Back to School

Summer unofficially came to an end at our house on Thursday, with the new school year starting. This was a big deal for us, because Ry finally started Kindergarten. We’ve been trying to get him excited about the whole thing, especially when it comes to familiarizing him with letters and numbers.

His take on the whole thing has been let’s say, less than enthusiastic. He’s a little kid, and this is a big change for him, because a) it takes him out of his comfort zone and b) he doesn’t have the free reign that he did when he was in pre-school. I get all of that, so I have to be a little more patient with his transition.

Meeting Mrs Uchiyama

The sad thing is this is the only year both Ry and Karsyn will be attendingthe same school.

From what I remember about Karsyn, she was a little more in to the whole school thing when she started Kindergarten, but there was a little transition for her as well. I think Ry will do fine with the whole thing, but he’s been able to charm his way through life up to know. School is about getting out wheat you put in, so charm alone won’t get you very far.

Karsyn on the other hand is an old hand at school. For her, she’s the big fish on campus, because her school only goes up to 5th grade. She seems excited about her teacher, and her classmates. We don’t know much about her new teacher, other than she was born in Korea.

As soon as I heard that, I was instructing Karsyn how to say hello in Korean. It never hurts to grease the situation! What better way to establish a rapport with someone than to call out your similarities. Most people have no clue that she has Korean in her, so it always comes as a surprise. Spring “hello” on another Korean in their native tongue, and you’ve just created an ice breaker.

5th Graders!

This is the launching pad to junior high school, which is the spring board to high school, which is the predecessor to college. That means that this is the year that her future really begins to establish itself. She did a great job in 4th grade, by taking more initiative in her studies. For that I was really proud.

She mentioned to me the other day that she was disappointed that she didn’t score in the highest ranking for math on the state proficiency testing (she was one group below), so I told her that rather than fret about what she didn’t accomplish, she now has a target set on an area she can improve on.

Her attitude is what I’m most proud of. I just hope her brother picks up the same trait. She’s becoming more competitive about her grades, which is a good thing, because the competition is stacked.

In any case, it’s the start of another school year, which is always fun. Some old faces, some new faces, and plenty of opportunity. Almost makes me wish I was back in school.

Strike up the band

Karsyn’s musical endeavor as a classical flutist kicked off on Wednesday evening with her school’s Winter Concert. The 30 to 40 kids that make up Beginning Band played a brief set of music before a packed auditorium. The band belted out classic standards like “Hot Cross Buns” and holiday favorites like “Jingle Bells”.

Early reviews came back favorably.

“A cacophonous treat for the ears,” said one music critic in attendance.

Two songs into the performance, another critic shared his positive feedback.

“Can we go now?” said Ryan. Loosely translated, he meant to say, “Man this band is really good!”



Karsyn sat with her fellow flutists in the front row. In addition to the flutes, the band is comprised of clarinets, trumpets, saxophones and trombones.

Put that all together and you get music. Or at least the early stages of it.

It just goes to show that if you give a kid an instrument, they’ll make something come out of it. BRAVO!

Soccer!

Soccer season hasn't really ended with Sonya coaching Karsyn's competetive U10 Girls team, but things officially kicked off this weekend. Karsyn's Fall league season started as did Ry Ry's foray into the game.

He started U6 soccer, which is played by both boys & girls. Sonya loves coaching Karsyn so much that she's taken on Ry Ry's team as well.

We started Saturday by running over to the newly re-opened Sunnyvale Soccer Complex to catch the U9 Girls Comp Team play. A couple of Karsyn's school mates play on that team, and is actually the age group that she should be playing in, but we have her playing up. The game started at 9 am, and it was already a toasty 80+ degress at the opening whistle.

After that, we trekked over to Serra Park for Ryan's first official soccer game. This is "swarm of bees" soccer at its finest. They play 3-on-3 with no goalie, so most of the time the ball is simply moving from one end of the field to another. Ryan scored two goals in the game. After his first goal, he ran over to mom (er coach), and lept into her arms to celebrate. It was so him.

He likes to, let's say, celebrate after he or his team scores. With both fists pumping over his head, he lets out a "YEAH!" every time the goal hits the back of the net. On one play, a little girl from the opposing team accidentally knocked teh ball into her own goal. Ryan pointed this out to her (innocently I'm sure), but she didn't take kindly to his stating of the obvious. She grabbed him by the arm and started to dig her nails into him, before the referee intervened.

His look was like, "hey, thanks for scoring that goal for us!", even though she was digging her talons into him. There is no score keeping at this level, so nobody wins or loses, but it was fun to be there to see Ry play competetive sports for the first time.

The most amusing part of the game, was teh post game handshake. The coaches had all teh kids lined up facing each other in two lines. Typically, the kids start walking toward each other, so that they can high-5 each other as they pass in opposing directions. The kids however had no idea they were supposed to do this, so they ended up having the worlds largest group handshake as they all crashed into each other. Good stuff.

Photos | Slideshow available here

Three hours later, we were back at the Sunnyvale Soccer Complex for Karsyn's first game of the season. K's team, the SASC Devils 98, would win 5-2 starting the season on a high note. This is a set team that keeps their roster consistent over the life of the club. They were formed last February, and are starting their 2nd season together. The roster is assembled by the coaching staff after a series of tryouts were held last Winter.

I maintain the Devils Team blog, so you can read a recap of that game here.

The Holidays Officially Begin

Thanksgiving has come and gone. We did the family tour, having dinner at Sonya's parent's house, then at my dad's house. I tried to be good, limiting myself to reasonable helpings at each stop :)

We actually got off out butts and did something productive with the kids on Saturday, trekking into San Francisco to checkout Union Square. We took BART, which was Ry & Karsyn's first time taking the train into the city. I think Ry enjoyed it more. It was a train after all.

Checkout the video:

Nutcracker Time

Karsyn auditioned for the Nutcracker on Friday, and once again landed a part in the holiday ballet. She will be performing with the Moscow Ballet at the Flint Center in Cupertino on December 23rd. There are two performances (3:00pm and 7:30pm).

You can order tickets online at Ticketmaster via the following links:

3:00pm performance

7:30pm performance

Sonya will be buying tickets on Monday night, so if you'd like to sit with us, send her an email ASAP. Here is my post after she earned her first role and from last January after her first perforance.

More info at: http://www.nutcracker.com/

A jock's weekend

It was a sports oriented weekend for the Lee’s. Saturday started with Karsyn’s third basketball game of the season. It was also the first win of the year after three tries. The girls looked great, pounding the ball inside for a 22-4 victory. The score would have been much worse, but I told our two best players they had to pass the ball rather than shoot.

Even after that, we still scored at will. It was nice to get over the victory hump, but it was also important for the kids to learn how to win with some class. They did what they were told, so we got to work on spreading the ball around the floor and running an offense. It was very cool.

Super Bowl Sunday began with a trip to the ice rink. Sonya took the kids last Monday and Ryan was immediately hooked. He loves hockey already, and the roller blades he received for Christmas are probably his favorite possession.

I wasn’t expecting much. How much could a 2-year-old kid do with two metal blades strapped to his feet. To my surprise, he could move pretty good on skates. He puttered around the rink at a constant 2 mph, with a movement that looks a lot like he’s running in place.

The one annoying thing that has come with this new passion, is a love to dive on the ice. He’ll skate for about 1 feet, then intentionally skid across the ice. I tried telling him that diving in hockey is a penalty (it actually is), but that didn’t sway him. We know he can skate, because we challenged him to a time-trial from one end of the rink to the other. He can make it dive free if he chooses.

He wore his favorite Sharks jersey to the rink, so it dawned on me as we were leaving that if he kept up his pension for head first swan dives across the ice, he was going to ruin his jersey. I told him this as I was strapping him into his car seat for the ride home, so I’m not exactly sure if it hit home or not.

I guess we’ll see the next time we hit the ice. Karsyn is getting the figure skating bug. She spent the better part of the skating session in the middle of the rink with all the other figure skaters (these people are the devil to anyone who plays hockey…toe-picks leave craters in the ice).

Sonya tried to show me her “one figure skating move”, which ended in a nice case of whiplash and my wife’s butt planted on the ice. I pointed out that she had “no figure skating moves” at this point, to which I received a nod.

Oh, and the rest of the afternoon was spent parked in front of the tube, watching the Super Bowl. I said it was a sports oriented weekend, not a completely active one!

Here's a video of me teaching Ry some hockey fundamentals...

Dance Attack(ing my wallet)

Karsyn’s summer of endless activities kicked off last weekend with a dance recital at Foothill College on Saturday and Sunday. She’s been enrolled in dance for a couple of months, and her dance school put on a huge show, which consisted of about 4000 separate acts. OK, maybe not 4000. Let’s call it 50.

50 dance routines of girls and boys ranging from 3 year-olds to anywhere north of 50. It was quite the spectacle. Lots of frilly costumes make up and “dance people”. I am not a “dance person”. Sonya will attest to this. I think the whole deal is a little over the top and I have yet to embrace the whole concept.

I’m not a Neanderthal. I actually enjoy the arts. In fact, I can sit through an opera or a ballet. I can tell the difference between Mozart and Tchaikovsky. I prefer Monet over Renoir.

What I’m not, is someone who likes get milked for every nickel and dime I own. Here is a link to the photos I took of the event. You may notice that there are no photos of Karsyn actually dancing. The reason for that is that we were no allowed to take any photographs (even non-flash photos), or any video of the event.


Waiting for the show to begin
We were of course given the option of buying the $40 DVD of the event. Did I mention that I also had to pay $17 just to get in the door to see my own child perform? I don’t have any problem spending money on my kids. In fact, I could probably be accused of spending too much money on frivolous things for them. I have the money, and they’re only little once in their lives, so why not.

The fact that the outfit I also pay to instruct my child, also tries to fleece me for a DVD after charging me to see the performance live is a little over the top in my opinion. They have you right where they want you. It’s your kids first performance, you shelled out $50 for the costume that they need to wear (which I’m sure they also get a kick back on), all the grandparents are there. You have no choice. Throw in the bouquet of flowers that you need to buy and you’re talking some serious coin.

I was tickled to see Karsyn up on stage. She seemed to be genuinely having fun up there. I would have been petrified up there, but she seemed to soak it all in and enjoy herself. So now I’m torn because she actually loves to dance.

The whole “Jon Benet” culture also seems to turn me off a bit. Little kids do not need to be caked in makeup. They’re already cute. They already glow up on stage. They don’t need to be made up like little dolls. Let them be little kids.


The star of the show with her flowers
I also argued with Sonya that nobody gives out scholarships for dance (except for dance schools). If Karsyn ever got a scholarship from Juilliard, then I would stand humbly corrected, but I’m hoping Stanford, Harvard or some other school comes knocking first.

I’d tell you more about the performance itself, but I’ll let you come over and check out my $40 DVD. I plan on getting my money’s worth by watching it often.

Karsyn's Dance [Photo Album]