Rainbow to Black

After eight years of hard work, Livvi was promoted to black belt in Tae Kwon Do on November 1. Now the real work begins to truly learn the art.

The test was nearly 5 hours long (due in part to 5 other students going up with Liv and another going for her 2nd degree black belt).

The test included warm ups, forms, weapons, choreography, board breaking, brick breaking (note the concerned look on Joie's face above when Liv attempted to break a brick), sparring, push ups, sit ups, etc.

The students also had to write a black belt thesis paper. Heather got to read Liv's to the folks in the room. If you would like to read it, I included it at the bottom of this post.

Finally, after all that hard work (that day and the previous eight years), the reward came!

More pictures here.

Video Playlist (click the upper left corner (where it says playlist) to pick which video you want to watch):

Congratulations, Livvi (Miss Shaut)! We are so proud of you!

Throwback Thursday

I know Throwback Thursday is more of a Facebook or Twitter thing, but I came across some old info I thought would be nice to share out here. It was 13 years ago today when we took our first child home!

Olivia:

KINDERGARTEN!
Livvi started kindergarten on 8/24/2006.  Here is a picture:

Her first day on the school bus was 8/25/2006:

GRAVELRAMA PARADE
Here is a very brief video of Livvi being silly at the local parade in August 2006:

Livvi playing soccer on 10/20/2006:

Livvi lost her first tooth on the morning of 5/16/2007.  However, for some reason, she would not tell me she lost her tooth.  Not sure why....  She finally let Heather tell me two days later. She lost her second tooth on 9/8/2007.

FIRST GRADE!
Livvi started first grade on 8/22/2007.  Here is a picture:

Josephine:

Part Dolphin?

Our precious new girl just might be part dolphin.  Check out the sounds she makes:

Here is video of Joie coughing to get people's attention, reacting to Daddy coughing, and reacting to Daddy saying "boo".

Some pictures:

Seed of Fruit Fracturer

I'm really enjoying spending time with my family during this Christmas break.

About a month ago, Heather and I wanted to surprise the girls with an outing, so we booked the tickets.

Today was the extra special day:

We went downtown to Local 127 for lunch. Great food and we left stuffed!

After lunch we walked down to the Aronoff Center for the Arts to catch the show. After the girls figured out why we were there, we went to find our seats to watch the Cincinnati Ballet and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra perform The Nutcraker.

It is a beautiful place!

At intermission:

After the show, they had a Sugar Plum Parade, which allowed anyone who wanted to to go up on stage and see some of the set, dancers, crew, etc. While the line was extremely long, it was pretty neat.

We all really enjoyed the show quite a bit!  Check it out next year!

What Can Brown (County) Do For You?

Last Sunday after church, we went to Nashville, IN to spend a few days for a mini vacation. We stayed at a "cabin" just north of town.

It was a cute place surrounded by beautiful woods, a field, and a creek.

We got pizza to bring back to our place and we normally can put away two large LaRosa's pizza (traditional crust). Therefore, I ordered two large pizzas from the pizzeria. When they handed me the pizzas, it felt like they weighed 20 pounds. Ugh! Well, we had dinner for that night and Tuesday night!

Early on Monday morning, I took the dogs out back in the pitch black. I have been amazed at God's created heavenly bodies for years. However, my jaw dropped when I looked up and saw so many more stars than I ever imagined, and they were very bright. I had to get Heather and the girls outside to see it! This picture of Orion doesn't do it justice!

It was also 30° that morning. Brrr! Fortunately, in the afternoon, it had doubled to 60° and it turned out to be a really nice day. The girls did their school work, then we walked up in the woods behind the cabin to enjoy nature and have the girls wrap up their school work (nature study).

That afternoon, we walked through Nashville for a bit. Since the weekend had passed, it wasn't that crowded, but then many stores were closed or closed early. I saw a marionette theater whose sign said shows were through Monday, but it was apparently a typo since the last show of the season was the day prior.

We came across a guy looking through a telescope AT THE SUN!  He "let" us (for a fee) look through it as well. It was amazing! You (well, not you, but we) could see sun spots as well as the flames! Spectacular!

Later that evening, we drove to my old stomping grounds at Indiana University in Bloomington. A lot has changed in 25 years!

On Tuesday, we visited Brown County State Park for a couple of hours. It is very beautiful this time of year!

Three fourths of us climbed to near the top of this fire tower.

While the tower is "only" about 100 feet tall, it is about 1000 feet above sea level and you can see quite a bit.

The girls wanted to pose behind some "decorations".

Wednesday was foggy the entire day, so I'm glad we made it to this park on Tuesday.

We left for home on Wednesday, wishing we could have stayed longer. We greatly enjoyed our time together. Love my family!!