Ti Kwan Do for Timo

So while Cameron chose gymnastics, Timo chose karate.  I looked all over for a program to put him in that would be a good fit and finally found the Korean Martial Arts Center teaching Ti Kwan Do.  It was perfect because one, it's Korean and two, Young is a black belt in Ti Kwan Do.  Yes, Young was quite the fierce black belt when he was in high school.  It's been great, Young can work with him at home and loves taking him to his class, trying to recapture his youth.  Timo loves the class and LOVES doing something special with just his Daddy.

Again, somewhat like Cameron's gymnastics, I feel like the first few weeks were more just trying to keep the kids entertained with moves rather than teaching/perfecting basic techniques. (they don't even give out uniforms until week 3)  Last week there were only two boys in the class, the teacher basically worked one and one with the students and I really saw improvement in Timo...as well as him telling me it was his favorite day so far.  I know these things take time and don't move as fast as I would like them to...hum, I wonder where Timo gets his impatiences from??  The head master has already told us it's about a two year journey to become a black belt!

Here is a short video of him "sparring" with Master Alex.  They spar at the end of each class to learn how to combine all the moves together.  I love hearing Timo yell "hup!" each time he attacks.


2776 from Sara ko on Vimeo.

Gymnastics For Cameron

Cameron started taking gymnastics in January and loves it. She's been asking ever since the summer olympics but because of swimming, we had to postpone a while. I just couldn't have them in two different activities, filling up our week running from one lesson to another. So we stopped our swimming at the end of the year and Cameron began her gymnastics career. It's been fun for Cameron too, it's nice for her to have something that's all her own, outside of Timo. Those two go and do everything together, but in gymnastics she gets to be independant. So far it's been a little slow going, feeling more like toddler busy time than actual technique...until last week. It seemed they took a turn last week and started really spending time on hand stands and summersaults.

 I don't have a lot of pictures and the ones I do have aren't that great, taken with my phone camera while she is in motion.  They move all over the big gym so most times she is far away for the waiting area.  They have a fun activity room for parents and other kids to hang out, so that's where Timo and I typically stay.  I can see her from the room but don't get very good pictures.  But you get the idea...here is her work over the past 4-5 weeks.

I think we're ready to commit to buying a leodard now...but it just seems like she would be so cold in it.

Weekend Laziness

The past few weeks have been so nice around our house because he haven't had anything to do! No plans, no obligations, nothing...very rare around our house. It's a sign that our children are getting older. I would have never had a weekend come when we didn't have some kind of activity planned to get out of the house to keep them busy. But now, they are getting old enough where they are more easily entertained, typically entertaining themselves. Young and I were able to take of a list of "to-dos" around the house and just have some relaxing time together with no plans.  Here are a few snip-its of our past few lazy weekends...a whole lot of nothing.

I have to admit TV played a small roll...Saturday morning cartoons and movie nights! (they aren't watching anything scary in the first pic, they were just complaining that it was too cold in the house)  They became fans of Busytown that comes on Saturday mornings.  And we watched Cinderella for the first time.  We've read the book and Cameron has her dress, so seeing the movie was much anticipated.  When it was over I asked Cameron how she liked it, "it was beautiful, Mommy."

Timo has been working hard in his spare time perfecting his tinker toy skills.  Yes, he build all of these all by himself.  He will stay in the play room for an hour or so and then appear with some new invention.

Cameron is always the big helper.  I've done a little "spring cleaning" and she is more than happy to help.  Here she is stocking the new package of toilet paper.

A little exercise...we managed enough energy to walk down to the park one sunny Sunday afternoon, Cameron was going crazy on the spinning thing.  But if Young and I were feel too lazy, the kids were more than happy to do their "exercises" on the inside bike.

And since there was no rush any day, I spent time teaching the kids things they could do themselves in the kitchen.  Cameron loves corn muffins so we made those one afternoon.

Timo wanted to make his own peanut butter waffle...but licking it off the knife was more fun for him!

And we spent a little time in home bible study doing the "Armor of God".  This is Timo's shield he made.  You can see his "belt" of truth or his "shoes of peace" but they're there.  I hope we can plan to have more lazy weekends...it's just good family down time!

Berenstain Bears

At school, the teacher is allowing students to bring in books from home to be read to the class.  One of Timo and Cameron's classmates brought in a Berestain Bears book and they were hooked.  The funny thing is we have one BB book but I guess they forgot about it or wasn't in their normal rotation of books.  So after reading our book A MILLION times, they wanted more.  So we braved the rain and headed to the library and cleaned out the shelf! (not really, they had several copies of the same books)  This is what we came home with

It sure was quiet at the dinner table that night...and at bedtime.  I love library days!!

Just had to toss this one in...I was washing and drying Cameron's quilt and had just pulled it out of the dryer at bedtime.  I wrapped them up in the warm quilt just before we started reading our BB bedtime books.  So cozy...

Needless to say, two of the BB book went to school with them the next to be read to the class.

Cameron sings...more

Cameron is getting pretty good at inventing her own worship songs. She likes to "preform" them for us, making us sit on the sofa while she sings in her mic. Sounds like she forgot the words at the beginning but she finished strong.
MVI 9219 from Sara ko on Vimeo.
And she'll sing just about anything just to play her guitar!
MVI 9217 from Sara ko on Vimeo.

Young's 40th Birthday Weekend

OK, so we are back up and running.  Sorry for the long delay in posts, but we've had some technical issues the past few weeks but hopefully it's been resolved and I can get back in the swing of posting.  I can't think of a better catch up post than Young's 40th Birthday Weekend Extravaganza!  Yes, that's right, Young turned 40 last week and we made a whole weekend celebration out of it.

He started out on Friday night with his co-workers in an all night party...and when I say all night, I mean all night.  He didn't roll home until 2am!!  Does he think he's 29 again??  But he had a great time out with dinner and clubbing the night away trying to capture the energy of his youth.  He paid for it Saturday morning...

After a long day of rest, we had dinner plans with some of his closest friends in San Francisco on Saturday night.  Most of the friends he has known the whole 13 years he has lived here.  I wanted to make the occasion super fancy so it was a Black and White attire, which meant I had to actually wear and dress and put on make up!  Anything for my husband's big 4-0!  The funniest part was Cameron...she was just so mesmerized by me putting on make up.  She watched the whole time, asking questions, wanting to know everything I was doing.  And Timo kept telling me I looked like a princess in my dress!  I might need to wear dresses a little more often just for the attention...

We had dinner in the private dinning room of Acquerello and it was amazing!  The whole staff really went out of their way to make it such a special dinner.  Even down to the customized menus!  The table looked so elegant and the service was simply perfect...not to mention the food!  Every plate was cleaned for each course...not a drop of food was left.

We had five course and managed to squeeze in a cheese course.  Here are the scallops and veal dishes, perfection. I hadn't planned on cheese but they had such a great selection, we just couldn't resist.  Normally they don't take the cheese cart into the private dinning room but our waiter made an exception and wheeled the whole thing in.  My favorite was the truffle cheese coated in ash....mmmmmm

Birthday time!  I know, I know, you're thinking "you didn't make him a cake?"  My thought was you don't go into a four star restaurant and bring your own cake!  Obviously the pastry chef knows what they are doing and why forgo an four star dessert for a baked cake???  Young loves dessert sampler plates so that's what he got!

The Birthday song...

MVI 9240 from Sara ko on Vimeo.
Some of the classy gifts his friends gave...isn't he so handsome!!

Then Monday, Jan 28, was his actual birthday.  The kids had made cards for him and were super excited to give them first thing in the morning.  Timo's card said "Daddy, you are awesome!"

Young had planned on taking the day off work so we could go to Napa and spend the day while the kids were in school.  But both he and I were coming down with major chest colds, feeling progressively worse as the weekend wore on.  By Monday morning we were ready to crawl back in bed and try to ride ourselves of the horrible coughing symphony we had going on.  We talked about maybe just taking in a movie but then decided to pull ourselves together and go enjoy his birthday.  You only turn 40 once, we had a whole day without the children and he didn't have to work.  We mustered up the strength and headed for our favorite winery in Napa, Domaine Carneros.  They even poured us a few extra glasses for free to help celebrate!

We had lunch reservations at Redd and had yet, another fabulous meal.  It was great spending the day with Young, all day, but I must say, we were not at the top of our game.  Young was starting to get feverish by the end of lunch and slept the whole way back home.

Cameron insisted Daddy have a birthday cake so we headed to a bakery to get a cake.  She picked out the chocolate/coffee/hazelnut one because she knew Daddy liked coffee, chocolate and nuts.  Did I really put the 4 on backwards??  Shows you how tired and sick I was feeling!  But we managed to enjoy the evening and wind down the festivities making Daddy feel very special.  Timo doesn't like chocolate so we got him a cookie...he loved that it turned his tongue green!

I love you Smaries, your are an amazing father and husband, and I can't wait to spend the next 40 years with you!!