Abbie's new violin

Abbie is still in orchestra, and this year needed to get her own instrument. Luckily Grandad and Grammie Lorna have been interested in buying her one! I think she likes it! And I didn't even get a shot of her hugging the case on the way home in the car :)

Test post from the iPad...

I have downloaded the blogger ap for iPad in the hopes it will be easier/faster to post and maybe I will do it more often.

A shot of our front yard, now with chickens! Meat birds on the left, layer flock culls on the right. Chicken murder scheduled for Monday for at least 10 of the most irritating roosters. Some of the largest hens are going to go too. Tasty!

Updates

Once again my blogging time has been hijacked by kid fun. Not that I mind, and it does seem as though I have plenty of time while out waaaiting on practices and classes to be over that I could blog. Maybe I should take up a collection to fund an iPhone so I can blog from the range and ballet studio?
Abbie Rose just finished a ballet class with North Start Dance studio. I have been bad about bringing my camera to events and so I have no pictures to post...but she did have a good time and is already thinking to do it again next year. Abbie Rose also got to check out her violin for the summer from school. She had to turn in most of her sheet music but has he beginning book to practice from and has had it out several times so far.  Abbie Rose has also decided to try an overnight camp this year and will be going to Li-Wa in June. The Girl Scouts are also planning to go camping as a troop sometime this summer, possibly in July. I also have a cooking for kids camp to sign her up for on Monday. The end of her school year has been pretty good, she has become quite a good writer and their class entered the "Six words for the birds" contest in the paper: (link) (AR goes by just Rose at school) Ms Hammer has been a great teacher that AR has gotten to stay with for two years, but on to someone new next year!
As for Liam, he is gearing up for the end of school, his load of accelerated classes mean lots of extra work and a high expectation of these kids. He is also still shooting with the Midnight Sun Sharpshooters for anyone who doesn't know, they shot a match on May 5 as a postal for the 3 position state junior Olympics. They did so well as a team their score was the highest in the section! That means they got invited to the National competition in Alabama in July. There are three sections competing with a total of 225 shooters who compete as teams and also individually. The match is called the Three Position Air Rifle Championships run by the Civilian Marksmanship Program. With our official notification just coming in this week, we have all been in a flurry of travel plans and fund raising efforts! Everything will come together fine and I am sure the kids will do well, but this means much more time at the range for our kids.
As for us grown-ups, Kyle has a full work schedule for the summer. He built a chicken coop with the intent for having meat birds once it warms up...I will encourage him to post about it, but don't hold your breath!  We are also having some of our layer flock to vacation for the summer at least, the coop is intended to hold some of them for the winter but I think we are going to end up eating a few. Kyle's sister and her family are going to be visiting in July, overlapping Liam and I's trip to AL. With all of these big doings, I don't know how much camping we will fit in but I'm sure we will at least make it out for day river trips!
Some random recent pics for you:

 I decided Abbie Rose needed a corsage for her Spring orchestra concert. I think she liked it :)

No good pic of Liam from anytime recent, so you will have to make do with his birthday cake...he had rifle on his birthday so his request: chocolate cupcake cake with cream cheese icing. The air rifle was my addition! Note to self, don't try to ice a cupcake cake in a warm room with real frosting. Lots of dripping, but it tasted wonderful!

2013

Sigh. I am a bad blogger. We really have been busy....

Some of this:

This was taken at Abbie Rose's holiday concert. But we are treated to a private concert several times a week. And A LOT of this:

Regional High School competition for the Lathrop Rifle team. Liam did very well, getting to shoot there as a JV and a freshman is kinda like getting play with the Varsity players for your championship game on the football team as a freshman and first year player. Pretty cool. And then there was this:

Christmas breakfast, crepes. I think Liam ate four :) And some of this for the rest of Christmas break:

The blankie and pillow was Girls present from her big brother, it was a hit! The kiddos started back to school this week. Kyle is still working nights, but they have a finalized contract for this year. Liam is shooting for another team, The Midnight Sun Sharpshooters. They only meet 2 days a week, but we will get to travel twice for matches and they have decided to invest in an Orion system (LINK) so we can participate in more matches without traveling. Abbie Rose started a new yoga class and is very much enjoying it. She also continues to do Girl Scouts. As you might know, they will start the cookie pre-ordering next week and I am the cookie parent for our troop this year. So, still busy, but I will try to blog more than once a month!

More rifle

The Lathrop team is now 3-0! They had a match this weekend against West Valley. Liam had a personal best score for air rifle of 524 and got to shoot with the Varsity team for small bore and shot a respectable 474. The team will compete Monday and Tuesday against Huchinson. This one may be a close match as last time they only beat them by about 10 points in all categories. Edit to add: We decided to measure the kiddos this evening, they are 6 feet and 5 feet tall. More amazing stats!

Rifle

Liam wanted to do an after school activity this year, he narrowed it down to Rifle Team, Fencing club, and Robotics (an extension of the Lego Robotics program he has been in for years.) In the end, Rifle Team won out for this year. After starting the season and seeing how much time commitment is involved...I am glad he just chose one! Rifle practices 4-5 nights per week and sometimes shoots on Saturday. Also required is help with their fund-raising efforts. As anyone who shoots regularly can tell you, all the supplies do not come cheap. Liam has now had two matches and is doing very well. They shoot three positions (prone, kneeling, and standing) two target cards each over the course of about 2 hours in both air rifle and small bore (.22). Their targets are scored points out of 100 for a total of points out of 600.

In his first match he shot a 488 for air rifle and 480 for small bore. Lathrop as a team won against North Pole in both varsity and junior varsity. For the second match against Huchinson (Lathrop's biggest rival last year) Liam shot a 502 for air rifle (he beat all of the JV and one of the varsity shooters!) and 430 in the small bore. Lathrop won by a very short margin in both the JV and V for small bore and air rifle.

Liam is having a lot of fun and learning a lot about how to compete in this sport. Unfortunately he is having some loooong days trying to keep up with practices that run till 7ish and shoots that can last till after 9 and still getting his homework done for the 3 honours classes he is taking. The season will last into December and for now I think he is counting it as worth every second!

Baking

Abbie Rose has been interested in doing some cooking and baking lately. It is lots of fun now that she is old enough to actually do it herself instead of Mom doing most of the measuring. Our first project:

Carrot cake cookies, used to bribe the guys at Kyle's work to buy from her school fund raiser and as a Birthday treat for a friend's Dad. They were tasty, I only helped with finishing grating the carrot and double checking her addition when doubling a recipe. Bonus points for a maths lesson along with a baking project! The next project, a monster cake:

Abbie Rose has a subscription to the American Girl magazine. On of the projects was how to make a monster cake. We made a real cake instead of a box one and used some different candies from the picture. It turned out pretty great! And tasty! Baked and decorated start to finish, with minimal help from Mom :)