Kendall was Captain Jack Sparrow from
Pirates of the Carribean, and Lizzy
was the Wicked Witch! They got lots of goodies
and we ended up walking around with other kids
from the neighborhood so they had even more fun!
Lizzy, Sarah and Cassidy
The Purple Dragons were awesome and received First Place!
Check out the video of their performance at
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8754765312593806873
The Twister Jam Fest in Topeka, Kansas will be their next competition in two weeks. It will be a much larger competition with nearly 90 Teams competing.
"Congratulations Lizzy!"
I have been taking some Staff Group Pictures and Sports Teams at various schools the past week or two. This week we photographed a couple small schools and I spent a few nights at a Hotel in Osage Beach while we photographed Camdenton High School. Today we photographed about 350 Little League Football Players in Sedalia and in a couple weeks we have about 1100 Soccer Players to photograph in Sedalia. This next week may be our busiest week I have ever worked with Inter-State Studio, we have 5-6 cameras going each day this week and we have our crews stretched out all over the territory - luckily two or three days are fairly close to home for me.
Kendall hasn't been doing much other than playing catch with Dad, riding his scooter and bike and playing with the other boys in the neighborhood since we finished T-Ball. He wants to play basketball this winter, but we have not found anywhere that he is old enough to play. We may just have to play soccer or something else.
Our poor dog was going nuts in the corner of the yard for two days and I could not figure out why she kept going to the same spot and barking. I finally noticed this small box turtle on the outside of the fence behind the evergreen bush, so I pulled it out and took it down to the pond in our sub-division to let it go. The kids wanted to keep it as a pet, but what are you going to do with a turtle, and it drove the dog absolutely crazy already. It was the fastest turtle I have ever seen, every time I put it down - it just took off faster than you could believe; I guess we could have kept it for the next turtle races that came to the neighborhood...?
Bye, Bye Speedy!
Lizzy has Stunt Camp at Cheerleading this week, so she is missing a few hours of Summer School on Tuesday and Thursday morning. I'm starting to think that as much time as she spends at Cheerleading that she might as well just move her bed up there... Oh well, she is really enjoying the whole learning experience and meeting lots of new friends. I can't wait until the competitions start.
Friday we had the chance to spend the afternoon with Grandma and Grandpa Crooks to see Grandpa use his Racing Experience Gift Certificate at the Kansas Speedway. As much as he enjoys racing, the kids all went together and bought him a Gift Certificate for a 6 lap ride to see what it is like to go 160 mph in a NASCAR Race Car. We all enjoyed getting to see him do this, and it was neat to be down in the Pit Area of a Major Speedway. 
The Grandkids cheered as Papa made his racing debut!
Well, we decided to go to the James Lewis Elementary playground today, but due to some construction work at the school they had the school property closed. We then headed just down the street to the Pink Hill Park to spend some time on the playground equipment for a while.
After 45 minutes of playing at the park we decided it was time to drop by and see if Mom needed any help at the store, but on the way Kendall spotted a large helicopter coming in for a landing and it actually landed at the James Lewis Elementary where we originally wanted to play so we stopped to see what was going on. The school was replacing some Air Conditioning units on the roof and the helicopter was removing the old ones and lifting the new ones into place on the top of the school. The helicopter company from St. Louis was very nice and brought Kendall over a sticker while they were hooking up the chains to the first piece and another guy brought Kendall some Safety Glasses to wear to keep the dust and dirt out of his eyes when the helicopter was down so low. It was very cool to see the helicopter lift them up and hoover over the school to put them on the roof.
Well, Kendall's T-Ball game was rained out last night so we hope to get his game in tonight. Lizzy has Cheerleading Practice during the game and I have to work in Knob Noster so we will miss the game, but I am sure he will do as well as he did the first game. Good Luck Buddy!
Well, its that time of year again when Daddy gets to keep his little one at home while Miss Ami is on vacation. We plan to do something fun and exciting every day while still helping Mom out at her new store when we can. We will also be dropping and picking Lizzy up from Summer School and taking her to Cheerleading Practices and getting Kendall to and from his T-Ball Games and Practice, since that does not leave us much time to do anything too demanding - we will be spending our time at local parks again this year and doing some fishing when we can.
Lizzy is attending Summer School through the day and has Cheerleading Practice three days a week at GAGE. She has made a Competition Cheerleading Squad that will practice throughout the year and Competes throughout the midwest in the Fall and Winter. We are looking forward to seeing her compete in something she really enjoys.
Kendall has started T-Ball this year and is quite the little athlete. He has one game and one practice a week unless they have a rainout to make up the next week. The first game his coach put him on third base and he had numerous balls hit to him and decided that if the first baseman would not catch the ball, that he would just run it over to first and get the batter out (he did this three times in one inning). He hustles to the ball, in fact he was the first one to the ball from third base when the ball was hit to right field....? It is great fun watching them play and he is learning the fundamentals of where to throw when and how to run the bases - we have a new nickname for him and it is "The Defense."
She is a 12 week old Yorkie-Poo that is a ball of joy.
The kids have not given her a name yet, but will
decide on a name in the next day or two.
We received about 6-8 inches of snow total
and it was lots of fun playing in it this morning.
Kendall has been sick lately so we didn't get to go
sledding or anything this time, but I did take the
time to build a snowman and let the kids decorate
her while I shoveled the driveway (that doesn't
seem to be a fair trade) and they had a good time.
