Junior/Senior Prom

Marcus and Allisha

Michael and Shelby

Nick and Lindsey (Allisha's sister)

All three lovely ladies.

What very handsome guys!

The whole group.

Heading out.

Off they go. What fun!

Hunter Ronin

Today Nicole and I went down to see the new baby. Hunter Ronin Vellat was born on Monday, April 20th. He weighed 7lbs, 1 oz, and was 20" long.

Hunter and his proud Mommy.

Look at all that hair! He so cute!

Good job, June and Anthony, he's a keeper.

The baby shower that didn't happen

My very dear friend, June is having her first baby at age 44. What a wonderful occasion, and we are SO excited!! Of course I had to throw her a baby shower. The shower was to be held at her house on Sunday, April 19th. But, that's not exactly what happened.....

The cake was decorated by a very talented lady in Mount Vernon. Her cakes are so good!

The diaper cake I made for June. It's made of 60+ diapers, and "iced" with receiving blankets. All the decorations on the cake are useable for the baby.

Instead of guests arriving at the party, June was at the hospital waiting to have a baby!

Sure, she's all smiles now, but 13 hours later she was one tired mommy. Hunter Ronin was born at 4:30am via c-section. Pictures to follow, as I haven't seen him yet.

Marcus' choir trip to San Francisco

April 16-19th Marcus and 40 other choir members went to San Francisco for a Music Festival Competition. Bruno dropped off 7 very excited kids at SeaTac at 5:30 in the morning.

Waiting for their tour bus in SFO.

Ms. Lizama is probably wondering what's she's gotten herself into.

Nice ride.

Ms. Lizama giving "the lecture".

First stop after the airport was Fisherman's Wharf. They had lunch, then boarded a boat for a trip around the bay. Allisha, with Alcatraz in the background.

After their boat cruise they took a bus tour of the city, and stopped at the infamous "crookedest street in the world", Lombard Street.

The following day, after touring the campus where the competition was being held, they went over to Golden Gate Park and played around for awhile. Then walked across the bridge.

Marcus asked Allisha to Senior Prom on the Golden Gate Bridge.

Marcus with his buddies, Austin and Karl.

The third day was the competition. They won 4 trophies, and 3 plaques. They received 1st place in all the categories they entered. After the competition they went to Great America theme park for some much deserved fun.

Swing Night Concert April 11th

On April 11th I was able to treat Bruno to dinner and a show for his birthday! After a quiet dinner for two we headed over to the high school for the choir's Swing Night Concert and Auction.

The Concert Choir sang two of their songs that had won rave reviews at a recent competition at Western Washington University.

Marcus and his best bud, Austin.

Marcus with his lady love, Allisha.

Allisha, with her sisters singing "Bei mir bist du schon".

Marcus and Allisha singing "Baby it's cold outside".

I was lucky to have this really good looking young man come and ask me to dance. A lot of the parents and students got in the groove and got their swing on.

Fellow choir member, Steven, took the choir teacher out for a swing.

Emma, Steven, Marcus, Karl and Allisha singing "Doctor, Lawyer and Indian Chief".

We had a great time, the kids did such a great job! We had music in our blood, so Bruno and I hit the Big Lake Bar and Grill for some more music and dancing. We had so much fun!

Testing for High yellow belt

Nicole tested for her High yellow belt on April 10th. There are several aspects of the testing, and some depend on your degree of belt.

The students that were testing.

Nicole and Ethan waiting their turn to do their form.

Each belt degree has a form, or a series of movements. Both Ethan and Nicole are doing their low yellow belt form. They have been doing the junior form, which is shorter and not as complex as the adult form.

Next they have to perform their one steps. One steps are short movements designed to teach you combinations used in contact sparing. One steps are considered "no-contact" sparing. There are three seperate one steps and each student takes a turn performing their one step while the other acts as the defender. Here Ethan and Nicole judge their distance.

Ethan performs step one while Nicole defends.

Nicole's turn.

From low yellow belt up the students get to do contact sparing. In tournaments you are awarded points for body contact (1pt) and head (2pt). You don't actually have to make contact to the head, you just have to be close to get the points. At testing, sparing is just for exhibition to show "their stuff".

Ethan is punching Nicole in the face, which is a no-no, but not his fault -- his eyes are closed!

Nicole is a scrapler and holds her own in the ring. She loves to spar!

All done sparing, and taking their gear off.

The final part of testing is breaking boards. Although Nicole has broke boards twice in class, students don't break boards in testing until they are a low green belt. Technically, if a student goes according to plan they should be testing for a new belt about every two months. Nicole only took a month this last time, so Master Rhodes is going to start having her do the adult form in the hopes she won't be bored (which she has no trouble expressing!) and to slow down her advancement. At the rate she's going she should be a black belt by the time she's 8 or 8-1/2. Since I have watched her progress through this, and seen how much fun she's having I have decided to join TKD too. I started last week and did my first bout of sparing on Thursday. It was fun! and a great workout!