Gardens for the Girls

On Grandma Diane's recent visit we headed out to the garden center. Each of the girls were given a budget and allowed to pick out which plants they wanted to grow. Taylor and Jordan both opted to plant flower gardens with a mix of perennials, roses and annuals. Rhian opted to plant a vegetable garden. They all had a great time and head out to the back yard every morning to check on the progress of the various plants. We send Sitka out there on varmit patrol to run off any would be garden pests.

Our Own Indiana Jones

With the recent release of the new Indiana Jones movie, Will has been going through a period of particular fascination with the famous archaeologist. He even has come up with his own signature, Indiana-inspired look. He normally has a flyswatter stuffed in his belt loop to use for a whip. The photo is absolutely one of my favorites. To me it is what being a kid is all about. Coming up with a costume out of stuff around the house and play-acting the drama all afternoon in the back yard with your big, dumb dog by your side!

Another of Rhian's Board Breaks

This is an additional video of Rhian breaking boards at karate. Watch out future boyfriends!

Evening Trip to the Driving Range

It was a beautiful late spring evening here tonight so I loaded up the kids and headed to the local driving range. They believe in a 'links style' turf maintenance program there, which is to say it is about as well groomed as a goat ranch. In other words, it is the perfect place for young children to swat balls! They all seemed to enjoy themselves and particularly loved petting the range cat. Will even hit so many balls that he got a blister! Jordan cleaned all of the clubs when we were done, though she complained about the tip she received. A great way to spend some time with the kids!

Taylor at the Driving Range

New Piano

Taylor and Rhian have been taking piano lessons for about a year and they finally got their own piano! They have been practicing like crazy and seem to love the new instrument.

Jordan, Ice Skating Princess

Jordan is our youngest daughter and in addition to her budding career as a rock star, she is also our resident social butterfly and skating prodigy. Given that we are new to the blog thing it has become apparent to me that we will certainly need a post for each of the children to avoid total anarchy. Jordan competed in the annual Spring Fling competition here in town on May 17 and won gold in both the compulsory and free skate events. We do not yet have photographic evidence of her performance but you can enjoy these photos of her skating prowess, taken at the State Games of America competition last August in Colorado Springs.

Skate Kansas City

Taylor traveled with some family friends from the figure skating club to compete in Kansas City, MO in the annual Skate Kansas City competition. While there Taylor had a tremendous time and won a gold medal for her compulsory performance. She also skated a beautiful free program though the judges didn't seem to like it as much as her family did. We even got a chance to visit with our friends the Georges while we were in town.

Rhian's Karate Test

Recently Rhian tested (successfully) for her red belt at Apollo's Karate. For those of you unfamiliar with the belt ranking system used in karate, there are 12 rankings between a white belt and a black belt. The ninth belt in that progression is the red belt. Needless to say, we are all enormously proud of Rhian and all of her hard work!