The Spot Party

Photos from Leo and Oliver's joint birthday party at the Spot Bouldering Gym:

Family in DC

We all met up in DC for seafood!

Throwing hatchets at dad

A child's dream - throwing hatchets at your dad while he's spinning on a giant roulette wheel



If you can't see this, go to
http://youtu.be/gs9QED_E768

Apogaea

We went to the Apogaea festival in Colorado. Art, games, weddings, trampolines!

This was the temple. They did not burn it because of the fire danger in Colorado right now.

The family on the Zander Lander which was a big hit, as always:

Leo learned to get himself into an overhanging hoop:

Leo on the trampoline:

Crazy child:

The cat in the hat:

The trampoline was a big highlight. We gotta get one of these:

For me too:

Black and White Umbrella Tricks!

Leo shows us his Black and White Umbrella Tricks! He's a pearl!



If you can't see this, go to
http://youtu.be/EGPjxAttXD4

And then for trick #2:



If you can't see this go to
http://youtu.be/_GJq_LvnomE

Leo and Isa Skating

Leo and Isa go skating every Saturday. They've gotten really good. Here they are doing the limbo, the partner limbo, the skate squat.



If you can't see this go to
http://youtu.be/xz7FEBS5gKY

Poetry

Leo wrote some poetry this morning and illustrated here.

If you can't see this, go to http://youtu.be/65YM593PXUU

Pear

Leo made this pastel picture of a pear in an art class. It blew us away. As you know, he is color blind, but here you can hardly tell. Anyway, the school lost it so we are bummed. Have to buy him some art supplies and have him work on more canvases for us!

Leo's new do!

Leo was getting 'helmut head', so we went to the hairdresser. We had to wait a while so we looked at the "women's hairstyle" book which was pretty frightening and then the men's hairstyle" book which is a lot less frightening. Leo picked out a bunch of hairstyles that he liked. They were all short with lots of hair goop. So we asked the hairdresser if she could do it and lo and behold, we've got a punky looking kid on our hands. He even got some 'hair glue' to keep it punky looking.

Leo's soccer award

Leo got an award from his Angry Birds team for his ability to play any position. you can view it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENW2A1bdKic&sns=em

More science experiements

Leo's teacher just amazes me. This is their science experiment on plants:



Go to http://youtu.be/q_mRLZxGaqU if you can't see this.

Angry Birds Soccer Team

The Angry Birds Soccer Team with Coach Phil and Coach Loren.

Birthday party at the rock climbing gym

Kids these days have the most amazing birthdays. Charlotte's birthday party was at the rock climbing gym. Kids got to boulder (climb sideways along a wall, short distance from ground), climb up some 20-25 feet onto giant rock formations, climb with a rope and harness, and try the slack line (tightrope). It was amazingly fun and all the kids had a great time. The birthday cake was pretty amazing too, a cake with a fondant covered rice krispie treat that was angled up as a giant flatiron (the flat rocks here in Boulder) with a climber dressed just like Charlotte on it. I don't know what the kids are going to say when Leo turns 7 and we have a party in our dandelion infested backyard with a few lawn chairs and a rope swing!

Leo is pretty safe and cautious, so he was heading up and down a lot of these rocks pretty slow (me, too, since we were roped in), and the middle clip of him climbing the giant rock formation without a rope was pretty scary for me, but he did great. I'm hoping to get him out rock climbing this summer. His good friends climb so we'll have company.

If you can't see this, go to:

http://youtu.be/imjb8N97vKE

Last day of black Trek lessons

Today was Leo's last day of ski lessons. He had an awesome second session, as there were only two kids in the black class. Conditions were slushy and it felt like summer and we were pretty baked. My thighs were pretty dead from leaning back on my skis so I could do the 'water skiing' that you have to do to get through the slush.

They skied every run that was open. Leo was falling asleep in the chair lift so they ended early. But he had a bug up his butt about skiing 20 runs today so he made me stay and do another 4 runs with him. This included two runs on Challenge which was a really nice mogul run today, soft and doable. Usually, it's hard and icy and not fun.

Anyway, here's the video clips.

If you can't see this, go to http://youtu.be/O_009FIzv8c

Teacher was really proud, said these were the two best kids of their age that he's taught. I was really proud, because I have a new ski buddy! He loves trees and bumps - what more could I ask for?

Leo the gladiator

We're all into gladiators these days. Leo's fighting and I'm renting Russell Crowe movies.

Red fish blue fish

Leo hadn't been reading much lately so I insisted he read something before playing video games. He picked up "Red Fish, Blue Fish" and read the whole book! I didn't realize how long it was - 63 pages, but he managed to persevere (another thing I'm worried about with him is perseverance) and make his way through. I'm really happy he's finally starting to break through on reading. He's been using raz-kids.org and their approach of reading books to earn points to buy space monsters has worked wonders for him.

Science Experiments

Leo had to demonstrate a science experiment today in school. He used his fave book The Encyclopedia of Immaturity (thanks, Rebecca!) to select air cannons. He made a couple different sized cannons and we have been having fun with them for the past few weeks. Then we got a smoke machine and discovered the great smoke rings you can make:

If you can't see this go to

http://youtu.be/1UmMCxHlWHE

It was a huge hit. Best part was that we did not trigger the smoke alarms!

NJ trip

Here are some pictures from our trip to NJ. Leo and Porpor had a great time.

Leo and Joylin made a magic show. I'll have to edit the clips to make a move of it. They are quite good.

I think Kristin won a prize in the magic show:

We went to the Franklin Institute with Jeff. They had this cool experiment where you can bike on a rope.

math

Leo's learning amazing stuff in math. On Thursday, I was able to keep him eating by giving him math problems: "what is 16 x 2", which he was able to successfully answer by carrying the 1. Then he made up his own math problem, "what is -34 x 2" and managed to successfully answer that too. His teacher rocks!

Marriage

Leo's new friend Alicia successfully caught him and kissed him in the playground. This seems to be a new game the girls are playing. Paul told Leo that he heard Alicia wanted to marry his best friend Oliver and not Leo. Leo responded, "Phew!"

Last day of blue Trek ski lessons

Sunday was the last day of the blue Trek ski lessons. Parents could have discount tickets to ski with their kid's class. The parents gathered round the class. The teacher asked the parents if they were comfortable skiing in the trees and black diamond runs and all. Then she took us all down into the trees where we skied uncomfortably close together, following each other. We did the half pipe and the runs that are usually closed off for racers.

If you are a diehard ski fan, you can see a video of the kids coming down LaBelle. Leo is first and the other kids follow:

If you can't see this, you can go to:

http://youtu.be/raZeF6HfnzY

X-rated

We explained movie ratings to Leo, since he likes to watch scary PG-13 rated movies (Harry Potter, Men In Black, Transformers, etc). We made the mistake of mentioning X-ratings, as something for adults. Tonight he was showing us a scary monster book from the library and asking if it was so scary to be considered X-rated or triple X-rated.

We said no, X-rated doesn't really mean scarier than R-rated. And by the way, don't mention X-rated at school. They won't like that.

Leo replied, "Then can I mention Beavis and Butthead?"

Balancing Tricks

Leo's been learning all about balancing this week. He came home bragging that he could balance a pencil on its tip. I said 'show me'. So he built this contraption in about 5 minutes. Apparently they also balance a piece of paper on its tip using two clothes pins.

If you can't see this, go to

http://youtu.be/8_c02Qy0qnY

Martin Luther King Assembly at school

Leo's school had a big assembly at school for Martin Luther King Day. It was mostly the 5th graders putting on a show, but the Kindergarteners and 1st graders had a nice song, shown below. It's hard to see Leo as he's not in the front row, but he's the black silk shirt with white cuffs.

Leo's class singing This Little Light of Mine:

If you can't see this, go to http://youtu.be/x93IPp2UQZw

The most inappropriate one yet

At school, the kids are supposed to write stories. A lot of Leo's stories are, shall we say, plagiarized? Anyway, this book is titled, "Sir Galahad. Monty Python. The Most Inappropriate One Yet" While I don't think Leo knows why the Sir Galahad skit is inappropriate for him to watch, it seems that I made enough of a fuss about it that he remembers that there is something inappropriate about it!

Ski lessons

This post is probably just for the grandparents or diehard ski fans.

Leo's in ski lessons every Sunday. The teacher took a video of the kids coming down the slope last week. First day with poles. Leo's the third of these four kids coming down the mountain - he has neon orange tape on his helmet and a blue jacket.

If you can't see this, go to

http://youtu.be/6k-jAMuCwZM

Eating millipedes

So, Leo likes to eat weird stuff. His latest thing is bugs. Aunt Vicki got him some 'larvettes' and a cricket lollipop that he's loving. So today he went to Isa's for a playdate and they ate dead millipedes that they found in the backyard.

I'm trying to explain why you want to eat food that is alive, and that you kill yourself. This is really hard to explain...

Leo Learns About Feedback

I showed Leo how to dial our cell phones. Then I made the mistake of showing him what happens when you bring the two phones together. He loves it.

If you can't see this, go to

http://youtu.be/S-l7W5vXRKA

#1 school in Colorado!

Wow, when I bought this house in 1999, I knew I wanted a good school district even though it took me years to have a kid to send to the local schools. Yesterday when Leo and I were walking to school, we had to pass the 9 News van and the crowd around it. I figured the 5th graders were doing something cool again.

But lo and behold, Bear Creek Elementary got the highest ratings for an elementary school in Colorado!

http://www.9news.com/video/default.aspx?bctid=1389002380001&odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cfeatured

When the wind blows, it gusts, because Leo's teacher Ray Neiman also was announced yesterday as the winner of the Impact Award from the Impact on Education. The web hasn't updated to show the actual winner but this is the announcement when he was announced as a finalist:

http://impactoneducation.org/in-the-spotlight/impact-award-finalists-announced

Anyway, we're very excited. We love Mr Neiman and find him to be amazingly creative and a tech geek as well.

Short version of video of Leo at 6

We're finally sending out Christmas cards and along with that, the short version of the annual video of Leo at 6:

If you can't see this, go to http://youtu.be/P-pQ8h4OKp4

Bangkok

We are enjoying Bangkok and finding too little time to do all that we want to do. We had a great opportunity yesterday to join Bruce and Jentana and their two kids on a new catamaran, built for Bruce's friend in Phuket. It was so deluxe and quite fancy. We passed up shopping and the floating market to join them. We went out past Pattaya and sailed down to Ko Kham Yay. If we had kept going, I guess we would have hit Ko Samet which is a tourist destination. Leo had a great time playing with Vanessa and Jentana's adopted daughter Aum who is the same age as Leo. Here's Leo and Aum:
Aum is a firecracker. She really liked Leo. On the way home, she kept saying she wouldn't kiss him. Then when we were about to get out of the car, she said, ok, I'm going to kiss him. And Leo sort of curled up away from a puckered up girl. Then Aum said, when I see you tomorrow, you're going to kiss me!

We got to visit Ning, my old Thai language teacher, and her two kids:

And here are the boys at the Grand Palace and Wat Pho:

Sea lice and scrapes and falls

Every morning, we eat breakfast at this overpriced cafe. All the other places on this side of the peninsula are for the people who stay at those hotels and our place, being a home, rather than a hotel, doesn't have a restaurant.


They do have a nice view though:


The first night we were here, Leo fell off the edge of the concrete pad that the restaurant was sitting on and scraped the top layer of skin off much of his leg. Yesterday on our hike, he fell and broke open the wound again. He's getting used to the yellow color of iodine on his body.

Krabi is filled with limestone karst formations - these giant steep cliffs that come straight out of the sea or land. It makes for great caves and rock climbing. Here's Leo on one of his little scampers up through the caves:


And Paul and Leo about to enter Diamond Cave in the national park:


We took Leo kayaking around the islands and dove in looking for good snorkeling of which there was none. I saw one baby giant clam and one orange soft sea fan type coral and some small fish. It was sad, especially cause I remember kayaking through these same places in the 90's and looking into the water and seeing lots of coral and fish. It seems like there was a bleaching event.

Anyway, Leo got stung by a jellyfish while snorkeling and there are these little larval jellyfish, sea lice, that have been getting both me and Leo. So now Leo doesn't want to go back into the ocean.

Leo on the rocks

Today Leo did his first rock climbing. This place is one of the top rock climbing destinations in the world. The rocks are like going to a climbing gym - there's a zillion tall, skinny, wiry people climbing rocks next to each other, with their partners yelling up to them, "bomber hold just above your left hand!" Actually they are yelling that in French and Japanese. I haven't climbed in many years so we joined a small class - Leo, me and a young woman from Michigan. The teacher was more interested in flirting with the girl from Michigan than teaching, but Leo did make it up some of the rock. He was pretty apprehensive about the rope holding him though and the drop if it were to break. I will have to take him climbing in Colorado and show him how sticky the rock climbing shoes really are. Anyway, here he is on kid's rock:



If you can't see this, go to
http://youtu.be/iLwgZzjSn40

This rock was right on the beach and at high tide, you can't get here. There was a nice high wall that the instructor said was a 5c rating (not sure what that means, but less than a 5.10) that I got to climb before I decided we were good for the day, even though our time was not up. Leo had given up a while ago, Paul had finished his hike and the instructor and other girl were anxious to get away...The view from the top was amazing - wish I had my camera!!!

Leo gives a tour of our traditional Thai house

We're staying at the Railei Beach Club in a house near my ex-boss' house. Haven't been here since the 90's and Railei Beach is now a big tourist destination. Oh, well. The houses at RBC are traditional Thai houses, built on stilts, with no A/C, no TV, and yet they cost a small fortune, especially during high season (now). But we're nestled up against the limestone cliffs and are living with the monkeys, frogs, birds, geckos, and crickets in traditional Thai style.



If you can't see this video, go to
http://youtu.be/88oQWgWCIUg