A karate surprise

Last night the karate club had an end-of-year-celebration (yes, I know it's February . It was held over from last year.) It was held at the local pool and the weather was perfect for it. There was also a small presentation, with 4 perpetual trophies awarded, one for kids about 8 and under, one for 9-12, one for teenagers and one for adults. Guess who won the little kids one? DS was sooooo excited to receive it, it's literally half his size!
Here it is:

Another karate tournament

.....and this time DS wasn't as successful. He performed well but the other competitors just performed better. He was unfortunate in that the age group was 8 and 9 years and he's just turned 8, and it was also orange striped belt and above and he's an orange striped belt too, so he was up against it. He lost out in kata in the first round but did better in kumite than I was expecting. He won the first round, and the second round it was nil all at the end of the round. They went into overtime and DS was one point up when the other boy got in a kick in the last few seconds bringing the score to 2-1 his way. It's all good experience for him and made him realise he does have to always work hard because you never know who's going to be better or stronger on the day.

Next up is the Victorian Championships, where he will also have strong competition with the best in the state competing. Fingers crossed!

Another cross stitch finish

I was after a basic cross stitch design to stitch for my youngest son who doesn't like the dark and is prone to nightmares. I wanted him to be able to see it in bed at night and know that he is safe, hence I came up with this simple design. I wasn't after anything pretty, just a simple design I could stitch quickly for him. Oh and by the way, he hasn't had a nightmare since I made it a few weeks ago. Touch wood! For some reason I thought the flourescent DMC thread was the glow in the dark one so did about half of the design before realising I was using the wrong thread. Then I restarted in the right thread, but I hadn't measured the wording properly so that was off centre and had to frog it again!

Here's the details:

• Name of the design -I guess I'll call it "Love you always" (original hey?)
• Chart is one I designed
• Fabric is a piece of navy 25ct Lugana from Zweigart
• Thread is a the DMC glow-in-the-dark thread
• Stitch count is 39 x 30
• Completed in February 2010. I just mounted this on cardboard with a bit of padding. It's backed in red felt. My son keeps it between the slats of the top bunk bed (above his head) when he sleeps.

All quiet on the western front

*snort* Yeah, right! I wish :-)
Kids have gone back to school, after school activities have started back up and I've gone back to work. I'm not organised at the best of times so it's taken me to week 3 to kind of get a grip on things, LOL.
I'm now driving over 100km a day, just to get the kids to and from school now that DS #1 is at secondary school. He is settling in really well and seems to be enjoying it, for now anyway! The homework has just started so we'll see how he manages that. DS #2 is starting extra training for karate too, and tournaments are getting underway soon so that's more driving for me! He has his first one on the weekend and it's meant to be 35 degrees. Not ideal weather for sweating it out in long pants and long sleeved top in a basketball stadium that probably doesn't have air con.
Calisthenics has started back up for me too, and the numbers are disappointing this year. We are struggling to get enough ladies to even be able to compete, let alone compete without losing 5 points. Fingers crossed we get a few newbies to join.
Cross stitching has been pretty quiet, I'm still working on the Santa piece and have started a small design to keep in the car. I'll have to drag it out and post a WIP pic soon.
Oh, and who can forget the 2 days of massive flooding last week. Thankfully our home and land were OK, but in town there were branches down, and roads and footpaths underwater. Crazy summer weather!