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