Cool Things Your Kids Do!
 

http://www.janpetersondesigns.com/gr...andMaestro.jpg

5MB Movie of My Kid Doing Something Cool

way cool.

Griff, Knowing nothing about fencing, if I had to pick an opponent it would be the chubby one on the left. The short one looks like she (?) would mess me up.

From looking at the video of her fencing, it looks like she doesn't take crap, even from people with a pointy metal stick. :biggrin:

Griff, you and Pete are awesome parents. You're doing a great job.

The chubby one was a champion in his day, I wouldn't mess with him. :biggrin: Cheech (she) is devoping her skills quickly. The boy is more experienced and a year older but she gets her touches. She tore him apart a couple weeks ago when he got a little complacent, so he's taking it up a notch lately. Fencing is really the most beautiful thing to watch when its done properly. Both these kids take direction well and you can see the Maestro just glow when they mix it up. This video was taken by the boy's mom, when Pete gets her new Canon we'll give you some unbiased reporting. ;)

Thanks Wolf we appreciate it.

sweet! i just saw this, neato! what got her interested?

We were watching the Olympics and a girl from Notre Dame picked up a Gold Medal. She was really fascinated and we talked about it for a while then I mentioned that her Grampa was an All-American in epee at Buffalo. That closed the deal. A cool part of it is that "Pops" has never been really comfortable spending a lot of time with grandkids. He likes them well enough but he doesn't know what to do with them. He's really not wired for being with kids, but now he takes her to class once a week and they're really bonding. :thumbsup:

We went down to New Hope PA,/Lambertville over the weekend for her first youth fencing tourney. She took third place! :D It was great fun and I may write about it in detail later.

Bah, I'd pick a broadsword to a whippy little thing any day. But rad video, y'oughtta be proud. Congratulate her on the 3rd for me!

This is part of my youngest daughter's senior project. Her older sister appears on OtakuGeneration podcast

Neat kids Maggie!



I forgot we were still hosting that video. It looks pretty quaint considering her development.

Roger that. You should see the guys fence saber. It is a little more testosterone driven. :yeldead:

One little incedent from Sunday that gets to who my kid is- She lost to a boy in the round robin seeding part of the tourney. She met him again in the single elimination brackets. They started to fence but the off target light kept going off because he had a bad body cord. He tried his spare and it was faulty as well. If your equipment fails its your responsibility and you can be eliminated from the competition. Little Pete really wants to medal so she... offers him her spare cord. He accepts the offer and they fought like mad. She took the first engagement 5-3. He took the second engagement 5-0. Unfortunately, he turns to his Dad and asks what he's going to do for a cord when she leaves. She takes it up a notch beating him 5-3 again and gets a great cheer, the first cheering of the day. Kids Dad came over after with a big grin, he wanted to make sure he had her name right cuz she's going on his boys people I need to beat list. :D Nice folks down there by the way very welcoming.

Had we known you were in New Hope (ahem), perhaps we could have arranged a GTG at one of the snooty restaurants, possibly even the one where Jessica Savitch went into the canal.

You should see my Gwennie fence saber. SCA style. :-)

Don't make any cracks to her about testosterone though.

Heh, back in Maryland, me and a buncha the neighborhood kids would get together and 'sword'fight all the time... okay, they were just sticks, but they weren't like, little whippy sticks, I'm talkin' sticks like, an inch or two thick... And we would actually like, have contest things, playing by rules - we played to three hits on the torso, usually.

er... um... my bad

that is soo cool that little pete is getting so good. especially when she gets older it will reallly be something that sets her apart. fantastic of you to be so supportive about it uncle griff :)

I had to google SCA but didn't get a clear idea about the it. Is it for acting/fairs or is it more of a competition thing? I like that they fence in the round. It makes more sense than the strip.

Thanks! I just like hearing Griff 5 So and So 0. Not to mention, it really is entertaining.

do they teach them about the discepline and control issues as in other martial arts or is this more of an athletic based sport for the youngn's?

There is some ritualistic formality to it. The fencers salute the director and their opponent before and after each match. Our coach is very big on the etiquete. For his athletes, only the foil talks on the strip. It is very cerebral, often called physical chess, the difference between success and failure being so minute. Since these kids won't be carrying their swords around, there is less need for the philosophical training the karate kids get. I'd say it is more individualistic than the Eastern arts. I was impressed with the sportsmanship of the kids and parents at this tournament but I bet that will not always be the case.

Adversity
 

This weekends tourney didn't go well so we get to see how lil Pete handles adversity. She did well in the round robin seating this time winning 4 and losing 1 in a tie-breaker that she didn't understand. Unfortunately, one of the kids she beat (5-0) dropped out of the tournament. All his statistics dropped out with him. That means instead of being seated with an 80% winning percentage and a high point differential (something like 3rd or 4th) she was 75% with a middling differential (9th ?). Long story short she had to fight the kid she lost to on her own group and lost again.:sniff: (she had a couple stop thrusts which the inexperienced director missed but she didn't get mouthy cuz she's a nice kid) She still finished as the highest ranked girl in the brackets but she was not pleased especially since she whipped the bronze medalist (both at this tourney and the earlier one) and a couple other folks who placed ahead of her. Lets see if she buckles down in the run up to the Keystone State Games. That will be a Y-14 girls only tourney so the atmosphere will be different from the last two.

You should explain to her the pirates method of keeping a pistol in the off hand. :D

Well, I know Little League is pretty common. But for a kid who never picked up a bat before last year, I'm pretty darned proud of Miss Dallas. She played last year in the local little league and liked it enough to come back for more.

She's not a "natural athlete" and, frankly, she often spends more time in her own little world than on Planet Earth (a trait she shares with, and no doubt inherited from, her father). But she came into her own this year. She spent most of her time in the outfield, and while she never had the opportunity to make a miraculous catch in the air, she almost always got the ball back to the infield quickly to hold the batter to 1 or 2 bases.

And I said "most" of her time--she also made regular appearances as catcher, did some time at third base, and even pitched several innings, including one scoreless one--no mean feat in a league where, with 6-inning games and scoring capped at 6 runs per inning by rule, scores in excess of 20 runs are not unheard of.

On the hitting side, she overcame a tendency to swing three times and strike out quickly and got to the point where she was pretty good at earning walks. But she also found her bat near the end of the season. In the last inning of the second playoff game she hit hard toward first and got out, but moved the runners at first and second ahead, where they both scored on the next hit to take the lead. In the next to last playoff she hit a pop fly and got on base, sending home the run that locked up the win.

Her 5-team league held a double-elimination post-season tournament. Her team dropped the first game 21-19 and then proceeded to dominate the loser's bracket, sending three different teams to their reward. The final game was tonight and they lost 8-5, failing to force the team that survived the winner's bracket to a final deciding game. Of course it was disappointing to fall short, but it was a damned impressive season and it was really good for my daughter in a lot of ways.

It is so cool to see kids develop like that SD. I'm still worried about kid 2 and her lack of confidence/interests, but she has her qualities. Congrats to Miss Dallas!

It looks like lil' Pete has bounced right back! She watched the video of her matches and got her head in the right place, remembering that the challenge is supposed to be part of the fun and intellectualizing what went wrong. She was on a terrible softball team last summer so I think she can handle the losing but it is more personal when its just you out there.

Lil Pete on the local news. Nice guy but he really needed a primer on the sport.

video part of linky no worky :(

Worked for me, ok. The trainer isn't politically correct, though. Calling it a weapon instead of a foil will probably bring the mothers against something or other.:crazy:
It's a shame they've been discontinued because Lil Pete could easily be a Breck Girl.

ooooo I hadn't thought of Erin Gray in years. beedy beedy

It still works for me but that is the #3 news outfit here so maybe they've got server issues.

He can name most major types of sharks, has been able to since before he turned three, he loves sharks.

Open it in internet exploder, rather than firefox.

YOU ROCK!

You rock only slightly less than Li'l Pete! woot!

I have slightly peeved skilz.

This doesn't compare with Lil' Pete's fencing skills, but we are excited none the less. Inchling made his first drawing with eyes and a tail and feet and a worm watching the action.

We were blown away, actually. everything up to this point had been little storm clouds of scribbles. Tonight he walks up and hands us his "dog" He even pointed out the worm.

here's one of mom's scribbles

inch seems to be on track to be the next exploding dog artist
http://www.explodingdog.com/dumbpict...akemehappy.gif

Cool f^3! Major developmental milestone there.

Thanks Griff, It was an exciting moment, and yes, LJ that was the first thing I thought when I saw it.

btw to further my ongoing effort to make everything about me, lil' Pete took fifth place in a tournament two weekends back... a college tournament.:eek:

I just think it's great that my oldest son will graduate next May from the Naval Academy! He left high school with a full scholarship to Cal Polly in Computer Graphics but hated the course and dropped out. Fooled around for a year or two and took some community college courses, got a job at McDonalds and then decided he better get on with life. He joined the Navy and after 2 years as an inlistee in the Nuclear Sub program was told by his commander that he was pretty smart and should apply to Annapolis where he was accepted. He was 23 as a plebe, one of the oldest in his class and he seems to have really found something he likes. I'm especially happy that he is getting a real good education and we are not having to foot the bill!

Very cool. I admire his route as well.

Ripley's first ballet performance


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Jinx , pick all sizes , pick the size you want to post , copy the LOWER URL , click the photo above , paste , then click ok

Way to go Ripley!

Verry nice !!

Awesome! She looks very elegant/poised in those pics.


My daughter scored her first goal in soccer on Saturday. It's actually a pretty big deal, because she is normally a very timid player. Always passes the ball to someone else as soon as she gets it. Unfortunately for me, this was the first time (in two years of playing) I ever missed one of her games, so I missed it. :sniff:

Instead, I was staying at home with our boy, playing Legos. :) He and I hadn't spent enough time together recently, so I was doing that when our daughter scored.

So I was happy to be playing legos with my son, and happy that my daughter scored, but sorry I missed it. Two out of three ain't bad.

awesome photography, too! stages are so hard to shoot sometimes.

Awesome on the first goal Glatt! there will be many more to follow i'm sure. usually it just takes the realization that they really can do it.
i missed my kid's first goal too. but i was there. i was dealing with other players when i heard the whistle and he came running at the bench with the biggest smile on his face. i missed his second the same way. he'll never hear that part of the story.

awesome pics jinx!

I can see only jinx genes in that gal, no LJ... where are the LJ genes?

I was thinking the same thing.

I also have to jump on the bandwagon praising the pictures. I've never taken such a nice picture of a kid on a stage. It's always too dark to get a crisp one or one that isn't all noisy because I cranked the sensitivity all the way up.

Believe it or not!

Great performance, great pictures!

jinx genes? check.

that is a good thing right? i mean LJ's a fiiine looking man and all, but do you really want a daughter that looks like him if the jinx option is available?

yes,yes, of course that is piggish. we love our children regardless of how they look, but seriously. if i had a daughter i would pray for there to be no outward evidence of my genes.

they got my hair?

so that's where it went.


yeahyeahyeah. glass house and all that.

Here at work, we usually get "gift certificates" for $$ off of dinners at local restaurants, in the mail, for free. Yesterday we had several for Don Pablos'. Usually, I toss them cause most of the guys here don't really use them. So my son (16 yr) takes them to school today - sold them to kids at school for $1 ea and even sold one to a sub-teacher for $2.

Here are my kids with their ribbons from swim championships -and the oldest two both won the "high points" (MVP) trophies for their age groups. The little guy got his first "place" ribbon (top 16) from a championship meet. And it wasn't just because there were few enough relay teams that all participants placed -they actally beat one team! :lol: (he just turned 6 and the youngest age category is 8 and under, so it'll be a few years before he starts seriously winning. But he will, if determination is anything to go by. He can swim all 4 strokes and has an awesome start off the blocks!)

Gooooo little monsterlings! :D *cheers*

hip hip hooray!

Just saw the latest set of pics. Way to go, mini-jinx, Glatt's daughter and moster's spawn!!