SF Urbanathalon

Joy selected her challenge race of the year as the Urban-athalon in San Francisco.  This was an 11-mile race with 15 obstacles through the city.  It featured highlights of running up to Coit Tower, jumping over taxi cabs, and repeatedly running up and down the upper deck of AT&T Park.  We ran and finished the race together while enjoying the scenery. Brett mentioned that some people pay a lot of money for a tour like this, and then Joy mentioned that we did pay a lot of money. The boys spent the morning with Grammy and Poppy setting up trains, playing music, and generally having fun.

Urban-athletes.

The extensive train setup, which was also a battlefield, of course.

Fall School

The kids wrapped up their Fall CC class and are now preparing for the mini-memory master test at the beginning of December.  They have been able to learn more and more about sentence structure and vocabulary this month while using whiteboards.  Griffin and Bryce enjoyed their Art and PE classes that Joy set up for the afternoon after Classical Conversations while Garrett attended the Essentials program.

Essentials practice with sentence structure...I get two whiteboards to do my work on!

Art class after CC and all the art work on display.

Miss Isho led the kids in their art time which Bryce and Griffin enjoyed.

The layout design of the kids to say, "Thank You" for their PE and Art class.

Bryce loves to do his grammar and vocabulary work outside with a white board.  A little fresh air goes a long way with him.

Griffin didn't mind venturing outside either for some school.

Anatomy

This month our anatomy lesson focused on the respiratory system and our lungs.  We also did a unit on nutrition which was not well photographed.  We learned about oxygen and carbon dioxide and what the lungs do to exchange these gases.  Once again, it is always more fun to do science with others.

Trachea, bronchi, and lungs--the edible version.

Reagan, Sailor, Garrett, Jack, Molly, Bryce, Griffin, Ben, Chad--the anatomy crew.

A cow's eye dissection we watched at the Exploratorium.

Can you see the four boys, inside the "O."

A cow heart brought into class by Zach--more fun anatomy lessons.

Bryce shows off his sketch of his body with organs superimposed.

Griffin has a smile to show off how proud he is of his replica body.

November Highlights 2014

November was a month full of weekly leaf gathering and raking.  Brett and Joy ran their first Urbanathalon in San Francisco.  Then four days later we celebrated Thanksgiving with a very active day before settling into some good food.  Soccer season ended for Bryce and Garrett.  Garrett's team went on to win their league championship.  Now we are getting ready for Christmas.

Halloween

This year's selections for Halloween costumes had a unifying theme of the Avengers.  The boys loved being on the same team and all dressed with a costume and one accessory.  Garrett was Iron Man in the Patriot costume with a missile launcher on his left shoulder.  Bryce was Captain America equipped with his shield.  Griffin was Hulk (Smash) and he had huge Hulk hands.  While it may have rained on Halloween, we enjoyed an evening inside playing games and trunk or treating at a local church.

Mommy dressed up briefly for her workday, but the cat attire didn't last long since there were patients to see and the boa would get in the way.

Piano Recital

The boys had their fall piano recital on a busy Saturday that featured an early soccer game at 8am in high 40 degree weather, a trip to the research center for Brett, followed by an 11am soccer game, which was quickly followed by the 1pm piano recital, which was later followed by another trip to the research center for Brett.  Later that evening, Brett and Joy got away for a date!

The boys each played their songs with Grammy and Poppy in attendance.  Griffin played "Goodbye winter."  Bryce played "Au Clair de la lune."  Garrett finished off the trio with "Minuet in G minor."  Thank you teacher Lori and thanks to motivational teacher Mom on keeping the boys practicing for 400 consecutive days now.

Griffin 5y 6mo

Griffin became our little offensive fire power of his soccer team.  His team finished the season, 6-2.  After the first three games, Griffin stopped playing primarily defense and decided it was time to start taking some shots on goal.  In his final five games, he tallied 8 goals and 5 assists.  He is deceptively tough despite being one of the smaller kids on the field.  He has set his eyes on playing some goalie next year, so he can dive and do drop kicks.  One of his more entertaining quotes when asked whether he wanted to sub out during a soccer game:  "No thank you, but thank you for asking."  He also had an inventive way to advance a ball that he had obtained by slide tackling:  while still on the ground, he lifted the ball with both feet and sent it over his head and then used his momentum to get himself on his feet in a front roll and headed off after the ball again.  I guess his gymnastics really is paying off in other sports!

I like to hug (almost choke) our cats.  Here I am with Luke.

Now that is a happy pancake.

Will you play ping pong with me?

Poppy, this is how you make a mask out of your tortilla, you should try it some time.

I am ready to help Mommy do some baking.

I scored 2 goals today!

Not being the most flexible of our children, the crabwalk was a difficult task for Griffin and led to his being ready to quit a few times.  Here is the story of how he overcame it!

Bryce 7y 3mo

Bryce loves the month of October because it is pomegranate harvest month.  He reports that this is second favorite fruit (watermelon wins out).  So he is more than happy to help with the opening of the pomegranates and getting the arils out for easier consumption.  Bryce's soccer team started the year out 3-0-1, but then went on to lose three in a row before winning their last game.  He has become more aggressive trying to steal the ball from opponents and get passes to his teammates or crashing the goal.  

Three pumpkins is about right for this year, that is how many I can balance on.

Shelling the pomegranates.

A funny superhero-like mask made out of my tortilla.

Who is that man behind the beard?

Garrett 9y 5mo

Garrett has really enjoyed his soccer team this season.  He has been playing left defensive back to take advantage of his coverage skills and his left foot.  He has become more skilled at staying between his man and the goal and limiting shots on goal.  He also is better at passing the ball up the field to his open forwards.  He got to play forward toward the end of one of the games this year and ended up with the opportunity to take a penalty shot (his first one ever).  He impressively kicked the ball hard and straight on goal with some decent height.  Surprisingly it cleared both the goalie and the goal bar-probably the furthest he has ever kicked a ball.  A little adrenaline can go a long way.  At the end of the regular season, Garrett's team stood in first place at 6-1-1.

I think I might be stuck in between all of these pumpkins.

Grammy and Poppy came to enjoy one of Garrett's night games.

Celebrating after a soccer Saturday with Wing Stop and some pretend glasses and beards.