Karate & Jujitsu Tournament

This weekend Sam had a tournament.  It was very long!  What was scheduled for 3 hours really took 4 1/2 - 5 hours.  That is a long time for the 3 boys to sit and have patience. Anyway, Sam didn't win any of the matches.  Once she knew it was over for her she just sat in her spot crying afterwards.  The girl she was up with went all the way to first for her division.  That girl is in Max's class at school.  She is  very nice and I'm glad she won.  Every student got at least a team trophy.  Sam competed on a team for sparring, individual sparring and individual grappling (Jujitsu). She lost them all.  I helped get the dojo ready for the tournament and one of the teachers/senseis told me he thought Sam would have a good chance of winning 1st.  He was sure she would cream the 1st person she was up against but it didn't happen.  I told Sam maybe she was just having an off day.

Anyway, on to the pictures...

Our fighting warrior :)

 

Sam getting ready

 

Sam on her individual sparring.  Sam has the red belt here. (the sides were red and white)

 Sam going in for a kick

 Sam Grappling (ground work/Jujitsu). Here she is white belt.

Sam receiving her trophy from Sensei

 

 While the others are still getting trophies. Sam talking to one of the boys I'm pretty sure she likes.  There are 2, they are twins.  She bugs the heck out of them and them to her.  She got pretty embarrassed in the car one day when I starting singing Sam and ______ sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g....

 

 All the competitors for the day.  Yeah, you may need to click on this one :)  Just look for the red arrow to find her.

 

Sam being a tad bit ornery up there.  Notice she has her trophy 'kicking' the boy next to her.  I'm 99% sure that was on propose.

 

 Saving the best for last.  

Sam with Sensei Travis

 This is Pete and my sensei as well.  He is awesome.

Angel tree time!

I have not been as actively promoting Reece's Rainbow.  Mainly because I have not been very active on my blog!!

Reece's Rainbow has their annual Angel Tree up.  Please check it out!! There are SO many children that need their forever home.  Some of those precious angels have been on there for years!  Like little Yegor.  He melts my heart.  I wish every single one of them would find homes.  None of them deserve a life in a orphanage.  They need a loving families to show them what love really is.

Go check out these cuties, help spread the word, donate if possible, and if you are a lucky one then maybe one of these cuties will become your own.


Grab This!

Meet Henry

In September I had my dog, Baby, put to sleep.  She lived a LOOONG life.  She was 19 years old.  Almost 19 1/2 years.. you know the half part only counts when you're really young or really old!!  It was hard, obviously, because people become so attached to their pets.  Her mom was my dog so I had Baby from the moment she was born.  However, it was her time.

We were in the process of adopting a retired greyhound.  My gosh- what a process!!  The application was 4 pages long.  They actually call references and your vet.  They do a house visit and required locks on all gates.  We went through all of it.  There were 2 dogs that would match our profile (the dog had to like kids and cats).  However, they turned out heartworm positive and weren't available yet.  But reading the contract from them Pete decided he didn't want to sign it anyway.  They had some crazy stuff in there.  It sounded more like they owned the dog we would just have the daily care of it. Anyway, we decided against it.

So that had us starting over looking for that perfect dog.  I finally found an animal shelter about 30 miles away from us that had tons of cute pets.  We had several to check out.  It was so sad to see how many dogs (and cats) they had that needed homes.  Not sure how parents actually adopt kids from orphanages with all those adorable kids begging to go home.  I'm sure it is more than heart breaking. In the end we chose a German shorthaired Pointer named Henderson. He was so skinny but so nice.

We have had him for about a week and a half.  He has already fattened up a lot.  He really is such a great dog.  Him and our cat have not come face to face yet.  Well at least not closely or nicely.  He is very interested in her.  She not so much!  At first we thought he would really like to eat her but now I really think he just wants to check her out.  She does not have front claws.  We wish she did just for these few weeks!  But she used to scratch Max when he was younger (not that he deserved it or anything, right?).

Henry is living life as a true house dog now.  He loves the feather mattress the kids put in the living room. He loves to go outside and sniff our backyard for rabbits.  I doubt we have baby bunnies this spring in our yard!  He loves walks.  He loves all the attention he can get.  He is somewhere between 2-3 years old.  The animal shelter found him as a stray. They said he was near death when they found him. He was that skinny!  Within a week home we had him actually leaving food in his bowl because he was no longer starving.  One of his dewclaws have been ripped out.  ouch!  The vet said he may need surgery but for now to watch how the nail grows back. Henry was only at the animal shelter for 2 weeks.  He is such a sweet dog.