Last MEC Cultural Night

After 6 years of having kids in Ms. Shelly's classroom, we've been to about 12 of these Cultural Nights where the kids showcase their research on various countries. Our kids have always put a great deal of effort into their research and their display board. It's been a great 7 years at MEC, and our kids learned so much. We are all excited about the new adventures ahead of us next year with both kids at the Academy. It's definitely time for a change! Great job on your Guatemala board, Ava! You always do such nice work. 

Just for a funny comparison, here is Ava's first Cultural Night when she was in first grade. It's amazing to see how much she's grown up in just 3 years!

Monday Shorts 3, the finale

The third and final installment of Tyler's Monday Shorts was my favorite! He had the idea to do a Back to the Future type video, and asked Dave's friend Mark to help him out. Mark has a Delorean, and loves to show it off, and has even brought it over for the kids once before. This video included some green screen work and several different cool camera angles. It's really very impressive! Tyler continues to amaze us with his creativity, talent and passion. This ended up being the last edition of Monday Shorts, as it's pretty tough to top filming a time traveling video with an actual Delorean! Great job, Tyler!

You can see some 'behind the scenes' footage of the making of the 3 Monday Shorts. Here is a link to that video, and I have a few photos of the green screen work.

Birthday dinner

Ava's birthday weekend extended a little longer with a dinner with Grandma and Grandpa tonight. Ava brought her polaroid camera and got a few fun shots from dinner. We ate at Famous Dave's, and then had birthday gelato at Frost. Here are a few pictures of pictures from the evening. We've come a long way from the days of polaroid cameras! Thank goodness for that.....

Happy 9th birthday Ava!

We held a little shin dig for Ava'd 9th birthday today. She is always so excited to have friends over, and her birthday is the best time to celebrate with all her friends. She invited a couple friends from school, as well as a few others, and she had a fun party! 

When they first arrived, they played a game where they had to stomp on the balloon of someone else, and inside it was some candy--like individual pinatas. It didn't work out quite like I thought it would, but they still had fun. I tossed out some candy here and there to make up for the balloons that popped early.

We also played a little freeze dance....

Lunch was pizza and fruit salad, along with posing with some emoji photo props. 

After lunch was presents, which is always a favorite time of any kid's birthday party! Ava asked many of her friends to give her "squishies" for her birthday, and she got several. What is a squishy you ask? Exactly that--a squishy toy that is super soft, but then goes back to it's original shape. I think she got about 6 of them!

From us, Ava got a modern version of the old Poloroid camera, which she has been asking for. It's super fun! It's also humorous to see kids using a camera that actually prints the picture out right there--it's just not something they're used to seeing! 

Cake was next, and cake was so easy this year! I didn't need to bake anything--Ava just wanted an ice cream cake from DQ, which is about the best kind of cake if you ask me. 

Here is the birthday girl with her friends Rowan, Jodi, Lacy, Harper, Sophia, Alice and Mya. 

She was also lucky to have both Grandma and Grandpa at her party, and even got these beautiful flowers from Grandpa Jon. 

We kept taking pictures with the 9 facing the wrong direction. It wasn't until after we took the photos that we realized our mistake.

We're so proud of this amazing girl. It's hard to believe she's already 9 years old and headed to a new school for 4th grade. She is a funny, smart, kind and thoughtful, a good friend, and a loving sister and daughter. We are so excited to see how she does in her first year at Mesa Academy. She will make new friends, face new challenges, and have new adventures. 9 is going to be a great year! We love you Ava, happy happy birthday to our amazing daughter. 

For more pictures from the party, you can visit this link.

Last night of 8!

How is it possible that our baby girl is entering her last year in the single digits? When she wakes up tomorrow morning, she'll be 9! 

I'm not sure how long she'd continue wearing shirts with her age on them, but she is bummed to learn that her 9 shirt will be the last. I hope she enjoys wearing this shirt during this trip around the sun. Enjoy your last sleep as 8, sweet girl....see you when you're 9!

Pre-birthday trapeze

I surprised Ava today with a little birthday trapeze class. I told her that I was taking her to school, but just before we got there, I said "Ava, what do you say we skip school this morning and go fly trapeze?" She was very confused, and a little concerned about missing school, but as we got closer to the Phoenician she seemed a little more excited. I packed some clothes for both of us, and we got all set for the 9 am class. On the way up, we talked a little about what trick she should learn next, and we decided a birdie would be a good option. It's not a trick a lot of grown ups do, unless they're short and really flexible. Ava picked it up on the first try, just like most tricks she's tried. 

Robin was catching, and she had not trouble catching her trick with him a few times. I also got to work on my returns again, and had one of my best round trips to date! It's such a great feeling! There was also a couple ladies in the class who looked really familiar to me, and then I realized who they were--a pair of sisters who went through my LeaderShape program about 6 years ago. It was a fun class, and such a perfect way to start Ava's birthday weekend. 

Here's a screenshot of that awesome return I had with Robin. If only they could all look like this!

Here's the video....

I'm very appreciative of the crew at iFly that they let me catch Ava again at the end of the class. It was the first time I've ever caught a birdie, and who better to be my first than my amazing daughter?! We caught it twice, and her second one was so good! After she came down after the first try, Marco reminded her about staying tight after the catch, and it made a huge difference. It was so smooth!

Here's the video for you--mamma bird catching her little birdie! I love this so much!

Before going back to school, we stopped at the Breakfast Club in Scottsdale and had a delicious brunch. Here's to turning 9, Ava! I love sharing trapeze with you, and I'm so proud of your bravery and your mad skills! 

#RedforEd

Arizona is at the bottom of all of the lists for education funding. Teachers continue to be paid less than in almost all other states, classroom sizes continue to increase, support staff make minimum wage, and teachers buy supplies out of their own pockets. We are a "red" state politically, and as taxes continue to be cut, so does the budget for education. Following the lead of some other red states around the country, the teacher's union voted to walk out today (and tomorrow) in a form of protest. Most major school districts in the state chose to follow that lead, while many charter schools (like Ava's) continued to hold class. This meant that Tyler was out of school for a few days, but Ava was not. There was a big rally and march held at the state capital in downtown Phoenix, with thousands of people marching in support of #RedforEd. Tina is a teacher at Ava's school, and she took unpaid time off to be able to march in support of the cause. She brought Tyler with her as well. 

It was a hot April day, and like Tina said about this picture, her face was "#redfored." They took a break cooling off during lunch. Tyler looked a little out of place in his blue shirt, but he chose that one over the red options we found him. It does say "I love Red" so that works too. 

Take a look at how crowded the light rail was on the way to the march! Everyone needs to be part of a protest in their life, and we're definitely living during a time of protest! I wish I would have taken the day off to go with them, but I am glad Tyler was able to experience it. He wasn't too excited about taking days off of school because he was worried about having to go extra days at the end of the school year. He couldn't quite appreciate the bigger picture, and think about how this issue effects our entire state. He is lucky to be in a school that has more adequate funding than most, and enough desks and computers for all the kids. He doesn't see the schools where there are broken desks, out of date textbooks and old or no technology. My kids are lucky--I just wish that was the rule, not the exception.

*as an update since I posting this after the end of the walk out---the schools were closed for a total of 6 days. The state legislature gave in to a few of the demands of the teachers, but they certainly did not get everything they requested. It's so sad to see that education is not a priority of our state government. We've seen it at the community college level for a long time, as our budget was completely zeroed out a few years ago. Our community college district, the largest in the country, serving nearly 250k students each year gets a grand total of $0 fro our state budget. It just shows how much education is valued, and it's very sad. I truly don't understand. Tyler was happy to be back in school, and even more relieved to find out that they wouldn't have to make up any days at the end of the school year. Here's hoping that this momentum carries through to the future elections, and we can get some new voices with different priorities into our state (and federal!) government. Thanks to those who marched!

Sunset flying

I have no words for this. Simply beautiful, and it's mine. Well, not mine technically, but close enough! 

Monday Shorts 2

Tyler had a plan for his next installment of Monday Shorts, and he needed us to take him to find a train. The actual trains that run through town aren't on any particular schedule that I know of (luckily we don't live near one), so Tyler compromised and decided the light rail would work. The ending is definitely the best part of this one. 

Getting my round trips back

I've been getting frustrated at trapeze lately because I haven't been able to get back to the bar with a traditional return after a catch. That's happened occasionally before, and I can often "reset" things by flying to another catcher and getting out of my head. Luckily for me, there is another place to fly here in the valley, so I scheduled a class at IFly. Nadia went too, and arranged with Marco (the owner) for us to get in a few catches with him before the actual class started. I missed the first one with him (I could have gotten it, but hesitated), and then made the next two round trips with no trouble. After the end of the class, Robin got up there to catch, and I made two more round trips with him. It made me feel pretty great to know that my body knows what to do up there, and that I can get back to the board consistently with a variety of catchers. It was a great day! 

Here's one of the videos of a catch with Robin (which, were the first ever round trips with him!)

Last minute date night

We found ourselves without kids tonight, so we headed up to the patio at Las Sendas Golf Club for dinner and some live music. We got there just in time to watch the sunset, and enjoyed a nice dinner. The patio has quite the view of the valley, so it was a nice place to spend the evening. We don't do this often enough, and definitely didn't take advantage of having grandparents in town this winter. It seems like the busier we all get (including Grandma J, our winter babysitter), the less Dave and I get to go on dates. As the kids get older, and don't always need sitters, hopefully we'll try to make this more of a habit. For now, we'll appreciate the time we get!