Happy First Grader!

Bike Buddies

Cross Country '09: First Meet

Today was the first cross country meet of the year. Monica and her teammates all did a great job and finished strong. Here is this year's team:

The first grade girls: Eva, Monica, Alice, and Madeline

Kyle is on the team this year as well and had a great first race!

Here's the start and finish of Monica's race:

Cross Country '09: Practice

Monica is on the cross country team again this year. Several other first grade friends as well as Kyle have all joined the team. Here are a few photos that Anton snapped at practice last week.

Jenny and Ernie's Wedding

Most of our weekend was spent celebrating Jenny and Ernie's wedding. After the rehearsal, the kids got their firt sampling of Indian food at the dinner. Not surprisingly, Monica liked it. Jack didn't. But Anton and I LOVED it!

Jenny and Ernie in their traditional attire at the rehearsal dinner:

Walking down the aisle, Jenny looked amazing. I started to tear up but then had to give myself a serious internal pep-talk to pull it together since I was about to do a reading.

Anton caught this one of my reading from Colossians.

This photo was a little blurry. They did two cultural pieces as part of the mass involving Ernie tying a necklace around Jenny and the sari over her head as a sign that he will protect her. It looked very polished at the wedding itself, but it was quite another story at the rehearsal where it took about 15 minutes for everyone to figure out exactly how the ceremony is supposed to be done. I was sitting in the pew with all of the groomsmen and we had a good chuckle.
At the reception: Amy, myself, Erin, and Liz. Anton and I, and then the girls joined by Jenny.

Congratulations J&E! We love you and are so happy for you.

(You guys are still going DOWN in 2-on-2 basketball though!!!)

Camp Pigott and Camp Brinkley

Sunday we took a day trip with Scott and Kristine to see Camps Pigott and Brinkley. I haven't been on the property in almost 10 years and not since the Pigott/Omache renovation.

I had never actually seen a high COPE course before:

Their main lodge contains everything: dining hall, scoutmaster lounge, health lodge, offices, and trading post.

Somehow it reminded me more of an elementary school cafeteria than a camp dining hall.

Scott was especially distraught at the amount of clearcutting around and in the campsites.

Kristine with the kids checking out the fish:

Putting on a song and dance show at the under-construction campfire bowl.

We later walked over to Brinkley for a brief visit, which is now only a cub scout camp. The lake seems to have gotten smaller and muddier in the last 10 years.

But the rest of the camp was almost exactly the same, and probably has been for the last 40 years. Maybe it will be Jack's first camp.

We had a great time on our day trip with Scott and Kristine.

I won't bother critiquing Brinkley, but here are some thoughts on Pigott.

Negatives:

-Land maintenance issues like the clearcutting don't make for a pretty camp

-Buildings were sterile and lack character

-It's small and aside from some cool programs (cope, climbing, shotgun etc.) there's not much to distinguish it from any other camp

Positives:

-Like Hahobas, there's lots of potential here including outpost hikes and facilities

-Everything is new and in good condition

-The lake is pretty and provides a scenic backdrop for the chapel and campfire bowl

-If Dan Gelis continues as camp director, I'm sure the program will just get better and better. He had great training at Parsons, after all. (You know I had to throw that in there!)

Exciting stuff

Several exciting things happened this weekend. First of all, as refered to in the last post, the Huskies pulled off possibly the greatest football upset in school history:

Then there was this exciting activity. Pretty indescribable:

And finally a road trip that started off with lunch at Red Robin and two balloons. Stay tuned for the summary of the rest of the trip:

First day of preschool!

Today was Jack's (and Tyler's) first day of Preschool at John Knox Presbyterian. We are huge fans of this school, as Monica spent two wonderful years there. According to Keri, who did drop-off and pick-up, both boys did really well and enjoyed class. Jack was all smiles about it the rest of the day!

He's back in the saddle again...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009863923_webkentstrike15m.html

At it again

Here's some of the happening at the Kramers' this week...

I have been trying to go through our house and deal one-by-one with the closets, corners, or even full rooms that need cleaning and sorting. So far I have covered VHS/DVDs, toys, art supplies, and most recently: our closet. There's nothing like purging old clothes and then sorting and organizing your closet to make you feel ready for the school year. It looks so good I keep going in there just to look at it again. I even convinced Anton to get rid of some of his old ratty college t-shirts. I never realized, however, how many sweatshirts I have compared to Anton (his are the three on the left):

The next organizing project is our CD collection. Do I really need that old Mike and the Mechanics CD, especially since it's already in our itunes library? I think not.

Then of course we have the fact that Anton is still on strike. The process for him has been frustrating and stressful. We have been trying to make the best of it by spending more family time together when I get off work and having couples' time hanging out in the evenings playing a board game or watching a movie. And he has enjoyed doing some projects around the house and in the garden. He even did the Costco run for me yesterday. Symbolic of his current work situation: this is the spot he always puts out his work clothes for the next day before bed. Last night he had his sweatpants there.

And finally Miss Monica. What a big first-grader she is. Her two top teeth are coming in as well. We started a chores/allowance program for her. She has a list of about 6 things she needs to do at least once (or when asked) by the end of the week to earn a dollar. Here she is refilling Cinder's food dish.

Jack's preschool starts next week, so I'm sure we'll have some picture of the little man off to school.

Forts, Teeter-totters, and more

We had a great weekend on Whidbey. Monica and Jack enjoyed playing in the (previously constructed) forts, making a teeter-totter, going kyaking, and playing inside and out with cousins Lauren and Hansie.

Springbrook Trout Farm

Today we went to Springbrook Trout Farm in Renton with the Martins:

Tyler takes fishing very seriously:

Here's the gang having a blast. Springbrook has three ponds with small, medium, and large trout respectively. There is no entrance fee but you have to keep anything you catch and are charged based on the size of the fish.

They also had a playground, for when the little guys got bored:

Here's the first fish of the day, caught by Monica. We named him Lester:

Here's Lester in his little bucket. Sorry, buddy, you've got dinner written all over you!

Thankfully, they clean and gut the fish for you. Monica and Kyle were fascinated.

Anton made me hold the fish I caught and pull the hook out. I don't get grossed out by many things, but holding a squishy dying fish was just sick.

We came home and had fish tacos for dinner! Yum!