Orange Belts!

Today the kids tested for their orange belts and passed. They were awarded them tonight by Ms. Sute. It is nice that they are both doing the class together and are at the same level. They only go one night a week but are enjoying themselves. They have done Ninja camp and a few tournaments.

Zhi getting her belt, very excited.

Akorren gets his orange belt (note how wiggley Zhi is)

Zhi Update

Here is Zhivanna's Kindergarten picture, it came out really nice, she looks like her normal happy self. This kid is enjoying school and seems to be a jolly sprite when learning with her class. Currently she is busy with dance and then karate one night a week, she still asks to take piano, do gymnastics and is thinking about playing soccer again. The problem is that she wants to do and be good at everything and we as a family only have time for so much.
I wish I could give it all to her because I know she would just eat it up. She wants to be an artist right now and seems to think that painting and drawing are way too much fun. She loved the Kindergarten school music night this past week and can't wait to get back on stage again soon. It is wonderful to have such a joyful kid.

Akorren Update

Akorren's 3rd grade class pictures came in today. He took a nice photo this year. It was fun to look at his other pictures as the previous years were still in the frame when I went to put this one in. He is doing well in school and loves his teacher, she does a lot of science in class and that goes over big with him. He is now working with a tutor one day a week and does extra reading, and typing practice almost every day to keep him going. He has dyslexic tendencies and the school district will not provide him with any extra help. He did get into the read dog program at school where once a week he works with a trainer and dog and reads them a book for about 30 min. he loves it his dog is a giant poodle named Emma.
He does karate one day a week and loves to play his Pokemon Wii game when he has time in between all the school stuff. 3rd grade really takes the homework He is currently hooked on the BONE graphic novel series and just got to see HP and the Half Blood Prince after reading the book with me. He is a neat kid and we just love him.

Kindergarten Music Night

Tonight Zhivanna's Kindergarten class at Gilmore had a musical performance. Zhi was so excited to be able to perform and it was great to see her right up in the front row. She was very expressive in her gestures and singing. You can see that she really thought all the eyes were on her and she stood out as a real entertainer among her classmates.

Photo boards for Service Auction

Here you see Akorren and I posing for our picture in BAUUC's (Bay Area Unitarian Universalist Church 17503 El Camino Real Houston, TX 77058 (281) 488-2001) Service Auction night photo boards. Glenn made these for the event tonight at 6:00 PM over at our church. This is one of our big fundraising events for the year. It's where we auction off activities, events, services, and goodies to make money for the church. It should be a lot of fun.
With Zhivanna sick with an ear infection and a fever I do not know which of us will get to go out tonight. I would like to go, but it would also be nice to let Glenn go and get all the complements on his work since he was the one who made them. The other two kids are going to spend time with Papa Herman & Lois. And one parent will be at home playing nursemaid to sick girl. Glenn did a good job with the photo boards and I am sure the church members will have fun photographing in them.

BAUUC Retreat

Here I am (bright pink center) with fellow board members from Bay Area Unitarian Universalist Church BOD retreat weekend. It was so nice to slip away for a day and a half and stay in down on Tiki Island for a night. Sometimes being someplace different can be so refreshing. I woke up early this morning and was able to jump around on the deck overlooking the water and squeezed in a 30 minute Taebo workout. It made me feel alive again and not just in mommy mode. We learned so much at this retreat and look forward to sharing our excitement with the rest of the church community soon. It is a learning process and we are just getting started. Here we come Houston.

The Aquarium @ Kemah

Today the kids and I went and celebrated my Taebo teachers' (Hiro) b-day by going out to dinner with her and many other families to The Aquarium restaurant at Kemah. It was fun, the kids all got to play with the kids of my friends and the adults had some time to visit. The cool part was getting to see the diver feed the fish. This was the first time we got to see that at the restaurant.

One-room School House

Today Papa Clyde and Grandma Dani were visiting with us, and Glenn had to work, so we decided to take them to see something local. We took them to the West Bay Common School Children's Museum . here in downtown old League City. It was a fun look at the local culture of the area and the ladies who ran the museum had a great time showing us the school and items in the museum. The kids really enjoyed the player piano as you can see from the video below.

Karate Tournament

I love this photo of Zhivanna you can see the good form she has for her kick (roundhouse). This is a great "action" looking shot. I also like how you can see the other girl really stretching out to make contact with her. If I recall correctly the other girl did get the point on this one.

In the end Zhivanna got her 3 touches first and she won her 1st ever tournament. She was just excited that she got a medal and did the sparing. It was not until after she got off the ring and had a snack that she realized she won the match. I love it!

Sailing

Tonight we went out for a night sail with our friend Tom on his boat. It was a lot of fun just because Glenn & I have not been out much on a boat, much less at night. We had dinner at a steak house in Kemah and then went to the marina and out for a 2 hour ride. We will definitely have to do it again sometime soon. Here is what the boardwalk of Kemah looks like at night when you are sailing back in.

Rough cut of So.Padre Commercial Spot

Here is the rough cut of the commercial the family shot in South Padre Island in May. I still do not know when it is supposed to play in the Houston area but a friend did say they saw it the other day. The color still needs to be adjusted and some of the cuts as well. It looks pretty good, the kids were excited to see it.

Don't Touch That Dial/ Dance Recital

My two tired dancing girls with grandma Lois
and their flowers after the performance.

Zhivanna and her gal pal shaking side to side for the hip hop dance.

They loved these outfits a lot, especially the hats and gloves.

My little mouse Merlova, the smallest of her dance group
doing "Pinky & the Brain" an older cartoon from Nickelodeon.

Here she is my ballerina dancing to the music from
the Mary Tyler Moore TV show. She was again so cute
because she is so small in comparison to the rest of the group.

The tap dancer in yellow, moving to the song "Good Morning".
I love Zhi's expression.

Last Gymnastic Class

Tonight was the kids last gymnastics class for the session. It was an olympics night and the older kids did some routines they were taught and showed off the skill they did. The whole family came out to see them. We were all a little bit tired after just getting back from South Padre for the commercial so it was a bit crazy.

Here you can see Merlova doing her spiderman thing, she loved
hanging upside down.

Akorren with the support of his coach does an front L-sit on the bars.
Looking good!

Zhivanna having a good time stretching with her friends
during the warm up for class.

The girls, coach and their medals.

Akorren and his coach with boys medallion.

Dolphin Boat Shoot

Today after we did the turtle rescue shoot and the pool we got about a 2 hour break and then heading down the road to jump on a Dolphin Boat tour. We only were able to catch up and see 2 dolphins. The cool part of it was that the camera crew (and us) were allowed to ride on the front of the boat, they took several images of us looking at the dolphins, our expressions with the wind in our faces, looking out in the distance, etc. The water got a bit bumpy and the kids enjoyed the swells of the waves, with a lot of giggles and splashes on the sides of boat.
The girls were wide awake and ready for everything, Akorren on the other hand, was now feeling the wear of going and going for the 2 days of work and shots. The other cool part of this day was the crabs and star fish the kids got to hold for part of the commercial. Akorren held a male and a female blue crab and the girls got to touch star fish and hermit crabs. This was our last set of shots for our portion of the commercial. After it was done we headed back to the hotel for a little rest, packing and then a dinner out followed by the long drive back to Houston. It was truly a wonderful experience for us.

The Beach

So here are the kids, being inspired by Walters' work decide to make a sand castle too. Andrew loved it and jumped in and started to video what they were doing. I had to catch the camera man in action, for posterity sake. I like this clip because I was able to show some of the other people who were a part of making this commercial happen; the man in the white hat is Dirk and he was the Creative Director. He works at The Atkins Group .
He made me proud to be a mom when he said how wonderfully well behaved my kids did for the shooting. He said his kids at that age would not had done as good, and that we did a really great job. I was beaming, to say the least!

Sand Castles & the beach

I was on the beach around 7 AM today to shoot some solo (mom walking on the beach scenes), it was fun, just me with my cup of coffee and the production guys. They were funny and really great to work with. Andrew, Peter, Greg, Ryan, and Dirk (the man in charge). It was hard to find time to take pictures or video so I did what I could in between takes.
Here you see the master sand castle builder Amazin Walter and his apprentice at work. They were making a sand castle for us to use in the shot. The joke was that they would shoot Glenn with a shovel in his hand looking proud, then a cut to the kids and I in awe, then cut to the castle, then us again and then the castle with the 'real builders' working on it. It should come out great. I did not want the kids to ruin all of Walter's work so I had to make sure they knew not to touch it. It was a incredible to watch him work with his tools to create this art out of sand and water.
The girls thought it was neat and Akorren and Glenn were all into it. I hope the shot came out well, it was a fun one to do. Walter was heading out to New York later that day to create some other sand art for an event, I am sorry I did not get his autograph. He did hand me his card. I will see if I can get him to sign a photo for two for us after I print out the shots I have of him with the kids at the beach. This was an awesome way to start out second day of shooting!
The plan was to have us do some pool stuff but the sun was not cooperating, so they said go upstairs and change for the turtle sanctuary shots. So off we went.

Our 1st shoot, the Tatto shop

The location of our first shoot. It was a fun place the kids got to get a tattoo if they wanted one. Merlova of course refused to get one.

Akorren and Zhivanna show off their tattoos for the camera.

Andrew and the crew shoot the scene where Akorren gets his cobra tattoo put on. It was cool!

Glenn and Zhivanna prepare for their shot of looking through the book to pick out a tattoo.

Andrew had Akorren in front of the camera just to set up the first shots. Akorren did a great job of taking directions and putting in a good effort to act and be excited about the tattoos. He had to pretend to want to get a real "bad" tattoo by pointing to it on the wall and Glenn had to make "No Way" dad-like reactions to what Akorren picked out. It was a cute scene and hopefully it will make the final cut of the commercial when they edit it all together. Glenn had fun with it.

Getting ready to shoot

Here is Glenn and the kids as we wait in the lobby to go for our 1st shoot of the day. They originally told us the beach, so we dressed in swim wear, then they said it was off to the tattoo place. Where the kids would go to pick out a temporary tattoo and get one and do some other shots. We were excited and ready to go, the kids got to go swimming and have snacks before we left.

Our Hotel

The kids were very excited once we arrived at the Sheraton hotel they had us stay at. It was a resort in its' self and the kids thought they were in the lap of luxury. This was the view from our 10th floor room. I was thrilled. Later that night I would get to enjoy a beer and watch the view once the kids went to bed. It was beautiful at night. I think Akorren loved the wide screen TV they had in the room. The girls liked the comfy bed.

In this photo you can see the frog pool did some filming in it with the kids (the next day), sliding down the slide and playing. They really enjoyed that part of working on the commercial.

More drive to Padre pics.

Glenn with the kids at the entrance of the store. Merlova was not so sure about this big shark thing. The older two thought it was cool!

The coral reef up close, so much work went into this one.

Zhivanna climbing on the dolphins.

Drive to Padre photos

The kids by the stegosaurus.

The kids and Glenn by the big dinosaur, cool to see the scale of it.

Here is the beautiful coral reef display, it was still under construction.

Akorren poses by the "fossil". He thought it was real. I am sure it was just part of the art.

Glenn and the girls by the giant shell and the dinosaur.

Drive to Padre

On our dive to South Padre Island we found this cool tourist place called Bob's World, (I think?) and they had all these really neat, super, big, handmade, painted sculptures. One was an underwater reef scene, another dolphins jumping in the waves, dinosaurs, giant conch shells, and a sharks mouth at the entrance of the store. We took a short break to use the restrooms then headed out for another hour to the Sheraton hotel on the island, where they had us stay. We were to meet with the production crew at 2 PM to go over our shots for the day.

Preschool Graduation

Today Zhivanna had a small preschool graduation from the Little Friends Preschool at Clear Brook High School in Friendswood. This was her second year attending this program and she really learned a lot from going for 2 years.
During part of the ceremony she was given a Best Writers Award for doing so much work and writing with her letters. We were so proud, each student was acknowledged in some special way. Merlova was very excited to about it too and looks forward to attending in the fall of 2009-2010. It's hard to believe how fast our girl is growing.
At left you will see her with her gal pal and dance class friend Ava, with the beautiful Ms. Smith the head teacher and again getting her certificate while wearing her silver graduation robes.

Awards Night @ Space Center Houston

Tonight we attended an awards ceremony for Expedition 18 to the International Space Station. This was a mission that Glenn worked on a lot, in terms of the new toilet system and the new water reclamation components. It was fun to go since we are extended friends of astronaut Mike Fincke and his family. Glenn was actually part of 3 groups that were acknowledged, and he was able to stand up 3 times and get the applause from the audience. (A person who lead the group he was a part of got to accept the award on behalf of the team) The one I have footage of is for repairs of the toilet. I know it is a very dark video but it proves we were there and that Glenn is doing good things at work. The kids enjoyed being able to see the video that the astronauts put together to share with the group about their mission. It was nice because part of the footage they showed included our friend Tony Antonelli when he arrived with the STS-119 mission to the ISS. Akorren even asked the astronauts a question about what it felt like when they landed from space. It was a nice night for the whole family.

The Chicks

Here are the chicks that were in the 2nd grade classroom I have been working in at Hall Elementary. The students raised them in incubators from eggs, and they were very excited to see how the would grow and change over the days and weeks. The teacher had them do different writing and observations on them, the video below was taken the last time they were out before the farmer came to pick them up. It was funny because he came about 5 minutes after I took these last images of them. The chicks were going to go to a local feed store. I know the students were going to miss them as some of the little girls cried when they left. Cute!

New Tile

We paid to have tile put in the playroom. We used the same place that did the tile in our living room, Galaxy Carpet & Tile. They did a good job before and could do it quicker then if we wanted to do it ourselves. We decided to keep the main color similar to what we had put in the living room cream/ off-white and then to do a green colored carpet in the center. This way it would pull in the color of the green marble tile in entrance way.
We are very happy with it, now all we need to do is change the wall color. I can't take the red walls anymore, if this is going to be the kids playroom/ casual living space. I want something that is more neutral in color. We will be picking out wall colors soon. Then it will need the baseboards redone too. We are making progress.
The kids are also very eager to have a play space as well. Glenn is very eager to feel like one room of our house is "normal".

A Lego Party

Akorren & Zhivanna's buddy, Michael had his 8th Birthday party this weekend. A Star Wars- Lego party and all the kids seemed to have a good time. It is such a treat to watch your children grow up with such good friends and also to see these little kids you know grow into great school aged children. Michael was one of the 1st real friends we met when moved out here to Houston. We are lucky to have formed such a close bond with him and his family.

Here is a quick clip of all the kids making silly faces at the party.

Gotta Brag!

Just went out with some friends for a dinner, margaritas, and dancing. My dear friend Janeen was kind enough to give this token of her appreciation to me for helping her and Tony out during the launch of the Discovery in March. I am truly touched and was taken to tears when she presented this to me. Thank you both!


I also thought that this was just way to too cool! It is now one of my most treasured gifts. (A sterling silver James Avery Space Shuttle Pendant.) I promised that I would not keep it sealed up in the bag they sent it up in space and am looking for the right chain to wear it on. It is just so cute, too... a little shuttle!

Here is what the certificate says:

National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center Houston, Texas
Certificate of Authenticity STS-119

This James Avery Space Shuttle Pendant was flown for Melissa Magdaleno aboard the United Sates Space Shuttle Discovery to the International Space Station during its mission to install the S6 truss and the last set of solar arrays. Discovery launched at 7:43 p.m. EST, March 15th, 2009, from Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. At 3:41 p.m. EST March 28, 2009, Discovery landed at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida having traveled 202 Earth orbits and 5,313,565 statute miles. Discovery reached a maximum altitude of 226 statute miles and a maximum speed of 17,685 miles per hour. The flight duration lasted 12 days, 19 hours, 29 minutes and 33 seconds.

Dominic A. Antonelli, STS-119 Pilot

My Dancing Girls

Here are clips from Merlova and Zhivanna's dance class. The last day of the month they have a parents preview, where we get to go into the last 15 min. of class, so we can see what they have been working on. These are from the dances that they are going perform at the end of May for their recital.

Below is Merlova with her class practicing part of the dance, she is having too much fun.

This is Zhivanna and her gal pal Ava. They met going to the Little Friends preschool program. Watch how these girls shake their hips. I'm a little worried, sorry part of it came out so dark, I was shooting the clip and had back lighting.

Merlova's Party

This Saturday we hosted a gymnastics/Dora the explorer themed 3rd b-day party for Merlova. Many of her little friends got sick or did not make it so it was a bit smaller then planned but she still had a great time. She liked having a special day and was very comfortable at the gymnastics place since she is there every week for lessons.

Presents time...the rest of the kids look on with excitement. Fun, Dora toys!

Merlova and her 3rd, b-day cupcake. She wanted red cake with chocolate and white frosting and sprinkles of course. And we had ice cream cups as well to go along with them.

The party table with kids ready for snacks. This is after we played in the gym.

The parachute play time. Merlova got to pop the bubbles on top and then we all did a few activities shaking it and going underneath. Fun!

Monkey Merlova swinging on the rope across the foam pit.

Zhivanna, Merlova and gymnastic pal Bizzy stretch to warm up for playtime.

Merlova inside the parachute, just after she stuck her head through the hole in the middle. Quick clip, sorry.