Your second quarter report card

Your report card for second quarter of first grade showed some marked improvement! I was very proud of you for your accomplishments.

If you did not stay the same with an already good grade, work habit, or conduct, you improved. You improved in Christ-Light, Memory Treasures, Language Arts, Spelling, Math, Art and P.E. as well as following directions, attentiveness, class participation, completing assignments, showing love to others, respecting authority and following classroom/school rules.

You received A's in math, memory treasures, and Christ-light, a B+ in language arts, and a C in spelling. You also received an E (for excellent) in class participation!

I have kept your report card so that one later you may look back upon it!

Your height and weight through the years II

In a previous entry, I listed your height and weight through the years. When we got together on Saturday (Jan. 25), you were very excited to tell me that you weighed 51 pounds! So I figured I should update this list!

Here's a list of those measurements that I stumbled across as going through my computer files. It's a little incomplete because I have your height listed on a wall poster (which is packed away somewhere):

2007
Feb. 23 – Weighs 7 pounds, 7 ounces

2008
Feb. 5 – Weighs 20 lb., 14 oz.
June 5 – Weighs 23 lb., 6 oz.

2011
Jan 26 – Measures 3 feet, 10 inches tall

2012
Jan 10 – Weighs 41 pounds
Jan 21 – Measures 3 feet, 11.25 inches tall
Apr 21 – Height is hair under 4 feet

2014
Jan 25 – Weighs 51 pounds
March 25 – Weighs 44 points; measures 4 feet tall (added after entry was posted)

Four years ago today: Tortoise hiking

Spotting a desert tortoise, Jan. 30, 2014.

Four years ago today we hiked a trail in the Desert Tortoise Natural Area. It was a remote area in the Mojave Desert, though driveable from where we lived in Lancaster, Calif.

The wildlife reserve was set aside as a place for the endangered desert tortoise to live. They've been on the planet for about 2 million years but are rapidly disappearing. We were lucky enough to see one, by the way!

I do remember the day being just a tad under perfect warm; we had to wear hoodies and sweatshirts, but it felt very nice compared to the cold winter we'd been experiencing.

Herre's a whole bunch of photos from our adventure!

Three years ago today at Vasquez Rocks

Hamming it up for the camera, Jan. 29, 2011.

Three years ago today, we hiked Vasquez Rocks, which you also referred to as "the Kirk Rocks"! Except this time instead of visiting "Star Trek" sites, we went searching for sites used during filming of the first season of "The Bionic Woman" (which you really enjoyed watching, by the way)!

We had just purchased "The Bionic Woman" on DVD, and while watching it, I noticed that the episode "Canyon of Death" (which takes place in the desert portion of the "Ventura Air Force Base"), took place at Vasquez Rocks. Since we'd hiked it several times before looking for"Star Trek" filming locations, I was fairly familiar with the county park and figured we'd have little trouble identifying where the scenes occurred.

By the way, you wore a Starfleet Academy cap for the hike!

I put together a photo gallery of our hike including photos from "The Bionic Woman" episode!

Two years ago: Aquarium of the Pacific

Children's playground at Aquarium
of the Pacific, Jan. 28, 2012.

Two years ago today, we visited the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, Calif.! This was one of your favorite places to go, and you always were asking me if we could go.

We'd had a sring of gloomy overcast skies and cool temps in Palmdale, and I was itching to go enjoy some sunshine. Somehow I came across a discount coupon for the aquarium, and so off we went!

The temp was a gorgeous 72 degrees under sunny skies. I remember that our faces got a little red from the sun as we walked around the harbor from the aquarium to the shops and arcade on the oceanfront!

Here's a whole bunch of pictures from our adventure!

Remember your electric racetrack?

Jan. 25, 2014

On Saturday, I gave you a racetrack toy that we built and played with. It was the Kid Connection Road Racing Play Set.

We put together the track with me cnnecting the pieces (which you handed to me) and you putting on the stickers!

The racetrack formed a figure 8 in which part of it rose above the other. It came with two cars - a black one and a red one.

The challenge was to ensure the race cars didn't spin out, so you had to control its speed...but we didn't want to go too slow or that wouldn't be any fun!

We each did a bunch of trial runs practicing control of the car; you kept track of the number of spin outs on a notepad!

Our day together on Jan. 25, 2014

Playing with the new racetrack toy, Jan. 25, 2014.

I had so much fun with you on Saturday! We began the day by stopping in Hudson, where we stopped at the Dollar Tree and picked up football/basketball/baseball stickers, then at Target where we picked up BeyBlade tops and Lego kits, then at Culvers for lunch, and finally at Walgreens for football cards!

Then we went back to Grandma and Gandpa's where we looked at all of the football cards, put together the Lego sets, and placed stickers in our NFL book. Then we put togther and played quite a while with our racetrack set!

We also took some time to look at your report card. I am very proud of you - your grades and conduct improved across the board from first to second quarter!

While enjoying an early dinenr of hand sandwiches, we played Trouble and Hi-Ho Cherry-O. On the ride back, you watched the opening episode of Jonny Quest on my Kindle Fire.