Risa's Pieces

A Fling in Spring

I know, I haven't blogged anything about our Spring Break... yet, but here I am talking about this weekend's events.  Eeeh, sometimes I have it together, but there are those days...  ok, weeks, that just get so jumbled around.

This weekend Marcus and I got to spend three hours sitting our rumps on those fun metal bleachers you find at baseball and football games, both Friday night and Saturday afternoon for the Kadena Youth Center Gymnastic's Spring Fling.  The Spring Fling was a competition/exhibition for the gymnasts, they practiced floor and beam routines for weeks.

Chloe's level was on Friday night and when your last name starts with an A, it usually means you're up first.  Performing in front of crowds doesn't seem to faze her, but the balance beam gave her some jitters.

 

 And wouldn't you know it, in the end she got first place for her level.... for the balance beam.

 

Chloe's coach, Heather, is PCSing soon and as much as I begged and pleaded for her to stay, for some reason it just doesn't look like she's going to be staying but that could be because the military is making her move.

 

But she did surprise us with happy news last week, Chloe will be moving up to level three starting in May.

Caitlin was up next on Saturday afternoon, she got to perform with the older girls in her level.  Like Chloe, she wasn't nervous at all except about the beams.  During her balance beam routine, she didn't want to let go of her coach for fear of wobbling and falling down.  Yeah... she's got my balancing issues.

Now, she had her floor routine down pat when she did a private show for us at home, but when she got on the mat to exhibit her skills, her coach had to remind her of what step came next.  The whole time she was on the floor, she had the biggest, cheesiest grin.  She knows how to have fun no matter where she is. 

   

My jubilant little girl didn't place in any of the categories, but for her big smiles and hard work she did get a trip to the ice cream parlor for a big scoop of cotton candy flavored ice cream.

Field Trip to the Botanical Gardens

Caitlin's second grade class took a delightful little trip to stroll through the Southeastern Botanical Gardens.

 

I loved the bright bluish Jade Vines dangling down.

  

I had fun getting to talk with the other parents and comparing notes.  Even better, Caitlin has a sweet teacher who bought ice cream for all the parents and the kids. 

I'm trying to forget that it was my third time there in a year and a half and be all yippee about the field trip (you might remember Chloe's field trip in which she too donned the stylish class color coded tie dyed shirt).

 

The Yoron Island Adventure

It's not that I didn't trust Chloe enough to give her my handy-dandy digital purse camera.  It's just that things happen.  Like she might have been on the ferry taking a picture and tripped sending my very adorable purse camera over the railing into the deep blue sea.  Instead she got a eight dollar 35mm disposable camera with 27 exposures.  Good deal, huh?  Except I paid $18.85 to get doubles developed (whoa, have picture prices gone up?). Plus the pictures, kind of gritty.  Most of the pictures Chloe took were of the friends and people she met on her four day adventure. 

Chloe's Yoron adventure started at 4:30am last Saturday morning so we could be at Foster to meet the buses at 6am.  When time came to board the buses, there were no emotional good-byes from Chloe.  No good-byes at all.  She climbed onto the bus without a glance back only to wave to us through the window as we stood there in shock.  Lucky for us, she had to move from one bus where she was sitting three to seat to another bus with more room where she ended up sitting three to a seat again, and we snuck in some good-bye hugs and kisses.

And now for Chloe's Yoron Island Adventure as told by her:

The four days of Yoron were very amusing, one day we hiked, another we made sugarcane juice. The night of our arrival was very delicious, the food, I mean. We had clam soup, salmon sashimi, and some more americanish stuff. We went to bed around 9:30. The next day we finished our rafts and went to the store. I bought a t-shirt, 4 bottles of star sand, and shi-shi dogs. Before dinner, me and my roommates sumo wrestled. I lost every time. For dinner we had fried chicken, fries, salad, salmon sashimi, soba, rice and tea. Monday was supposed to be a field day at the beach, but we practiced moves for a minshuku show first. Then we went to the beach, rode boats and went swimming. Lunch was an obento with rice, shrimp, fish, an orange, hot dog, and other things. Dinner was rice, fried fish, salad, sashimi, pudding, and tea. Our last day was rainy but coolio. We rode our rafts and made pinwheels. I ran around like a little kid the moment I could figure out how to make it spin. Lunch was rice, pasketti, and other meats like chicken. Dinner was hot dogs, chicken, soba, meat and other thingys. Afterwards we told everyone about our thoughts about Yoron and some of us cried.  The whole trip was totally astounding!!!!!!

And now back to Marisa...

Makes up her own words and obviously loves food... she takes after me. How funny is it that my ten year old said, "I ran around like a little kid the moment I could figure out how to make it spin".?

Maintenance Professional of the Year

Still trying to play catch-up.  The day after Marcus and Caitlin attended the Red Carpet Event, we, Marcus and I, attended the Maintenance Professional of the Year (MPOY) banquet. 

It was somewhat work related, so Marcus wasn't looking forward to it, but he feels like he needs to attend these things because of his position.  It was loud.  It was rowdy.  People were squeaking air horns.  Each section was screaming their motto.  Pots and pans were being banged. And wouldn't you know, we had the best time.  I think any other banquets we attend in the future might seem a little too boring.  Who knew Marcus' work related stuff could be so interesting?

Afterwards we went out with a group of friends who where at the MPOY banquet too.  Oh, how I wish I could share those pictures, but I'm going to be nice.  It's so hard being so nice.

Chloe came back from Yoron Island Wednesday night still in one piece.  For the most part she said she had a fabulous time.  I'll expand on that later.  We pick up her pictures from the disposable camera we got her to take on her trip tomorrow, so I'll share those too.