Dirty Fun!

 Finley and Paityn lounging after a lot of sand pit fun!

CJ, Beau, and TJ after a long and dusty ride in the quad.

If dirt = fun, my kid's had TONS of fun today at the Sackman cabin.  We hiked around, 4wheeled, rode bikes, and all the kid's spent a good hour jumping off a ledge into a giant sand hill.  (Not as dangerous as it sounds).  The showers tonight were dirty and both Husband and I had to scrub little feet, ears, and behinds.  A great day...and even better since there is no school tomorrow!

A Big Day!

This morning I enjoyed the annual Montessori Mother's Tea Party and afterwards Finely and I went to get her ears pierced with her bestie Paityn.  Paityn was celebrating her 5th birthday and the girl's had been talking about getting their ears pierced for a while.  Paityn's mom and I weren't sure how it would go, but both of them did great!

I had tried to take Finley to the Wal-Mart to get her ears done a few weeks ago (Classy, yes I know!)  But as we approached the "jewelry" counter, she grabbed my hand and said, "I have a secret."  So I leaned down and she whispered in my ear, "I just want to wear clip on's" 

We ended up finding a little hair place in town that did ear piecing so we didn't have to go to the  Wal-Mart...double bonus.

Right after it was done-she had a few tears, but toughed it out!

See...that wasn't so bad!!!  We picked very small studs, so you can't even really see them!  On the ride home Finley declared, "In 6 weeks I'm going to wear long sparkly earrings!"  Awesome.

In Other News...

Our exchange student departed for Denmark this morning (at 2:30am...eek) and we were sad to see her go, but we are excited for SPRING BREAK!!! Wahooo!  Four hours of school tomorrow and then I'm school free for a glorious week!  We are heading to Westport on Monday to see some family, and then Moclips for 3 nights. I rented an adorable beach house right on the ocean and because it is so early in the season, we are getting a screaming deal!  Can't wait!

Another very exciting tid bit of news is that I just found I got the school counseling job I had applied for earlier this month!  I will be the new school counselor/title 1 supervisor at the elementary school where I currently teach.  I'm over the moon for so many reasons; I worked really hard on my masters and feel like I finally get to apply it with this job, I will be working with the staff/students that I love in a position that is so vital to their success, and it will be a nice change of pace! 

Anywhoo's...a few housekeeping details are sending me into panic-the first being cleaning out my classroom!  Double EEEEK!  I'm in the room I started out job sharing in 8 years ago and since then I've acquired ALL my old job share partners stuff, moved rooms 2 times, and made my way back to my starting spot.  I don't want to dump all my stuff on whomever inherits my room, and all my books and decorations need to be stored...so I absolutely have a summer project.  It will be worth it, but it feels so daunting when I think about it.

Happy Spring Break!

A Visitor!

Husband and I have had two foreign exchange students; Camille from France for 4 months, and Chris from Germany, also for 4 months.  The later was more enjoyable than Camille, but overall both were good learning experiences.  Growing up, both my family and Husbands had exchange students for entire school years and we like opening our home to young people and giving our children the exposure to things outside our (extremely tiny) world!

So we agreed to host one of the dozen Danish exchange students who would be visiting Omak for a week.  What can go wrong in one week?  Nothing, since we also scored a super sweet girl named Anne!  She is absolutely so adorable, kind, and patient with our loud and crazy brood. 

A friend of mine stated the obvious, "What on earth would a person want to bother coming to Omak for...when there are so many amazing places in the USA they could go...they pick Omak?"  Haaaa, I tend to agree, but when forced to "show off" our town there are some really cool places.  First stop was "The Wal-Mart."  Kidding, but I'm sure we'll get there before she leaves next Thursday.

Just like our experiences with Camille and Chris, we just assimilated her into our normal life.  And what better way than dragging her to an all day youth wrestling tournament! Welcome to America!  A gym full of crying children being hollered at by their parents who are living vicariously through their kid.  Again, kidding...sort of.

On a side note, Beau won first place in the 53-66lb weight class (Yes, it was a thirteen pound spread in the bracket).  I was worried because Beau weighed in on the light end of his bracket at 54.2lbs. He beat his first two opponents easily (tears and all) and then was matched against a 66lb kid for the championship. 

I was nervous, especially when the kid shot for his leg and flopped him on his back in no time.  Beau escaped and proceeded to "hand it" to the kid for the next round and a half until Beau pinned the kid.  Anyway, he's been really fun  to watch this season, had a lot of success, and really grown as a wrestler.  I've come to like this sport and especially appreciate the independence and strength they must exude.  Bottom line is Beau is one tough kid, but he also enjoys wrestling.  One more tournament to go and then he'll hang up his singlet until next year.

Anywhoo's....Anne survived an American wrestling tournament, along with an ADVENTURE waiting to see The Hunger Games.  As we stood outside the movie theater with screaming teenagers and pushy adults, I kept thinking to myself, "Dumb Americans."  Which brings me to my last point...Americans are total narcissists.  My friend Jodi is Canadian (for a bit longer) and she has made this statement before and I totally agree...other countries learn all about the entire world, while the USA learns about...well, us!  We breeze over WWI, WWII, the fall of the USSR, etc. in high school history, but it only revolves around America's involvement.  Anne and her classmates are so well studied on our country, as well as all the other countries in Europe...and likely the rest of the world.

Her visit prompted our family to get out a map, look at Denmark, talk about their language, culture, and attributes.  Anne has shared so many interesting tid bits and I can't wait until she cooks a Danish meal for us on Monday night!  More soon...

 Anne and Finley stuffing the 500 Easter Eggs for church...yes, she's here for 5 minutes and I've put her to work.  Smart thinking I know!

Finley loves having another girl around and Anne is very patient with her!

TJ being funny at dinner.  In true American fashion, we took her out for Mexican food...why not?  I don't cook on Friday night!

After one and a half hours of standing in line, we made it inside to watch The Hunger Games! 

Ready to wrestle!  It was an early Saturday morning as we were in Methow Valley.

Beau and Brennen waiting for round one to start

A meeting of the minds...I wish I knew what these two pals were discussing..

Beau signing his match sheet after he won the championship round

#1 for the third time this season!

Coach Jesse and Beau

Beau and Mommy

Beau, Brennen and mommy...Brennen took second place today after a tough final match.  He was such a good friend and his family stayed to cheer on Beau!

Beau insisted on "counting" his medals from this year...four...pretty cool dude!

What A Champ!

Beau had his first wrestling (Or as I call it, "Wrastling") tournament this weekend in Oroville.  Beau wrestled last year and was a pretty tough little cookie.  With that year under his belt, he had a much  better understanding of the sport when practices started a few weeks ago...and he won his weight bracket today and earned a 1st place medal!  It was all very exciting...and hot..and sweaty...and hectic! 

 Warming up with teammate Brennen, Husband and TJ

 Beau and his teammate/friend Matthew.  Matthew is adorable, so absolutely sweet, and a great wrestler.  His older brother plays football for Husband and also wrestles. These two boys are so cute  I can hardly stand it!

 Preparing for round 1, let's get ready to wrestle!

Still waiting..come on folks!

Step #1: Flop on your opponents back

 Step #2: Roll your opponent over and hold him to the mat

Step #3: Pin and win!  And that is wrestling according to Beau!

 Round #2: Beau went straight to the pin...3 seconds later...

 Winner!

Wrestling cousins! Diesels first tournament was quite entertaining!

 Mr. Cannon also had his first tournament! He was all smiles and so fun to watch! 

 Sisters going crazy from too much wrestling!

 Waiting in the staging area for the championship round..intensity. 

 Last minute pep talk from Husband.

Championship round starts with a single leg take down...straight to business for Beau.

 Still working...

 Yikes..this guy's putting up a fight!

 Final period..ready for the take down!

Beau holding strong.  He won this match 11-4!

 48-52lb Champion: Beau Sackman!

A proud Nana!

Basketball..Basketball

Omak's 4th grade boys AAU Basketball team..coming off a 4 game losing streak at the Eastmont Tournament.  Nice pouty faces boys!

 TJ getting ready to block out

TJ shooting a free throw

 Finally a break from basketball.  The little girls discovered how to call the middle kids (Beau and Halle) who were in the hotel room adjacent to ours.  About an hour of "prank" calling later, these two had me in stitches with their hilarious conversations!  When you are five, hotels provide endless entertainment. 

 Still on the phone...Finley was in the hall yelling through their door, "WE ARE PRANKING YOU!"  Yes, she's so subtle and discreet.

 The boys played 3 full games on the first day-they were exhausted.

 Ready for day two!

Taking another break.  What did we do before ipads?

 Sweet bunny ears from Beau!

 After the tournament...a delicious lunch at Costco so I could load up on groceries.  Costco pizza lunch...best deal on earth!

Can we go home now? I'm crazy from spending an enormous amount of time in a gym!

TJ's first basketball tournament was pretty fun!  We lost every game-some by only a few points, and others by a lot of points.  Either way, it was a good learning experience for the boys and I was proud of how hard TJ hustled. TJ gets a lot of playing time-when he's not in foul trouble (It has taken him a while to distinguish basketball from his favorite contact sport) so by Sunday he was tired! 

This experience reinforced one very apparent thing to me-parents need to relax!  Ten year old boys are children...and we need to chill out on the yelling, complaining, uber-competitiveness that seems to ooze from the pours of parents who are obsessed with sports.  If parents would give 1/2 of the time/effort they focus on their child's sports to their child's grades/academics, I think so many kids would be way better off.  And this from someone who is married to super-competitive sports man..but even he agrees. 

BTW...we didn't abandon our middle child...Beau is on a photo-strike.  He currently refuses to have his picture taken..unless it includes sticking out his tongue, crossing his eyes, or doing bunny ears on someone else.  He also spent 90% of this weekend crawling under the bleachers looking for loose change-not exactly a photo opportunity.  

Lent

Last year I gave up Star$ for Lent and it wasn't so bad. I missed it the first few times, (as it was an almost daily habit), but eventually I learned to suck down the staff lounge coffee and appreciate the savings from not having a latte everyday.

This year I'm not going to buy anything "extra" for myself...no frivolous shopping. This basically includes anything..everything that I don't need. No strolling down the makeup aisle at the drug store or hopping online for a new pair of shoes or another dress or item of clothing that I don't need. Husband doesn't think I can do it, which gives me even more reason to do it!

Our family has had a lot of discussion about Lent and it's nice that the kids really understand what it means... Their Sunday school class has been prepping them for it and they've decided upon things for sacrifice and giving. We enjoyed a nice Ash Wednesday service..school night Mass is not what we are accustomed to and they were tired..and crabby. We bribed them that we'd take them out for pizza after...so they pulled through. My kids will do anything for pizza. The highlight of the night was my daughter farting..loudly...during Prayers of the Faithful. Which started a chain laughing reaction from TJ, Beau...and, me.

We are still waiting on Husband and how he plans to show sacrifice during Lent. My suggestion to him was to unball his socks before putting them in the laundry basket...drives me nuts!!!

Overall I think it's important to recognize this season simply because we are so lucky and have so many blessings. So many people in our world are not so lucky and we need to give thanks and sacrifice to God for his love.