4th Grade Olympics

This morning, the 4th graders had their end of the year Olympics held across the street at the high school track. It was all track and field events so it was right up my ally. I was thrilled to be there to help. I was in charge of the running long jump and that was a very popular event so I was not able to get pictures of every event that Samuel participated in. He chose to do the running long jump (yes it was my station and I still didn't get pictures), the fox tail throw, the 55 meter dash and the 400 meter (HOORAY, that's my boy!)

This event is done so well. It was amazingly organized. They had music for the "parade of athletes" to walk in and out to. They had the Leone timing company there to time all the races (they do all the official half and full marathon timing in the Northeast). Everything happened in a timely manner and everyone had a great time.

Here come the athletes.


You see Sam? Yep, orange coat. It stopped raining for the morning, thank goodness, but it was still a little breezy and cool.


Here's my official long jump helper!



Sam, staying warmed up and waiting for his heat of the 400. I was struck by this picture when I loaded it onto the computer. Seems to me that we have one (or more) of me with that same look of focus and nervousness waiting for my races to start.


A few last instructions before the gun.


I ran the back straight stretch along side Sam on the infield to encourage him and keep him going. He was in last right off the bat but his teacher and I encouraged him to focus on the boy in front of him and low and behold, he passed him around the corner!


Coming in for the big finish. Two things about this picture (I wish is was a video but sometimes I forget that I can do that with my camera).

First....the man behind Sam in the black coat with the umbrella is his amazing teacher Mr. Gates. He has such an unreal connection and heart for Sam, it's unbelievable. He sat in the stands the entire morning, but came down for Sam's 400, ran around the inside of the track cheering him on and gave him a huge high five and a hug when he finished.

Second, if you could have heard the crowd of kids and adults cheering for my little man, you would have teared up. I sure did. In fact just writing about it is making me cry. Mr. Stimson was cheering for him over the loud speaker and I could hardly hear him over the noise the crowd was making. These kids have huge hearts and they are so kind to each other! Simply wonderful.


After all was said and done, they sat in the bleachers to receive their awards. Everyone got a participant ribbon but they also gave out ribbons for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in each event.





I turned on the video camera just to catch the kids applauding their effort and I caught one of Mr. Stimson's encouraging talks and the way these kids respect him. Notice how he puts the mic down and just talks to the kids, and notice the complete silence they give him.



Did you see the cute boy in the gray sweatshirt in the top row to the right?


Yep, he's mine.


After the ribbons, they all walked out to more music and headed back to their own school for some lunch and learning.


This girl Sam is walking with (and you may have seen her sitting by him in the bleachers) is Gina. She is a sweetheart. She took Sam under her wing today (without being asked by anyone) and made sure he always knew where to go and what was happening next. I overheard him telling her that since he didn't place in the 400, he wished they would give a ribbon for the person who tried the hardest in that race because he would "surely get that award". She came up to me on the walk back and said, "Mrs. Ankeny I'm going to make Sam a ribbon for doing such a good job in his long race."
I am thankful for that little girl!

May Happenings

So now that the snow has melted and cross country ski club has ended, the amazing P.E. teacher, Mr. Stimson, has started the running club. This is a club that he has been running before school every spring for the past 17 years!
There are about 150 of the 3rd and 4th graders that show up for running before school and probably an equal amount of 1st and 2nd graders on their running days. Amazing.
Mr. Stimson is always encouraging to these kids and commending them for getting up early to take care of their bodies and be healthy.

Samuel being the little distance runner that he is, loves this time. He told me that he feels so much better during the days when he runs in the morning. He said it clears his head and helps him to have a better mood all during school. I am so proud of him for recognizing that already, it took me until the last couple of years in high school to notice those benefits.


They start out in the gym and run/walk for their warm up (Sam always runs the entire time).


Then they sit for instructions and stretching (obviously here you can see that a bunch of kids were late this morning).


Then they head out to the track to run their designated number of laps.


It's hard to see, but Sam is almost in the middle of this picture (the boy pulling his shorts up....a continuous problem for the skinny minnie!).
In the middle of June, the weekend before school lets out, there are some fun run races that the high school XC team hosts. Mr. Stimson encourages all the kids to participate in that. Sam will be doing the 1 mile fun run. Jacob is undecided at this point. I think I'll do the 10K. Should be a fun family day!

We also had some great sunny and warm weather the past week, so last weekend the ground was dry enough to till the garden plot.
Jacob is such a helper! It started to rain but he didn't care. He just kept on digging.
Since we tilled, the rain has not stopped so we now have a big mud pit....here's hoping for some sun again so we can plant over Memorial weekend.


Then just for the fun of it, I made a cake last night.

It was a gluten free chocolate cake with belgian malt chocolate frosting and toasted marshmallow filling.
Oh, my it was yummy!


We hardly made a dent in the thing because it was so darn huge. Guess I'll have to make another pot of coffee and have more tonight.

April

How can April be over already and I am now looking at the last half of May? I feel like it was still winter last week (pretty close to reality here really) and now it's coming up on summer. Here is a recap of some of the things that we had happening in April.....


Early on in the month we had a bit of a warm up so we took advantage of the melted snow and went for a hike at Green Lakes (yes the lakes are actually green....something to do with the light reflection off of a special algae that grows on the special fresh water reefs....I don't know). There was a lot of mud and still a good amount of ice on the water but we enjoyed our selves.


It was a beautiful day.


Jacob making his typical 8 year old boy face. I've even caught myself using the line "Your face is going to freeze like that!" Never thought I'd say it but I never really knew how boys were!


Sam as an antelope


Braden eating a stick, again....I don't know.


A few days later it snowed. Sad.


The elementary school held it's annual science fair. This place was CRAZY! I never even made it all the way through the projects because the aisles were so darn packed with people that you couldn't move. Sam researched different types of renewable energy and Jacob worked with two friends on an earthquake project.


They all did great!


Towards the end of the month we had a visit from Nana and Papa (Luke's parents). I seem to go through fazes where I am either really good with remembering the camera or I am really bad. Sad to say, this visit, I was really bad. So sorry! We'll have to get copies from Papa's camera. The boys had a great time playing and we all enjoyed showing them around a little even though the weather did not cooperate much.


Sometimes there are no words for this boy.


The day after Nana and Papa left, Braden hoped on Samuel's bike (with no training wheels) and rode away, having never practiced! We figured he was ready to take the training wheels off of his own bike.


Then the Easter bunny came. Unfortunately this cute little bunny might find itself being thumped on the head by a flying club. That pesky little guy is going to try his best to get into our garden after we plant, I'm sure of it.




To top off the month, I celebrated the birthday that now puts me on the near side of 40. I have to say though 36 doesn't sound too bad to me.
I was never much of a fan of the color pink but having been surrounded by boys and blue and red for so many years now, I am growing quite fond of it. My cake this year was chocolate with strawberry cream filling between the layers and covered with pink buttercream flowers. It was fun to make and more fun to eat!

Up next....May. We are half way through the month and I have a good amount to show you already.