A Quick Winter Summary

Ever since we started using our phones a ton more (after we moved back here), we don't take nearly as many awesome pictures with our fancy camera. So I keep getting a bunch of pictures of various things on my phone, then gather some from Robert's phone and even Katya's phone to get an idea of what our life is like. Here are a few pictures that I had on my phone, which is good, because they remind me of what was happening in our everyday life.

Back on January 31st, I sent a package to my sister. An innocent little package with some skin care stuff inside. Well, I SHOULD HAVE bought some sort of extra insurance or paid $90 extra to get it tracked because as of May 17th there is no trace of it anywhere. I have been going to the post office for the last two months and the worst part is that they simply don't know what happened to it after it left NC. If it just said that it cleared customs here and left and got lost in India, I would just accept it and move on. But it doesn't show anywhere that it had left the states. I am being stubborn about it, and I will keep exhausting every source of information until I get an answer or...I don't know...free mailing services for a year. Just kidding. I just want the package to reappear!!!! 

Or maybe they just couldn't read the address?:) Kidding, kidding:) Do you like my scribbling?

In the rowing world, Alex had an opportunity to participate in the High Point Indoor Erg Sprints. And he won first place in his age category! He is really growing to love rowing, partly because of how much he is liking being part of the team. Competitions are a fun bonus. 

And Mark finally finished his Orange Level 1 in tennis so he is able to play with Green Dot tennis balls (the next level is the regular balls) and have a longer racquet (26 in instead of a 25 in).  These things are getting more expensive as he grows...sigh. 

We had a chance to clean out the area directly behind our back fence. It had been a year since we moved in but last year we didn't get to it while there was no ground cover and tons of leaves, so we had to do it this year. The people who lived here before us used it as a dump...It's a public area of a nice wooded buffer between us and the next neighborhood, lots of green trees and crazy plants. We found so much junk that it was unbelievable! Buried under a layer of dirt were a number of hoses, buckets, buckets, buckets, chicken wire, lots of whatever and at least fifty empty beer cans and bottles. 

Fun family Saturday project.

Alex also participated in Take Your Kid To Work Day this year. He went to visit Robert at Royal Oak in Cary and shadowed him for several hours.

Nevertheless, he doesn't think he should be a dentist.

Back to tennis. Mark spends around 5 hours a week on the court. And we are encouraged to add more. This summer I am hoping to go out and play with him early in the morning before it gets insanely hot as well as rent out a ball machine once a week since he gets it for free ten times a year with his tennis park membership. The heat never seems to bother him. He has an amazing endurance and recovers very well. Practicing for two and a half hours in the evenings sometimes makes him only want to play more...minus the blisters on his hands and fingers. This picture was taken on the day he challenged himself to serve 200 serves. Took him around an hour but he did it:)) 

Oh yeah, Katya is still coxing on our rowing team. She gets to witness these amazing winter sunsets and freeze to death at 8 am on Saturday mornings. 

She still enjoys it and hopes to continue it next year...hoping to make it work with her theater plans.

Foggy mornings are beautiful too. 

Mark participated in his first American School Spelling Bee. He practiced for weeks. When Grandpa Chuck and Grandma Linda came to visit us in January, he was so happy that Grandma Linda spent a lot of time testing him on his hardest words. He did amazingly well! Somehow he hung on and knew all the words from the hardest 9th grade word list. Then there were FOUR kids left out of 28 or so and they finished the spelling word list that they had given the kids to study, so they had to start testing random words that were way easier than some crazy ones on the 9th grade list. The girl before Mark had to spell a word "sparkle", and then someone had to spell the word "hula". Well, Mark got "HORSESHOE" and he misspelled that...unfortunately. He was the only third grader in the final four and we are super proud of him! He is aiming high for next year, never afraid of this sort of challenge. So great to see him being a self-starter (as in the case with him taking the test to skip 5th grade math...but that's another story:)).

And Alex had a great time competing in his school's Geography Bee. He gets quite competitive as well, but unfortunately there wasn't any list or facts to really study. He answered a lot of hard questions about the US and the world. He got out on a question about the river on the border of South Carolina and Georgia (a real Southern question:)). But, of course, he knew all the world questions and all the questions that were tie breakers after he got out as they pertained to the countries we had visited. 

Finally, we still have Pepper...;)

And here you go! Random facts about our winter happenings. Man...our life is all about kids...kids...kids... 😆

Lyana.