Orange Belt

Tanner has been hard core into Tae Kwon Do over the past many months.  And on Wednesday night, he had his "belt test."  And he earned himself an orange belt!

Here he is with his instructors.

And his fellow members of TKD attempting their belt tests.

Tanner with his trophy and Master Kwon.

Way to go, T!

Champion Stingers!

What an exciting weekend with such an exciting ending!  Riley's travel soccer team (the Stingers) had a 4-game tournament this weekend in Crownsville, MD.  The championship game with the top two teams was today.  And they won!!!  Here they are holding up their championship trophy.  

They were SO excited and SO happy!

They were each presented with a medal and holding up their "#1" fingers.

Goofy Girls

Riley was the goalie for 3/4 of the game and didn't let any goals score.  And during the 1/4 when she wasn't the goalie, she got a goal!  What a great way to end the season!

⚽⚽⚽⚽⚽

Addendum (6/2/19):  I just got this email from Riley's coach and wanted to add it to this post.

"For those of you who really know me, I am very sentimental..... I am going to miss this group of girls. What a pleasure to coach them and to get to know their personalities.  A great group of girls.

I have coached a lot of teams over the years, but this one will always be special to me. Not only did each girl improve but 3 league championships and a tourney win.  We were 21 wins, 5 losses and 3 ties throughout the whole soccer year. Pretty amazing for a stellar group.  Awwwww...... Stingers.

Thanks for a wonderful year, Coach Bobby." 

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

I came across a "Certifikid" deal for a Sound of Music Sing-a-long and I jumped on it!  Sound of Music is my dad's all time favorite movie, so I grew up watching the movie, listening to the songs and learning to love Julie Andrews. I've heard of things like this and I know my dad (and several other family members) have been to similar events, but I've never been, so I bought the tickets and we all went to Merriweather Post Pavillion last night in Columbia for the show.

Dressing up was "strongly encouraged" so we got in on the action! Tanner dressed up as Rolfe.

And my girls were all "girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes."

And they all entered the costume contest.  

In the end, they declared it a tie amongst all the kids and gave them all a prize (tickets to come to another show).  

We also brought Dave's mom and sister with us.  Here they are showing off some of the goodies in the goodie bag we all got.  It included an invitation to the Dance that Captain Von Trappe and the Baroness threw for all their friends. It also included cards to hold up during certain songs and various other small things including a party popper that we all popped together when the Captain and Maria kissed for the first time.  It was very fun!

These truly are a few of my favorite things!

Memorial Day

Yesterday morning, Tanner and I got up bright and early and headed to the Veterans Cemetery in Crownsville, MD.

Along with other members of his Boy Scout Troop, we placed thousands of American flags in front of each grave marker.

I loved that the boys stopped and read the name and information at each of the grave markers.  I think it made it more personal for them.  Tanner and I smiled as we found another fellow "birthday buddy" who shares our birthday of June 17th.  Interestingly enough, this man passed away on June 11th, my wedding anniversary.

God Bless America, land that I love.

Green Fluffy Pandas

Another LAX season has come to a close.  Riley was part of the Severna Park Green Hornets "Green Fluffy Pandas" team.  And it is tradition that after the last game of the season, the girls get to have a water balloon fight with the Dads.  They put the water balloons in the lax sticks and then launch them at the dads (typically aiming for their dad in particular!)

Riley taking aim!

Theres always lots of water and lots of giggles!

Dave and the other dads..... sitting ducks!

Thanks Coach Marc and Coach Nicole for another great season!

I've lost track of how many lax seasons Riley has done - it's been quite a few.  And they've all been done right along side her bestie Gianna.  

Makerspace

Tanner joined two before-school clubs this year, both of which met weekly for the entire school year. And both of which wrapped up this week.  The first club was Chess Club, which I don't have any pictures of, but that I can say Tanner absolutely LOVED.  He's done it for the last couple of years and he has joyfully jumped out of bed early every Tuesday morning in order to go.

The second was Maker Space club, which met on Thursday mornings and is only open to 4th and 5th graders.  He did it last year as well, so he has had a ton of fun doing this for the past two years.  At the end of the school year, the school hosts a "Makerspace Fair" where all the kids can show off their cool projects and designs they have been working on all year long (some kids show you how to work with a 3D printer.  Others involve technology or crafts or all kinds of different things).  Usually the kids spend the first few weeks doing a variety of different things and then settle on what interests them most.  Tanner and his friend decided on computer coding.  They invented a game using characters from their own comic book series that they created.  It was fun to see them showing younger kids how to play the game that they created. 

The whole family went to support Tanner and to check out the various projects.

Way to go, Shipley's kids.  A+ for ingenuity!

Blue Angels

Every place has "it's thing."  Orlando has Disneyworld, Louisville has the Derby, Arizona has the Grand Canyon and Annapolis has the Blue Angels!

Every May, during the week of the Naval Academy Graduation, the Blue Angels put on a spectacular show.  I've done it every year for as long as I can remember and it never gets old!  I love every second of it!

It's tradition to play hooky from school (I honestly don't even know why they have school - nobody goes!) and go to see the Angels!

Riley sharing a snow cone with her bestie, Gianna.

My girls 

(including my adopted neighbor)

And my Tan Man

A bunch of my neighbors all meet up at Manresa, our favorite viewing spot.  This year, there were 13 kids in "our group."  

Disclaimer: I took some of these from the web because my pictures (it's incredibly hard to get a good pic when these bad boys move about a bajillion miles per hour!) didn't turn out as well as I hoped, but I can vouch for the fact that we saw everything here - all the maneuvers, all the formations.... everything.  It was incredible, as always!

We all loved the roar of the engines that we could hear before and well after we saw them and the jet streams.  And they flew right over us and all around us.  It was so awesome!!

A - mazing!

😮😮😮

What a day!! And perfect weather to boot!

Rock and Roll is Here to Stay (Addendum with Video Added!)

Several months ago, Tanner auditioned for the 4th/5th grade "Rock and Roll" at his school.  He was THRILLED when he found out he got a few featured solo and dance parts!

And tonight was the big performance!

He had a solo in Rock around the Clock, then was the bird (of course an Oriole since we are in Baltimore!) in Rockin Robin (shown here), a dancer in Jailhouse Rock and then was a soloist in Tutti Frutti and also performed in Rock and Roll is here to stay. 

The grand finale

Riley and Tanner..... who truly was AMAZING!!

Tanner and one of his besties, John John.

Tanner projected his voice, danced his heart out, had great stage presence and just did an all around fantastic job.  So many people came up to us telling us how talented Tanner was and what an amazing job he did.  I just read a text from a neighbor who was in the audience which said "Your heart must be bursting right about now!  He was FANTASTIC!!!!!" And, truth be told, my mama heart is bursting with happiness for my boy to have had this experience and for him to have had so much fun while doing so.

Way to go, Tanner!  

For the rest of my life, whenever I hear Rockin Robin or Tutti Frutti, a big ole smile will be on my face.  🎤🎵🎶

Addendum:  There were two performances (one on Saturday which are the pictures above) and another on Sunday.  I went again on Sunday (because I couldn't stand to miss it even though I had just seen it the night before) and this time I brought Nana and Papa and Lacey with me (none of which had been able to go the night before).  It was just as great the second time around!  I was so stinking proud of Tanner!!  My heart was just bursting!