Mali's Music Program

Nancy Ryles Elementary had jazz pianist Michael Allen Harrison as their artist-in-residence this year, and they put on a fun program last night. The classes worked with him last week, each writing a song to fill out the themes of the Dr. Seuss classic, "Oh, The Places You'll Go!" The songs were great, very creative and very fun musically. They recorded the songs onto CD, so I'll post some here when I get a copy.

Mali - soccer star

Mali has been playing soccer! Friday night her team scrimmaged with 7th grade boys, and she more than held her own against them. Must be that she's used to playing against her brother. Then in her game Saturday she dominated in the backfield, as her team coasted to an easy 3-1 win.

Foot Traffic Championship

Andrew got 3rd again in the Foot Traffic Cross Country Meet, but this one was the championship and had nearly twice as many runners. He got PR by over 30 seconds, with a time of 11:36. His pal Brian also did well, getting 5th and a PR by 45 seconds. Their team won, with Marcus getting first place to cement the victory.

Andrew and Mali look for humor

Here's a photo of Andrew and Mali sharing the paper over lunch. This has become the new routine, usually for breakfast. Click for full size.

Another soccer shocker

Mali's team AGAIN scored with only seconds left, this time to tie the game at 3-3 after being down 3-0 in the first half.

Mali and I missed Andrew's cross country meet again, since it was right after Mali's soccer game, but on the other side of Portland. He got 6th overall, and 3rd on his team.

Tonight we went to Pablo's for pizza for my birthday, and were joined by:
Alana, Olivia, Tsulan, Tom, Tiana, Nancy, Zoe, Hannah, Dave and Gail. Lots of good food. Now I'm stuffed and going to bed. Good night!

Thursday.

Andrew ran his 3k in 12:10 today, sprinting from the top of the hill in the last lap. Then he and Brian hung out with some girls from their team. Amazing.

Mali got to spend the day with Alana, shopping and lunching and getting a manicure. Very nice - Thanks Alana! Then she let Mali take what she wanted of Olivia's castoff clothing. We whittled down her 3 large plastic bags to one and a half, and Mali is now wearing one of the MANY new outfits she has.

books 'n learnin'

Mali is out of school Wednesday - Friday this week. Andrew's off Friday. Luckily, Mali spent yesterday at Sara's house, after spending the night there.

Susy, Mali, and I went to Mali's teacher conference this morning. Very enlightening. We have lots of things to work on now. We're going to concentrate on Math facts (x, /, and -) and vocabulary and spelling. Spelling is not normally high on my list, but we're going to work on it.
Afterwards, we went to the school book fair and bought lots of books. Andrew tagged along for that, then rushed out to catch his bus.

Birthday Banality

For my second birthday dinner I ordered Papa Murphy's pizza. Really splurging, I even added spinach to the usual zuccini, onion, and green pepper. Then I threw a tomato on (best if added when nearly done cooking.)
Andrew had double pepperoni, Mali had pepperoni - pepperoni = cheese.

Susy got home in time to share it all with us, which was a nice surprise. In her absence the kids and I started cleaning out the pantry in preparation for adding Andrew's old desk to help organize things in there. Then we watched a Gilmore Girls episode and went to bed. Good night.

Birthday Beginning

For my (first) birthday dinner I let my parents take us all to my favorite restaurant - Swagats. It is a very low-key Indian restaurant. The kids weren't thrilled but they found chicken pakora and tandoori edible, at least. They also brought me a delicious apple cake, and brownies for the kids. And zuccini bread for breakfast. All wonderful, and all but a few slices of bread are already gone.

Saturday was busy:
Mali had a great soccer game, her team winning 5 - 2. It was wet, but didn't rain. Erin scored the first goal, and Heather got one and almost two others. Mariah scored on a pass from Chandler. Amazing how these former wallflowers have come alive to play good soccer. That is my favorite part of coaching. Very similar to track - teaching the littlest, most timid kids how to long jump. It is hard to go wrong there. Mali was a force for good, playing great defense as usual.

Andrew and I left soccer immediately to get him to his cross-country meet. After sitting in traffic on I-84 until the actual start of his meet, we sadly decided there was no way we were going to make it, and so exited the first chance we got. I asked Andrew if there was anything we should do downtown, since we were already there. He asked me if there was a bookstore.

SO: I took my boy to THE bookstore, Powell's, for the first time. He liked it, and was properly impressed. We had a good time. We bought a dozen half-priced books, then went across the street for some gelato. He wasn't too broken up about missing his meet.

For dinner Saturday we joined the A's and S's at Alana's house for dinner. Paul was missing, because he's down South trying to help hurricane victims. Alana made tortilla soup, and I picked up a pizza for the kids. Rocio had picked up a pizza too, so there was an over-abundance of food, as usual. I was stuffed for the second night in a row. I didn't eat much today. I think I'm on rabbit food for awhile.

Sunday was lazy. We watched Gilmore Girls, then Kyle came over. I played one game of Settlers of Catan with the boys after I put some purple paint on bedroom walls. Then William came over too, along with Larry. Larry and I had a beer while Susy napped and Mali played Apples to Apples with the boys.

Long week

Another week full of work and school, homework and soccer and running. Andrew had another Foot Traffic race in Portland yesterday. He got third this time, so got a ribbon. His time was slightly worse than last week, 12:25, but it was raining.
I arrived from Bellevue just in time to watch and cheer the last lap of his race, which is amazing timing. It took an extra hour to get there because some loser was putting a banner up on I-5 in Tacoma and the police closed the highway.

Mali's book fair is going on. I think she is angling for a little extra help with purchases. This morning she woke up early and cleaned the upstairs in preparation for Grandma and Grandpa's visit this afternoon (for my birthday.)

Gilmore Girls

We've had a Gilmore Girls marathon this weekend, as the rains came down. I finally got the first season on DVD from the library, so we've started at the beginning. For some reason I can't explain, we all love the show.

We also had cake at Matias'es house for his birthday today. A nice, calm weekend here, for a change.

Soccer Shocker

Mali's team scored two goals in the last minute of their game this morning to win 3 - 2. It was a very exciting ending as her team finally came alive as time ran out. Mali was playing forward at the end of the game, and took the ball downfield nicely to set up the tying goal.

Andrew placed 6th in his Cross Country meet this morning. Susy took him, and traffic was bad so Mali and I couldn't make it in time to watch.