Go Leoti Lightning!

We travelled to Lakin yesterday for a swim meet. This was only the second one Paige & Lane have competed in this summer. We've just been too busy with other activities!

Paige competed in the 50 Freestyle, 100 Freestyle, 100 Breaststroke, 200 Free Relay, & 200 Medley Relay. Her favorite strokes are the free & breast, but she swam backstroke in the medley relay and did fine. She has had trouble with her flip turns on back, but she nailed it yesterday.


Paige swimming freestyle:
Paige on the blocks:
Lane on the blocks:
Lane swimming breaststroke:
Lane swam the 25 Free & the 25 Breast yesterday. This was the first time he swam breaststroke and he was disqualified (brought his arms too far down or something like that). He thought it was pretty cool that we went to Dairy Queen (DQ) for ice cream afterward since he had been dq'd.

A new look

Okay, I'm just playing around searching for a new look. I don't think I like this one, but I'll try it out for a few days.

Guilty, SOOOOO Guilty!

Well, where do I begin? I haven't blogged in about three weeks-just too lazy. Anyway, my sister has been blogging while away from home, and today she was updating while at my house. The guilt was overwhelming.

So, Paige & I took a trip to Washington DC during the end of May & beginning of June. We went with a School Tours of America group from our hometown. There were 11 junior high students and 11 adults. We had SO MUCH FUN!!!! The adults did anyway! There were five moms who went, and we didn't stop laughing until we back in our own houses. We laughed at ourselves, we laughed at our kids, we laughed at each others' kids, we laughed at our bus driver, anyway you get the idea. One night we had a "chocolate buffet" in one of our hotel rooms and laughed until the wee hours of the morning. Ummm, the security guard noted that we were rather loud on the report he turned into the sponsors. Oops.

Paige & I took over 300 photos, so I had to narrow them down to a few to share. Here are a few highlights from the trip:

This was below a portrait in the National Portrait Gallery. Anyone care to research a possible ancestor?

Here is the portrait that was painted by Irving Wiles.

The White House

This was as close as we could get. You can't see them in this photo, but there were armed guards posted on the roof of the White House. The kids thought that was great. We also got to see the 24-hour vigil protesting nuclear weapons. Apparently this protest has been in place nonstop since about 1984. One of the dads in our group made sure to voice his opinion to the protester.

The National Cathedral

View from about the midpoint up the Lincoln Memorial.

Can you tell it was a little humid? My hair is just a bit crazy! Actually the weather was beautiful-mid-80's & no humidity the entire trip. We did have crazy weather landing in DC & trying to land in Wichita-ended up in Oklahoma City.

May???

Well. I seem to have skipped the month of May entirely here on the blog. So, I'll give you all a quick update (and try to post some pictures at another date-hopefully sooner than July!).

Paige finished the track season with two PR's at the league track meet. She placed second in both the 800 & 1600 meter runs. She was very pleased with her times. She finished out her seventh-grade year with a music festival & awards assembly. This summer she is in swim team. She didn't want to go out for swim team this year, but it is wonderful exercise for her shoulder, so she didn't have a choice. K-State basketball camp is on the 15th, and this week she is a helper at VBS.

Lane had a great year in first grade. He loved his teacher and his classmates. He got to go on a few field trips and do some other fun things to end the school year. He also received a Creative Writing Award and an Art Award at the awards assembly.

Lane is also out for swim team. Reluctantly, too. However, he is doing really well, and is going to compete next Saturday at our home meet. He is already a better swimmer than me! He is also playing baseball this summer and is very excited.

Lane's reading skills really took off this year. One night he couldn't sleep, and I found him crouched by his closet light door reading in the dim light. His ceiling fan was on, so he couldn't turn on the overhead light. Anyway, he was reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to himself! If you aren't familiar with that book, it is about a fifth-grade level story, so I was impressed. Lane's current interests? Scotland, Ireland, Germany, ancestry, bagpipes, accordians, and, of course, garbage trucks!

Jason is busy with open gym for the basketball teams & keeping the basketball girls busy this summer with summer ball & conditioning. He's also trying to get field work done and start thinking about harvest.

Jason is on the park/recreation dept. board, and they have had a change in the director over the last month, so he has spent A LOT of time at meetings, at the swimming pool, ball fields, park, etc. Whew. They hired a new guy who is enthusiastic about new programs, etc, so everything is looking up!

I've been catching up with laundry, summer projects around the house, and other fun stuff like that. I have about two more weeks before I can get in my classroom, so that gives me time to do things around here. Oh, yeah. I also read two books in the last week. Time to start a new one!