Katerina's Gym Meet. .Typhoon Twisters April 20th Level 6 Compulsories

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekHSFcsgOPQ
 http://youtu.be/SL-1R_OSTK0
 http://youtu.be/ahYmWRHGF8Y
http://youtu.be/gDjUwVuQOYQ
http://youtu.be/somnjtk6vSQ

So... HOpefully this allows you all to see her videos.. Let me know.
She had a great time and did pretty well.  Her foundation from Poway Gymnastics is for sure still evident.  And her focus to do well and LOVE at this sport is so STRONG.

Swim meet in tokyo

Katerina is swimming 5 events today. Lots of warm ups and starts so far.
Last night we went to the movies and saw oz, the great and powerful. It was a nice way to stay inactive. Very cool movie with awesome visual effects too.

I'll post more later.

#5 First event. 200 medley relay Kat did 50 free. Her team came in 5th, but she took 4 secs off her split! She was very excited about that.  Now she needs to do that again!  ** actually she got 36.57 so 2 sec off...
#9 heat 4 of 6 38.47 PR
not as fast as she did in the relay, but still awesome!
#19 44.55 in backstroke PR

#29 100 breaststroke. Never did a 100 yet. 206.50
11th place

David wanted some stats...
There are 460 swimmers.
39 girls in the 9-10 freestyle 14th place
36 in backstroke 11th place
206.50

Last event for today is 200 medley relay for 9-10 girls
She is doing the freestyle and is very excited to be a part of the relay with the fast girls...

Her relay took first place in the heat, 4th overall. 2:59 not sure of her split yet.

I asked Kat how she did and she said, I think I did really good. 4 sec off back stroke, 2 off freestyle

So she is happy,long day, but now its 8;17, and its time to get these girls to bed.

More on day 2
We had a nice Mexican dinner last night at a chipoltes type place and went to bed.
Early morning again, woke up at 415...
  Got the girls going and then walked to Starbucks! Love those carmel macciatos.
Felt much better after that. Its still pretty warm here.
  Kats first race was  creshendo freestyle relay, she did 50 and her team came in fifth. She got them off to a great start though.
Next was 100 freestyle. Having never done this race, she got a personal best of 1:38:30! Think she might have gone out a little fast. I need to check her splits.

50 breast next!
She got a few seconds off

100 backstroke
Never did this one either. Ended up with 11th out of 14 and got 1:42 18 secs faster than the coaches thought she would.  Only 2 secs off for 11-12 yr old qualitying time. Maybe we will be able to come next year!

After that we had a long break and a bunch if laying around with the team.  The number of iPad, tabs, and ipods was pretty amazing! Kat watched some Disney girls shows with one; of the 8 year olds.
Also the girls had Japanese pork curry with rice. Very yummy. I ate my subway, bread was a little soggy but it worked.

The last races of the day were the 200 freestyle relays.  Kat was very excited about this one. She was the 2nd leg.  She was not as strong as the first day but her team pulled out 2nd place! Very exciting.

At the awards we saw just how hard this meet was. Only 1 of our Okinawa swimmers placed in the top 8 of their age division. Our team came in 5th place, but 1st military school .

I'll get some quotes from Kat later. She did say she was super proud of herself and thought she did great. She ended up with one ribbon for her relay. But for sure had a great time with some fun friends!

Kathmandu

Started the ttx today.  So far just a lot of intros handshaking and picture taking.  We should get out pretty early 1600 ishso hopefully get a chance to see more of the cultural stuff.  There is a UNESCO world heritage site not too far away .

Kat's gymnastic team

Watch "Typhoon twisters gymnastic pass" on YouTube

house tour

so.. finally, here's a tour of the house.  I kept wanting to wait until everything is finished, and clean and put away.... It's never going to all happen on a day when i remember to video it!!! (if EVER!)
it's not very nice out today, but you can still see the view. 
  The house was BRAND new when we moved in, so that was for sure a bonus (one of the places we looked at had smokers living there, MANY japanese smoke, so that smell would probably never go away).
  I love the parking here, plenty of it.  Our next door neighbors are nice, 2 boys ages 10 (ju) & 15 (ju go)  I need to get curtains, i love we have a yard. I love our bike ride to the beach, and there are stores close.  I just wish the drive to base (Kadena) wasn't so long. And davids drive to work is even longer, probably 45 min.  Although i just found out about another short cut!  ANd it would be nice to have some more american neighbors.  our closest friends aren't far though, about 1/2 mile.

hope you are all doing well!!!

Kats birthday party

I'll have to have katerina add more, but she had a blast at her party. We had 11 girls sleep over, eat, play, watch movies and sleep.  Sort of. I made all these cute flower peanut butter and jly sandwiches, creame cheese and cucumber sandwhices, tiny fruit kabobs, bagel pizza bites, mini corn dogs, chicken wings, and it was all devoured before I could get a picture.
  I made Oreo cupcakes and the girls all loved that too.  They watched Madagascar 3 on the projector, balloon volleyball, then watched princess bride (or as one girl called it "that weird book movie"). Then mary Poppins.. by then I think it was 2am... and at 4 I was mean mommy telling them to sleep!
   David had to leave for Hawaii the next morning... but I continued to make 6 dozen mini muffins oranges baNanas apples and even brought out some peanut butter and Graham crackers.  Those girls ate!
   Then later that day was when we went to the beach down the street with our friends. It was a perfect beach day.  Ended with a glass of wine and bree for dinner.

Todays adventures.

So kids had a duel sleepover with the hyla kids... turns out the dads went to tbs together and they were also at the ball where david asked me to marry him. Small marine corps. Well they also got married summer of 98 and busy having kids at the same time we did... turns out it worked out great, Blake and nolan are 7th graders and katerina and Genny are both 5th graders and.. awesome gymnasts!
  So they had lunch over here.. saw this crazy huge spider here.. HUGE. And then we went to the zanpa light house. Walked around and got ice cream from the ice cream BUS. Yes.. they turned an old bus into an ice cream and hamburger stand. I was unadventurous and got chocolate. But they had sugar cane and salt cookie too.
  Then we went to this cool park close to here. They had some super slides. Two that were made out of stone that were super fast, and a long roller slide. Then. Little cave areas and the water went into there. It was very pretty area.
  David is still in the phillipeans, but will be home on kats birthday on Thursday. Yeah... it has been different here with out him, but glad I made some other temp single mom friends.
  Need to get to sleep soon. For the 4am wake up to watch football tomorrow. The sacrifices... tty all soon!