Apr. 3, 2007
April is here !
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I love spring. April is one of my favorite months. Not only is my birthday in April but it is the birth month of nature.... Everything here is starting to bloom. My friend Kim has some pretty purple tulips in her front yard right down the street from me. Our azaelias are in bloom too, they are so pretty I wish they would stay in bloom all year ! The irises are coming up and so are my tiger lilies. I am going to do some more planting this year and add a few more perennials to my garden. Emily wants to start a garden too. Looks like a homeschool project in the making. This past Saturday the family went to a karate tournament. We all had lots of fun. Mommy did not do as well as she wanted but mommy did not practice enough. I was way too nervous for my advanced weapons kata. I placed third and I could have done better. I truly was not prepared early enough. I am going to have to improve on that by the next round of tournaments in the fall. There are a couple of them in November that I have my eye on. One of then is our own instructor's tournament called Battle on the Ridge, the other is from one of the other instructors that attends a lot of the same tournaments we do, his is called Days of Autumn. Anyway, I did much better in my advanced kata but still took third. My friend Ronnie who was the scorekeeper said the guy in second place only had one tenth of a point more than me. Not bad. I got my butt kicked in sparring, but that is one area I need much improvement in. I have to work on my flexibility. So I found a good website that has a lot of good stretching advice. I am starting now because it takes a while to make any progress. Now the kids did not get as many trophies as they hoped. Only Tristan brought home a second place sparring/kumite. He did so good he almost got first place. He only got beat out by one oint and time was called before he could even out the score. Oddly enough in his first round of sparring they matched him up against his best friend Daniel who attends the same karate school. There were other students from the Paragould school he could have gotten matched up against. He did good in his kata but at this point it is all about the details and I think he was still too sloppy. Kaitlyn did real well in her kata but did not place. Her instructor told her she did really good and I think that it was worth more than a trophy to her. She hates sparring, and so does Emily, so she never does real good at it. She only had an eye on the kata trophy, she couldn't care less about the kumite one. Emily did OK but her instructor changed her form at the last minute and she did not have enough time to be comfortable with it and it showed. She hesitated a lot and in her division there is so much competition that it makes a big difference. We were all worn out by Friday. I am confident they all did well. We will know in the summer when we get the results. This past Friday our friend Michael Hatley returned to Iraq after a short 2 weeks of leave to visit his family. We were glad to see you Michael and keep you in our prayers. We all love you and support you and your fellow soldiers as you strive to serve our country. We are looking forward to seeing you and all of the 875th back home in 6 months. Pour mes amis et ma famille en Belgique, ce mois-ci est mon mois prefere. Le mois d'avril est le mois de mon anniversaire et le mois de la renaissance de la nature. Tout est en fleur ici. Ma copine Kim qui vit un peu plus loin sure la meme rue que moi a des jolies tulipes mauves dans son jardin. Mes azalees ont fleuri et son si jolies. Cette annee-ci je pense planter encore des fleurs qui reviennent chaque annee. J'ai deja des iris et des lys. Emily veut planter un jardin cette annee. Je prevois un autre projet d'ecole a la maison.... Ce samedi dernier on est tous alle a une competition de karate. On s'est bien ammuse. Maman a pris troisieme en armes avancees et troisieme en kata. Je suis decue de moi pour mon placement d'armes avancees car j'esperait faire mieux. Mais le tout c'est que je n'avais pas finit ma forme assez tot et donc j'ai pas eu assez de temps pour le perfectioner. J'etais beaucoup trop nerveuse. Du cote combat je n'ai rien recu car j'ai vraiment du travail a faire pour m'ameliorer. On va commencer par des bons exercises pour ameliorer ma flexibilite. Tristan a place deuxieme en combat, lui. Il a bien fait ca malgre qu'il a du aller contre son meilleur ami Daniel pour le premier combat. Pour sa medaille il a presque gagne, il etait a un point de gagner. Du cote kata il n'est pas assez net et a ce niveau la ca coute beaucoup. Kaitlyn n'a pas recu de medaille mais son instructeur lui a dit qu'elle a tres bien fait son kata et ca sa vaut beacoup dans ses yeux. Elle n'aime pas le combat donc elle ne s'y donne pas et elle s'en fout completement de gagner. Emily est pareille. Elle a fait assez bien a son kata mais son instructeur a change sa forme deux jours avant et donc elle n'a vraiment pas eu le temps de le perfectionner. Elle hesitait et a son niveau il ya tellement de competition que ca fait une grande difference. Et puis cette semaine passee etait epuisante. On a fait les examens de l'Etat. Et ca ca fait des longues journees. On aura les resultats cet ete. Bisous a tous. |
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