Updates part 1 of many

I titled this post as updates part one of many because i'm not sure how many parts this will run.



I'll start with DD



In the April post, she was in 4th grade. She was about to test for her green belt in karate. She had been playing flute, and major involved in school activities( peer mediation, helping with the disabled kids(LFI) in her school during lunch). She finished the year strong after bumps in the middle. She received 6 awards for chorus, band, honor roll and a few other activities. We were very pleased. This year she has started 5 grade and shown some great maturity that seems to have slid the past week or so a bit, but has been working with some tough stuff including above and way above level math. She is playing flute again this year( we are still having practice issues a touch) and is doing 2nd time peer mediator. I'm just hoping after last year's experiences that we can deal with the coming year better.

Karatewise not only has she since tested for her green belt and passed, she tested for blue during July ( my parents came down to watch her) and passed it also! She has improved so much in the past year. I have heard compliments from a couple of the parents and one of her classmates recently asked for help on a move and dd did a great job showing her it. She tests next weekend for her purple belt.

Just for those not familiar and since there are so many different forms of Martial arts and belt structures, here's her listing in order: white,gold,yellow,orange,green,blue,purple, red, red 1 stripe, red 2 stripes, brown, brown 1 stripe, brown 2 stripes, black.

The week before dd's birthday was basketball camp and both DH and I took it off, we did day things and had fun with DD right after camp. I took her 1 evening down to a Mystics game and we had a blast. She got a basketball with everyone of the ALL Stars from this past year signed and a "floorboard" signed by Nikki Teasley for her birthday amongst her presents. I figured you only turn double digits once so a little spoiling was a good thing. Summer camp for her was fun too. Going to the pool twice a week, a field trip once a week to various places including 6 flags, medieval times, the aquarium and such. She seemed to enjoy herself.

We also had a visit from the troops from England( think it might amongst the last time they'll fly over here) for 3 weeks. We didn't get to spend as much time with them as I'd have liked, but we did get to see them. We also suffered through basically the month of August with no A/C( another long story for the next update).

All in all not a bad time for DD.