therefore part of the “blue band.” For this concert they all performed together as one band, with only a half hours practice beforehand to come together. It was great!

Then I had a little fun with video editing to make this compilation: HHS Fall Concert

Enjoy!

Driving!

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Lex got his learners permit in the mail this week! He was pretty excited. Alan took him out to drive a few times in parking lots, and I took him out today. He even drove on our neighborhood streets today! 😲😲 He only hit one small curb and I only freaked a tiny bit once when he got *very* close to a parked car. Overall, job well done! He’s eager to keep practicing. Apparently I’ll need to keep practicing my nerves of steel as well! LOL.

The big 15!

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Happy birthday to this big guy!

We had a lovely day today.  Started with normal stuff. Nothing exciting. Just how we like it. :)  Eve worked on a secret Minecraft world for Lex, Alan did the Murph Challenge with his Cross Fit crew, and I baked birthday cookies.  Lex asked for oatmeal raisin cookies instead of cake and I can’t say no to that! :)

Around lunch time we were finally all ready for present time.  He’s a patient boy these days. He asked for Legos and books.  Guess what he got??

Legos

More Legos

A book about Legos

And of course, more Legos and books. :)  He was happy.

Then it was time for the birthday party!  We haven’t had a birthday party for him in a few years, but this year what started as a funny idea ended up a reality.  Eve created a whole world in Minecraft (with some help from Alan too) and we invited the friends Lex likes to play Minecraft with, and we had a party — in Minecraft!

Here’s me, flying into the top-secret party fort that has floors covered with cake and all the armor and weapons you could want! :)

His friends posed for a picture for me. :) Lex let me be a dorky mom for just a few minutes! Yay! (this isn’t actually everyone, but it’s hard to organize a Minecraft selfie!)

She even included fireworks!

They created three different activities. A game of hide-and-seek, a parkour game, and a battle in the Nether.  I joined them for the hide-and-seek game, which ended up being two games.  I rock at hide-and-seek. J/K. :)  I did hit the button that said DO NOT PUSH THIS BUTTON and released a bunch of Minecraft baddies into the game.  That was a good time. :)  By the time we finished two rounds of hide-and-seek, I decided I was done, so I shut off my computer, but the rest of the party carried on for parkour and dragon fighting.  Lex, Eve, Alan, and three of Lex’s friends. It was a lot of fun! A whole different world then the parties I’m used to planning. I offered to make a cute digital invite, but Lex wanted no part of that! LOL. Oh well. Birthday parties, like everything else, grow up and mature. This was a particularly good one for these Covid times too!

Then it was time for a family Zoom chat.  Unfortuantely the family on my couch was in a very silly mood (too much sugar and Minecraft partying, I think!) so the conversation was a little disjointed.  Sorry remote family!  We love you!

We are getting good at the Zoom family time! As long as we arent too sugared up!

Huxley was a little confused for a good part of the day. :)

When the pizza delivery guy got here we said our goodbyes and settled in for a Star Wars movie.  Lex’s choice, of course!

Another year has come and gone. I can’t get emotional now though, because the world is so topsy-turvy and everything seems so uncertain these days, I’m just glad to have this boy here with me every day.  He is kind and funny and smart and patient and everything I could have asked for in a son. I will love him forever and ever. <3