A WEEK-END WRAP UP....GOOD TIMES!

Well another good week-end has come and gone.  Time does march on.  Sat. would have been my sweet mom's 82nd birthday, and her daughters gathered at MiMi's (one of her favorite lunch spots) and enjoyed a nice, long tasty time together celebrating her.  We brought a few old picture albums of her and looked through them remembering the times they captured.  A couple of my sisters recently discovered several old mice (my mom collected them!) Christmas ornaments that had somehow escaped us before, so we divided those up as well.  One of my sisters made up little gift bags for us and that was just so nice too.  We got all kind of little goodies to put in our purses.  All in all it was a REALLY good time, and was such a nice way to honor mom's day.  A couple hours or so later we left to go our separate ways, soo grateful that we have sisters whose hearts are forever united.

MY ORNAMENT SELECTION

GOODY BAG

 After lunch hubby and I decided to see the movie, The Hundred-Foot Journey.  Both hubby and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It combined many of my favorite things in a movie. Cooking, (I LOVE movies where food is being prepared and cooked for some reason) people working HARD against all odds to succeed at something (diligent worker movies I call them, lol) and of course a little romance.  It was just a feel good movie, a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours, and I would highly recommend this movie.  After the movie we had dinner at our favorite restaurant before heading back home. Just such a nice, GOOD day.

 And then yesterday, we started the day out with the intention of going to our grandson Cody's first karate tournament. But as it turned out my son called at the last moment to let us know that the place where the tournament was being held air conditioning was NOT working and it was unbearably hot inside.  Said we should skip this tournament and just come to the next one.  I knew he was right as those tournaments involve LOTS AND LOTS of waiting and down time while you await your person's performance or competition time, (literally hundreds are competing) and I have sweated my way through MANY of them over the years. But I was grateful for the warning, as I don't do "HOT" well anymore, lol.  For those of you who are new to my blog, or for those who need a refresher, this is my oldest son's who owns and operated his own karate studio.  He is a 5th degree black belt and had 28 of his kids who were competing yesterday.  Some of them I guess were not kids, but adults, including his oldest son Evan who is 19 and a 2nd degree black belt himself.  We have seen Evan compete a few times, and it is always such a treat.  He is soo good.  He also teaches part time at the karate school.  However it was a first time for little Cody.  Cody is Joe's youngest son who is slightly on the Autistic spectrum.  Last summer at this time he couldn't speak at all (at age 4) and was getting ready to begin his special education classes and speech and behavioral therapies in the Fall.  What a long, long way he has come!  He now talks non-stop and is really just a completely different kid.  Now he still has his issues of course, but he has learned sooo many ways to cope and move along in his little world.  My son needless to say was just a nervous wreck because he honestly just didn't know which way this would all go.  He has worked with a few other autistic kids at his school with fantastic results, but of course it is very different when it is your own son.  They had it all planned that if things didn't go well his wife Leah would just whisk Cody out of the place and quickly take him back home.  Joe has to work all day at these tournaments of course as a owner.  Cody is only 5 and just a beginning white belt.  He has only been attending classes for about 3 months now, though of course his daddy works with him everyday.  There were probably 30 or so in his division, and he was the ONLY white belt.  The rest were yellows and orange, but they were all only 5.  He was competing in the sparring event.  We all kind of felt like this could go a long, long way to benefiting Cody with confidence and the ability to participate in something he totally enjoys, or let us know he is not quite ready. OK, now that you know ALL the background, let me tell you how he did!  He WON!!  First place!  Let me just tell you this, no one expected that.  We just wanted him to have fun, and get his feet wet so to speak with competing in general, but he surprised us all!  He followed along just as he was suppose to, did a great job, and was sooo excited.  His dad was over the moon.  Oh, and for the frosting on the cake, Evan also won his division!  The adult men black belts are of course the highlight of the day as the competition is soo tough, but he did so well defeating a 6 ft two inch, 230 pound 24 year old man for first place in the final.  Evan is only 5' 9" and around 150 pounds so there was quite a size difference which just goes to show you size is not the issue with karate.

ALL READY TO GO!

GETTING SOME ENCOURAGEMENT FROM DAD

JOE PRAYED WITH CODY BEFORE HE STARTED

IN LINE WITH HIS COMPETITION...HE'S THE WHITE BELT

!

SOOO HAPPY AND PROUD

LOVE THE LOOK ON HIS FACE!

CHIPS OFF THE OLD BLOCK..

Guess that's it for now.  A busy day ahead of me including a trip to the dentist...never fun, lol.  Hope you all have a good week.  Blessings to you all!  Debbie