Zorro Meets an African Queen

So Zorro had another dream come true today. He has had three so far in his life: 1. to be kissed by a princess, 2. to meet an African Queen, and 3. to ride on a Sphinx. Last spring, he was kissed by Cinderella. And just tonight he MET AN AFRICAN QUEEN - a beautiful African queen named Esther.
Zorro liked his African Queen so much he wanted to wear her socks on his snout! They were very comfortable and he loved the bright colors! He gave Esther many kisses!

Costume Night

Here's Miguel after trick-or-treating for 3 hours. I don't think he likes his candy. The girls had costume night, trying on and playing in every costume we had. Here's Edith as a ridiculously cute perrito.
The girls were pirates and took turns attacking everything in sight with their sword.

Edith the princess:
Lucero the crazed Mickey Mouse:
A cute perro and a cute dragon:
The princess and the Indian:

way too much school

when you're at school from 7:30 AM to 8:00 PM, that's WAY TOO LONG. the good news is that i had some great conferences with parents that i really needed to talk to. like the adams'. maybe now their kid will start behaving in class.

:)

Miguel Futbol and Spanish Class

Here's a short video of Miguel playing soccer, passing, and making goals! Tonight at my Spanish class, we had a test and I got 100 on it! I even got to class 10 minutes late because Ivan, Miguel, and I were stuck in traffic after buying $5 polo shirts at the mall (very important task that could not wait even one more day). I was so happy that I got a 100 on my test and a 98 on my quiz from last week, until I realized that we had presentations due today. We had to write a script with our group and then perform the script. My group finished last Wednesday, but the script was in my totally cool dragon notebook and I have no idea where my totally cool dragon notebook is. And the presentation is worth a quiz grade. Fortunately I know what we wrote, so I said, "Don't worry guys! Just give me 5 minutes!" I frantically wrote down the script as fast as I could and when our teacher called on us, I had barely finished in time. Everybody thought our script was funny because it was about this girl who falls in a hole and then her boyfriend jumps down there to save her and then an evil chicken comes and everyone is screaming and then they all die. It was all good. Anyway enjoy this video of Super Soccer Miguel!

Playing at Jockey's Ridge

This is the last of the beach videos. After seeing the movie, Eagle Eye, we were freaked out that there are cameras everywhere watching us so for the rest of the weekend, one of us would randomly shout out, "TO THE GROUND!" and everybody would dive to the ground to hide from the "cameras". We did this everywhere, in the grocery store, in the movie theater, on the street, in the sand, etc. Any time one of us says, "to the ground," we all take cover! At the end of the video, you can see one of the "TO THE GROUND!" moments.

Zorro Runs Across the Sunset

Here's Zorro enjoying an evening run across the sunset!

Playing in the Ocean

This is a sweet video of all three of us playing in the ocean and just having a blast! Who cares if it's October and rough waves? Honestly the water was warmer than the air so it was better in the water than out! As you can see from the video, I fall often.

Adventures in Hot Tub Land

Hot tubs are very much fun. They are so warm and so nice. Pools in October are not so warm and not so nice. They're still very much fun though.

Miguel Sees the Ocean for the First Time

Here's the first night that we got to the beach and Miguel saw the ocean for the first time. It's dark and the wind is loud, but it's still pretty funny!

Jockey's Ridge

Jockey's Ridge was so beautiful like always! We went there before driving back home last Monday. Climbing up the biggest sand dune on the east coast is fun anyway but it's especially fun if you have two kids and a soccer ball!
We did some fun trick photography stuff to make a miniature Ivan and a miniature Miguel!
Here are the three of us on top of the sand dune.
Miguel and I buried Ivan in the sand!
This is all that's left of Ivan.
Then Ivan and I buried Miguel.
Here's Miguel on top of the sand dune with our favorite soccer ball, Little Pinky.

Zorro's Pizza

We ate at a pizza restaurant in Duck Sunday night and it was SOOOO good. We were starving from the long bike ride in the wind (see post below) so it was especially delicious. Zorro was hungry too because he had a long day of posing for pictures and keeping up with us fast-moving, long-legged humans. So the moment that he sniffed the pizza, he wanted a piece for himself.
We gave him a piece but then he got thirsty so he drank some of Miguel's Sprite.
Then he went for the cheese because he wanted the extra flavor on his piece of pizza.
The problem was that when he came back, Ivan was taking his piece of pizza. He tried to get it back but Ivan was too strong.
So then we gave him a new piece, his very own! That made him very happy and you've never seen a fox eat a piece of pizza so fast!

Biking to Duck

On Sunday it was really crazy windy and the waves were very rough. We took a long walk along the beach with the waves attacking us the whole time. We had fun running from the waves and hiding from the wind. We pretended like the wind and the waves were our enemies and we had to run in stealth-mode from one set of dune stairs to the next. It was really fun and involved us getting rather sandy and wet, which only makes it more fun. When we got back, we jumped in the hot tub and then decided to bike to the town of Duck. I thought Duck was only about 10 streets north, but it ended up being a lot farther, especially riding against 40 mph wind. We got there just in time to go to out on a dock and watch the sunset. Here are some pictures of us in the sunset:

IT'S SUNNY!

So Miguel woke up this morning, came out of his bedroom with a huge smile on his face, and announced, "IT'S SUNNY!!!!" and then took off running outside to get a basketball! The sun's out, Miguel's awake, it's time to play...

Two Brothers at the Beach

We got to our beach house last night and went immediately to see the ocean. Of course it was about 10:00 at night though, and we couldn't see much of anything. So before bed, Miguel said to me, "I'm sorry Miss Tice, but I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight." I asked why and he said, "Because I'm just too excited to see the beach tomorrow. You just don't know how excited I am!" He was bouncing up and down until about 2 AM. Today when he saw the beach, and waves hit him for the first time, the look on his face was priceless. He loved every minute of it, letting the waves crash into him and then spitting the water out and saying, "EW SALT!" Ivan played right in the waves just like Miguel, doing the exact same thing! He would run into the water, fall down, get splashed by a wave, run out of the water and then stop and say, "LET'S DO IT AGAIN!"

This is why I just love hanging out with these two kids and why I consider them to be like my own brothers. They are so respectful, so fun, so grateful for everything, so hard-working, so smart, so calm and responsible, and so loved and valued by everyone who knows them. Earlier today, Ivan was talking to a friend who asked him who he was at the beach with. It meant a lot to me when he answered, "My family." We had such a great day today, playing in the water, going to the aquarium, eating ice cream at Cold Stone, and then watching Eagle Eye at the movie theater (GREAT movie by the way, if you're interested). Here are some great pictures of the two boys getting splashed by waves for the first time:

NC Aquarium

It started to rain a little in the afternoon so we went to the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island. It's a great little aquarium and we saw crocodiles, stingrays, and sharks! Here's a picture of Ivan touching a stingray!

This is Miguel measuring the shark with his arms. He couldn't believe how big the sharks were!
One shark kept swimming by with his mouth open and we were amazed by how many rows of teeth he had!
Here are the two boys as a shark swims behind them.

Awesome day

Who cares if there's a 90% chance of rain, 40 mph winds, and 60 degree temperatures? Clearly not us. It didn't really rain that much anyway and the wind wasn't that bad and it felt a lot warmer than 60 degrees. We didn't let that stop us. We went swimming for about 3 hours - in the ocean, in the pool, and in the hot tub.
Ivan and Miguel kicked the soccer ball into the ocean and Ivan did a bunch of dominadas...until we lost the ball. The ocean ate it.

Miguel tried digging a hole but we didn't have a shovel. Tomorrow we're bringing a shovel with us to the beach.
Here's Ivan trying to keep his shoes dry. That didn't work so well.

Here's Miguel running away from the waves. He loved, and I mean LOVED seeing the ocean for the first time. He couldn't get enough of the waves and the sand and running in and out of the water.

We all loved the hot tub!

BEACH!!!

It's BEACH WEEKEND! Miguel, Ivan, my sister, her puppy Georgia, and I are all going to the beach for the weekend! The weather is supposed to be really gross tomorrow (rain, wind, cold), but it's supposed to be better on Sunday and Monday. Miguel's never been to the beach before and Ivan's only been one time a couple of years ago. Miguel's been saying all week, "I can't wait to go to the beach! I can't wait to go to the beach!" He wants to build a sand castle and see how big the ocean is and go in the waves and see a big sand dune and ride on a skimboard and bury somebody in sand and see a sand crab and play soccer on the beach and.... He repeats his list to me quite frequently. I can't wait to go either. I love going to the beach anyway but with Miguel, Ivan, my sister, AND Georgia it will be so much fun! Our beach house has a pool and a hot tub which is good (the hot tub part) because it's gonna be way too cold to swim in the ocean or in the pool. Miguel will probably still jump in, but I think I'll make better use of the hot tub. Look for great pictures and videos!

XRays Championship Fall 2008

Here's a video that I made of our championship game! We have such a great, positive team that plays to have fun AND to win! I'm so lucky to be on a team like that!

WE WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP!!!

We won the championship tonight!!! My baseball team, the Xrays, won the first game 16-4 and then we won the second game (the championship game) 13-6! I played first base for both games. I didn't hit well at all but I got on base 3 times and scored twice. We took lots of pictures and video, so I'm sure I'll be posting those soon!

YEAH!!! GO XRAYS!!!

Higher and higher!!

Today I did 51 dominadas with the soccerball! 51!!! I finally got above 50! WOO HOO!!!

funny kids, part 2

So this really funny kid this morning came up to me and said,

"Miss Tice! Guess what! I'm making a movie! I'm drawing all the pictures and then putting the pictures in order, but I'm not going to sell it because it's Star Wars and you have to go to the government for that."

news of the day

Interesting news of the day:

1. We found this furry little bat sleeping on the side of the school today. His name is George. We don't really know why he was out there on the wall instead of sleeping with all of his friends in the dark, but we're going to look for him tomorrow and see if he's still there.
2. I practice juggling a soccer ball every day at recess because I really want to be able to do like 100 dominadas (the word in spanish for the kicks you do with the soccer ball when you juggle). So a month ago the most I could do was like 15 and then my record was 18, then 20, then 25, and so on. Two weeks ago I got to 33 but I haven't been able to get past 33 since then... UNTIL TODAY! Today I did 42 dominadas!!! I was so happpy!

3. Zorro likes dressing up, but he's lost all of his feathers now. He had two beautiful feathers on his ears, a pink one and a blue one. But they both fell off. Too sad. He looks really beautiful though.

4. I got a 98 on my Spanish test.

Feliz Cumpleanos Miguel!!!

Today is Miguel's birthday! Here's a video of Miguel and his sisters playing a totally fun game that the Adams' gave him, Hungry, Hungry Hippos! (Zorro was playing too, and he won!)