Happy Anniversary!

Today I have been married to my wonderful husband for 19 years. I have been so blessed by the past 22 years we have been together, and look forward to the next 50. Thank you Allen for being my husband and my best friend. I love you!

Back to School

Another school year has started. Rebecca is in 4th grade and Kathryn is in 1st. Here they are at the bus stop on the first day.


After the girls rode the bus to school, I drove up there to get a few pics. Here is Kathryn & her teacher, Mrs. Snyder.


Rebecca at her desk right after I said, "I just came up here to embarrass you because that is the kind of mom I am." :-)

Second day of school at the bus stop - Ashley, Rebecca, Kathryn, & Maddux.

The picture with the tree. I take a picture of the girls at the beginning of every school year next to this tree.

Go Buckalew Bears!

Taekwando Graduation

Rebecca had her taekwando graduation on Friday, August 20. She has graduated to her brown belt. Only two more color belts, then she will get her black belt! We are so proud of her progress this past 15 months.

Here she is doing her form during testing.

Mr. Koehn tying on her belt.

Sitting proud.

Miss Harras & Rebecca. Miss Harras is a 2nd degree black belt.

Mr. Cox signing Rebecca's belt.

Rebecca & Mr. Welter.

Rebecca & Mrs. Berry.

Rebecca & Sr. Master Berry.

Rebecca & Meghann showing off their new belts.

End of Summer Fun

Today was our last Mommy/Daughter day of summer so I took the girls to breakfast at Shipley's Donuts.

After breakfast we headed to the mall for long overdue haircuts.

In the afternoon we met our new teachers for the year. It looks like the girls will have a great year. We are blessed.

Taekwando Update

It has been a long time since I have updated Rebecca's progress in taekwando. After January we were sporadic in our attendence of classes, going maybe once a week. Then in late March/early April, ATA Martial Arts of The Woodlands/Spring moved their location. Instead of being a 10 minute drive to the center of the Woodlands, we now have a 20 to 25 minute drive to the other side of the highway.

After the school moved, we did not make it to class for about three weeks because Rebecca was still in choir. With the longer drive, it was harder to make it to class on time. We finally got back on track in late April and in June, Rebecca earned her blue belt.

This summer we have tried to go to class at least twice, and sometimes three times a week. In a recent class Rebecca did some sparring practice with Meghann, another young girl in her class. Here is their sparring match. Rebecca did pretty good. (Rebecca is the taller one.)


Meghann & Rebecca - girl power!

On August 14, we had a taekwando tournament at the new school. It was a packed house!

Ready to compete - Johnny, Rachel, Meghann, Rhys, Rebeccca & Michael.

Serious & focused.

Here is Rebecca doing her form, In Wha 2.

Rebecca did so good, and actually got 1st place in forms. Here she is getting her trophy.

Proud girl!

Rebecca & Senior Master Berry.

Meghann & Rebecca and their trophies. (Meghann got 3rd place in forms and 2nd place in sparring.)

So proud of my girl! Way to go Rebecca!

Choir Camp

This past week Rebecca attended choir camp at Mitchell Intermediate. She had an opportunity to meet some 5th & 6th graders in the choirs at Mitchell, and had a lot of fun singing some new music. She also had the opportunity to learn to sing harmonies, something she has not done before. There was about 70 kids in the choir.

Here are some videos I took. Unfortunately the quality is not great, but you can at least hear some of the songs they got to sing.

Coffee

Don't Wanna Get Up in the Morning (The Rice Crispy Song)

ABC's

Kathryn - Dancing Queen

Kathryn enjoyed taking dancing so much last year, that she decided she wanted to be on the First Grade Competition Team this year. This past week she has been at dance camp learning her first dance number that they will do for competition. Today we had a chance to see what they had learned so far. Here is a video of the performance. (The little girl standing to Kathryn's right is Grace, who was in her kindergarten class.)

One of the most exciting things for Kathryn this year is that she gets to wear "foot undeez" like the big girls. When we went to buy her a pair, my "sassy Kat" picked the zebra striped ones. Now the hardest part is keeping her from wearing them around the house.