Racing Spring

We had quite a spring of racing in this family. At the elementary school there was a program encouraging children to run.  Clara and Elena told us they needed to go running to cross items off of their checklist.  So we took them to the track, thinking that they would go around one time (.25 mile).  We were so surprised when they told us they wanted to do it four times so that they would get in a mile!  They followed through - this is them crossing the "finish line" Steve made at the end of their fourth time around - such runners!

But our girls are more than good runners - they are excellent spectators and supporters.  We went out to cheer on Steve as he completed his fifth triathlon, this time the Grizzly Tri right in town.

 

See Steve swim:

See Steve transition:

See Steve bike:

And see Steve run:

...and run...

...and run across the finish line!

 

We were so proud of him.

 

And those girls deserved a swing break after all of the supporting and spectating!

Our whole family participated in the YMCA Riverbank Run, which is routed along the Clark Fork river in town.  Christina completed her first 10k, running the whole way (no small feat for a girl still pretty new to running).

  
Clara did the one mile fun fun - she ran the whole thing, the first of our family to cross the finish line.

 

Steve stuck it out with Elena, who didn't enjoy the race as much once she got going as she thought she would before starting.  In the end, though, she was pretty proud of herself. 

 

 

We were all pretty proud of ourselves, actually.  Running family!

 

Christina ran one 5k race on her own - the Color Run, which is a trail run across farmlands right outside of town.  People get pelted with colored cornstarch power and also sprayed with liquid color.  It was a very, very fun mess.

Mother's Day

 This Mother's Day Christina was sweetly treated to her annual brunch cooked by Steve, and presents picked by the girls.  Elena picked out a sweet necklace (knowing that Christina does like new jewelry) and Clara got her an iron statue of a bird (remembering that she likes black things and cute things - not remembering that she and birds are not on the best of terms).

And then there was the annual trip to Benson's nursery.  It's rewarding to see Elena and Clara remembering these kinds of traditions, and not only acting in them but recognizing how we re-enact things that are important to our family.

 

The decision-making was really hard this year - so many beautiful varieties to choose from!

 

 This was one of Elena's votes:

 And Clara was thrilled to have found so many blooms on the ground (we told her that she could take any she found that had fallen, and she sure found a lot of them!).

 Ah, the Benson's bear.  He looks a little rattier every year, and our girls look a little taller every year.  One year we will have college students and this bear is going to be dust.

 One last shot of the three girls:

 And then we took off for lunch at a little cafe just adjacent to our neighborhood - the Burns St. Bistro.

 

Then we goofed off for a bit at REI - this was some fun with masks and photo filters.

  

And Christina got the dress you can barely see here, and these are the plants we ended up getting down at her feet.  It was a happy, happy Mother's Day.

Irish Dancers

This winter Elena and Clara started taking Irish Dance lessons.  They have been telling us for at least a year that they wanted to start these lessons, and we are a bit embarrassed to say that we didn't take it seriously.  We thought it would be a passing desire.  But they have been persistent in their desire, and so they began in January.

In March the had their first set of performances.  They are very in demand for St. Patrick's day, and so it was quite an initiation for us in dance performing.  All day the Friday before St. Patrick's day we went from school to school performing for other children.  Then Saturday and Sunday was full of performances in parades and nursing homes.  These are a few shots that are very representative of the experience.

All of the dancers are required to have "traditional" irish dancing hair, which is ringlets.  Since neither of our girls have that hair naturally we tried two methods to get them to that point.  The first day we used these updated versions of rag curlers.  They worked okay, but not great.

They also required the girls to sleep like this - with towels over their wrapped up hair.  The novelty of that wore off after the first night - so after that we relied on a curling iron and hair spray.

The first morning was pretty cold - this is very early in the morning before the first elementary school performance.

They had been working in class on a few numbers.  One was this circle dance.  They love their teachers, and were so happy getting to dance with them.

There was a lot of gap time in between performances.  Elena and Clara would come over and practice in front of us sometimes - here is Elena working on her moves.

And here's Clara:

But a lot of the time looked like this:

And this:

They were real troopers - it was a long, long day and at every school they were ready to rally and perform again.

One of the enjoyable parts of the day was getting to see Clara and Elena's friends at other schools.  Here they are with Annie, their friend who lived across the street from us for awhile.  They were thrilled to dance for their friend, and to get recognized by a "big" girl in the school.

The most exciting stop was the last one of the day - they got to go their own elementary school!

Elena was very excited to show her friend Annie how things worked at their assemblies.

And the principal made their entire year by singling them out and bringing them in front of the full school to introduce them and thank them for representing the school.  It might be hard to see the beams on their faces, but they were just thrilled.

After that day of performing the adults were completely exhausted.  Like good, Irish folk we headed to the pub and had a pint.  Just the adults, though.  The girls were still raring to go, and kept right on performing.  People at the pub were pretty thrilled to have a free (cute) performance, and we were happy to be out of auditoriums for awhile!

Steve, leaning back after a day escorting dancers.

And Clara, finally pretty darn ready to go home.

We have video, but will get that uploaded here a bit later. 

First Day of School

What's that you say? You thought we were through with this blog since it has so clearly been abandoned these last five months?  I think it's safe to say that posting here will not ever resume the rate or regularity of five years ago, but we'd still like to keep a documentary here of how life is going - at least some small parts of it.  So there's going to be a bit of a catch-up here - not complete, but just glimpses.

It seems we missed posting about the first day of school entirely!  Clara and Elena started full-day kindergarten in August.

 Their school is the oldest one in town - over 100 years old.

 It has a great garden, lots of fantastic teachers, and a very committed principal.

 Their teacher was Mrs. Malchi (Kelsey).  It was her first year of kindergarten, too! She was a brand new teacher, with a very fresh degree.  She is the best thing that could have happened to us.

 She was this attentive to every single child in the class, all year long.  Here she taught the girls on their first day how and where they should line up at the start of the day and after every recess.  Each class has their own line to stand on.  When they get ready to move from the line they repeat: "Two finger squeeze! (hands behind their backs, two fingers laced together).  Our voices are off!  We're walking like mice!"

 First day of school writing:

And, first post after five months, check!  That was not so hard, after all.