Thursday, August 30, 2012

Chess Tournament

My youngest son, who's in grade 5, entered the inter school grade 6 chess tournament which was held yesterday. There were only 4 schools represented and his school came 3rd. I think he played 7 matches and won 5, several of them in some sort of "4 move checkmate". He was very pleased with his results, as he was the best player from his school, and he came 4th overall out of 30 kids. He did get a"distinction" certificate saying he was in the top 10% of the region - not sure how 4th out of 30 is in the top 10% but hey, it's chess not maths! This is the first medal that he didn't win through karate.

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Saturday, August 25, 2012

We went to Fiji!

How could I forget the most exciting news of all? We recently spent 5 days on Plantation Island in Fiji, with a night on the mainland either side. It was very relaxing as we didn't try and cram too much in which is often what we do on holidays. Sadly the food wasn't very nice and I even managed to LOSE weight while away! However the rest of the trip was great. We swam, snorkelled (off shore and on a couple of boat trips), kayaked, took a banana boat ride, lay in hammocks, had a massage, got my hair braided, took an island hopping tour and visited an island village.


Lookout at Mana Island
View from our room
Sunset on Plantation Island
Plantation Island
Fish off the pier at Plantation Island
Our room
Cocktails by the pool
The new extreme sport of hammocking
Perfection on Turtle Island

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I'm Baaaccckkk!

I seem to have dropped off the face of the earth lately. I've had so much to do that blogging and cross stitching haven't featured in my life for ages. Let's see, a quick run down of what's been going on in my life:

DS had another small karate tournament where he met the number 1 kid in the final and lost to take home 2nd place in kata. Kumite he lost out first round to a stronger boy again. Then came nationals which were quite disappointing for him. He had placed 4th in the last 2 nationals in kata, but got a strong draw and lost first round this time. In kumite he also got a stronger opponent first round but managed to keep the score at 0-2 which was by no means a massive loss.

We have had our first calisthenics competition for the year and our results were also not what I was hoping for. Our next one is next weekend so hopefully we can improve.

I picked up a needle again for the first time since May, yes May, and finished a Christmas ornament I had been working on for my kids. I don't know any of the details of where it came from, but here he is anyway:

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