On Saturday (04/07/12) – our son received a big surprise… it’s a THIRD red stripe!
The only place to go to next is a red belt. He’s doing so good, we couldn’t be more proud.
It’s Another Red Stripe
Today our son put down some serious effort on a Tae Kwon Do pop quiz and scored a second red stripe on his blue belt. He knows all of his forms up to Taeguk 7, which is quite impressive for a blue belt with stripes.
His focus on TKD now is to prepare for the tournament in June. He cashed out all of his tournament passes, he now has to compete in all of them. Sad day for him, right?
He’s going to kick so much ass, it’ll be amazing to watch.
New Year, New Site
I’m thinking… well, it’s 2012, it’s probably about time I get this blog on some software other than iWeb. Apple’s pretty much killed iWeb, maybe it’s time to stamp it out of my life.
So I did.
The last site I had with iWeb has now been converted to WordPress. As you can see, the blog text came over fine but many of the pictures did not come over properly. The comments and other items also did not come over. I’ll fix that over time (hah! yeah right).
Anyway, my apologies for the damage if you were following the RSS feed. I’ll be shaping this blog up over time and getting it to where it needs to be.
2011 Year In Review
It’s about time I sit and catch up the blog a little bit. A new year has started and stuff like that, so it was about time to get something posted up here.
It was a great year for everyone. New beginnings (the oldest daughter turned 18 and pretty much got out on her own), new endings (dad lost 50 lbs.), steady as she goes physical fitness (BunBun is a blue belt with a red stripe in Tae Kwon Do)… and of course, the youngest is growing like a weed. She’s 3 years old and within 5 inches of catching her brother’s height. Don’t ask us how that happened.
Dad finally left NASA and started a new job at a small company by the name of Summit 7 Systems. It’s a great little company and he’s having an absolute blast.
BunBun started 2nd grade this year and is knocking grades out of the park. All of his report cards have been straight A’s and his Accelerated Reader work is outstanding. His love of reading has really flourished. His creative mind is really hopping.
MeiMei, as I said, turned 3. She started preschool and absolutely loves it. Her smarts, attitude, skills and maturity is great to watch. She’s a lovely little girl. She totally loves “Olivia” the show and is currently in the “I’m a Princess!” stage. Actually, she refers to herself as “Princess of the Queen.” We’re not sure where she picked that one up.
The oldest sister is working almost full-time and is a full-time student. She’s working VERY hard and cleaning house with grades. She is doing an outstanding job. She has hooked up with an awesome young man by the name of Mike, whom we’re very happy to have as part of the family. He fits right in – he’s a gamer, he’s a computer lover, quite creative and snarky as hell. He’ll do well with us.
Mom has lost an amazing amount of weight as well and is feeling great, looking good and livin’ life.
Moving on to 2012, there are new adventures awaiting, for sure. There’s plenty more to come and when it happens, I’ll get it posted here… uhh, relatively soon after it happens.
Amazing Victories
On the last weekend of June, our son participated in the Tae Kwon Do competition at the Alabama Sports Festival. 150 students competed for medals in forms and sparring matches. Our son entered both, mostly at our behest, of course… because, you know, kids these days… if left to their own devices… would probably do nothing.
But this boy not only overcame extreme nervousness for engaging in his first competition. He also fought off an on and off temperature to stand up and give it his all. He competed in both the forms and sparring.
The end result was an amazing victory. He took a silver medal for his form (Taeguk 5 Jang) and a bronze for sparring. He took at least four kicks to the head but still chased his victim around the mat. He did not let up the pressure on the boy. The opponent was also taller than him so the headshots were almost free hits.
We’re working to make sure that doesn’t happen again. Our son is learning to use his size, speed and agility to get around those attacks and follow them up with a strike.
Mark our words, future opponents… that won’t happen again 
We could not be more proud of our son. He is nothing short of inspirational. Congratulations, Bun!
Without Mothers…
Mother’s Day thought: Without my wife, mother of my children, my kids would probably be:
• Overweight and gorging on chocolate all day
• Still sitting around in diapers
• Skipping school and getting into trouble
• Sitting on the computer, in diapers and eating chocolate all day
• Drinking sodas
• Likely diabetic
• Cursing every other word
• Unable to read
• Stealing cars in downtown
• Burning down my house (and my neighbors’)
• Torturing small animals
• Writing "FART" on the paneling (nod to the Coen brothers)
• Sitting around, at the computer, in diapers, eating chocolate all day with hand down the front of pants and burping every 20 minutes.
Happy Mother’s Day to all of you women who keep the fathers in check.
Bun Wins the Blue Belt
He finally did it. Bun’s Taekwondo journey has led him to the blue belt!
At six years old, Bun has impressed just about everyone with his strength, determination, focus and skill. He is learning so much in Taekwondo. We couldn’t be more proud.
The journey to the red belt begins. Savor the victory, son!
To see a little video of the action, visit this link.
3rd Blue Stripe
On this day, our six year old son received his third blue stripe in Taekwondo. As you can see from the photo he’s rather happy with this development.
Bunbun has worked extremely hard on TKD and we’re hoping he’ll get the nerve to enter the tournament in June. We’ll see how it goes. His courage wavers to and fro.
Regardless of his participation in the tournament we’re quite proud of his achievements!
Serious Cuteness
There’s absolutely no point in this blog post except to point out how cute my kids are.
No point whatsoever.
Perhaps I will also take this time to declare that I am jealous of this cuteness.
Taekwondo Champion in the Making
I’m marking this day because this is the day that we drove up to Chattanooga and introduced our son to the world of the Taekwondo tournament.
Our son has been engaged in Taekwondo lessons for about a year and a half now. He is doing quite well in the class. His instructor has mentioned several times that he’d like to see him compete in his age group but BunBun reacted as he usually does – severe trepidation.
As parents this is something we’re used to, I suppose. BunBun has always approached new experiences slowly and carefully. We took the time to drive up to Chattanooga to attend the tournament and cheer for our home team even though our little man didn’t enter.
The strategy appears to have worked as our son has decided he can “take those kids down.” He plans to represent Rocket Taekwondo at the summer tournament in June.
Stay tuned, you know we’ll be documenting the results!