The Medalists

OK, so it's been like forever since we've updated this. We have a very full life outside of cyberspace and just don't get to this very often. Get over it...
8{)
(Jeff)

The kids are continuing to excel in their martial arts and competed in a tournament in downtown San Jose today. This is in preparation for a national competition next March at Disneyland. http://www.tournament.info/index.htm

Yesterday I recorded their practice session. It's about 12 minutes long but very entertaining. You can fast forward if it gets too long...


At the Dojo
















We spent most of Saturday in San Jose where the kids competed in the Silicon Valley Tae-Kwon-Do Championship, a 27 year old event, and did very well. This venue was mostly pure Tae-Kwon-Do, while the kids have been learning a blend of styles called Ka-Wushu-Kwan (Karate, Wushu, Tae-Kwon-Do) that brings grace and showmanship to the mechanics of the sport, so their style was a little flashier (and louder) than most. And unlike other competitions we've seen, at this one they had 2 and sometimes 3 people doing their forms or patterns at the same time on the same mat. That put the kids at a disadvantage as they've been trained to use the whole mat and had to curtail their routines to avoid collisions. Fortunately, the judges decided to go single with the weapons competition, or there would have been some decapitations… But otherwise the kids were great, much more dramatic than their competition. You can hear their yells all over the venue, and when Emily and Shelby were both performing on different mats, they echoed each other’s yells (you'll hear it in the next video about 1 minute into the first scene with Emily). Then Kyle and Emily had to do a tie breaker performance together. And in the last match of our day Kyle blew away the competition with his Bowstaff routine, again being much flashier than the competition. In the end, Shelby won a bronze medal for her open hand free form pattern, Emily won a bronze medal for her Katana routine, and Kyle won Bronze in open hand and Gold with the Bowstaff. We’re all pretty psyched as we were not really expecting to win anything. The video is below. Kyle's Gold medal drill is at the end, be sure not to miss it!



Silicon Valley Tae Kwon Do Championship



The medalists

4th of July

Happy Independence day! Yay! Hooray! Okaaay!

Here's a rundown of what's happenin w/ the fam.

Padre- Just (drumroll puhleez) badabadabadabum! Shaved. Off. His. 'Stache. Clean off. All gone. Now he actually looks like his dad more. Huh...

Madre- Just turned thirty-nine! Again!

Emily (me)- Well....... Last night, we were watching Jeopardy. I'm the only one who likes it, I think. Anyways, the category was "Country rhyme time". The answer was "A scandinavian entrance way". None of the contestants got it. In the last like three seconds I'm like "Norway doorway!!" And Trebek's all like "And we're looking for... Norway doorway." I was amazing.

Kyle- Yesterday, the Combs called in an afternoon hour and he played on the Wii with them over the internet.

Shelby- Shelby got new running shoes two weekends ago, and they're still white... wow. An assistant instructor at out martial arts school likes them. She said they're nice.

That's all for now, maybe Padre will add something later... or maybe not. We'll see...

Hasta luego

It's been a looooong time...

...And there's not much to be said at the moment. But, the kids are doing great in their Martial Arts class and we're posting a video of their recent class. They're pretty scary!

The kids got their blue belts this week too, that's 1/2 way to blackbelt!

Life's been busy and expensive recently. Between dog leg surgeries (see Holly's blog), braces, car repairs and a new waterheater we weren't expecting, it's been an expensive spring. Work is averaging 55 hours a week for Jeff (actually pretty managable) which is a good thing when the architecture / home building industries are trying to stay above water. Katy & the kids are nearing the end of the school year. Life is moving rapidly along. Last time I checked it was about noon on New Years Day... wha happened??

We'll try to post more often, or bribe Emily to do it once in a while...

Hello again

Hola people. This is Emily. Yeah. So Padre wants another post. So.... here it is....








J/k. So like, on Saturday, Padre had a deacons' meeting. Then he drove the dog to the vet. She's recovering very well. Madre bought new pants, but they're a bit baggy for her taste, lol. Kyle Shelby and I tested for our blue belts on Saturday, and we have a written test next Saturdayish sometime.

Like, sorry I don't have anything better, but the fam needs to do something exciting for me to have something good to post about. But this blog needs a little something once in a while to keep it from looking naked. I thought it was amazing. So there. Ha.

Hasta luego

New post... yeeeeeeeaah......

Hey, it's the one and only... EMILY! (Yay! Hooray! Woooo!!) Okay, so seeing as the whole "updating the family blog so that other people can know what's going on in our lives without us having to talk to anyone" thing is suddenly MY thing, I decided to post on the family glob (I typed glob on PURPOSE).

So, like, Holly's stitches are coming out on Saturday, gross but good, so we won't have to WATCH HER EVERY MOMENT OF EVERY DAY anymore because she won't try to chew on them, until we get her other leg operated on. Like I said. Gross. Yesterday, I borrowed a book from the library for something to do, but it was only like 190 pages or something and I finished it in like the same day. There goes something to do... Padre is also enjoying a book at the moment, and it either has to do with airplanes or cowboys. I'm fairly certain it's one of those. They're good guesses. Kyle got new dress pants at Mervyn's last night!

Other than that exciting news... I put on my dumb (yet supportive) knee brace for martial arts today, y'know, for my bad knee and everything, we had spaghetti for dinner, American Idol was fun and I'm getting tired now. Hope you enjoyed this super special installment of the Escott Family Life as told by me!... Tada! I thought it was pretty amazingish.


Hasta luego

I made it back from LA and escaped with only a slight sunburn. Didn't actually get to go into Disney land (awwwww) but I had a good time with my friends at California Disney. The only pictures I took were on a phone because my camera is inconveniently well, inconvinient. I can't email the pictures I took to myself right now, so enjoy a few a friend took and sent to me.

Us with our friends. From left to right. Back row: Nidi's mom (don't know how to spell their last name); Mr Lum, assistant Instructor; Me; Kyle; Mr. Som, Instructor; Mrs. Som; Shelby

Front row: The girl in the gi's name is Nidi (I don't know how it's spelled) and the girl kneeling is her sister (don't know her name); Philip Som; Alexi Som; Lydia Penaflor

The kid doing the splits's name is Jacob Lum.

Check it out. These are the guys from Fight Quest on the Discovery Channel! Shelby can't get over the fact that Jimmy leaned on her head. (I think she thinks he's a stud). We also got Doug's autograph.

Basically amazing. He kinda messed up the 'K', but it's still amazing.

Here's another that has a funny story behind it.

Kyle and Lydia kept dropping things and Lydia kept blaming Kyle for it. Then a fork dropped, supposedly knocked off of the table by nothing except gravity. Lydia took a picture for evidence. I don't know why she sent it to me, but it was funnier when I was there.

Anyways, I might post more about the trip later, but these might be the only pictures you see.

Hasta luego

Hi everybody!

Hey, this is actually Emily posting (Padre set it up so I can post on this blog, too! This is his own fault mwahaha) Scince this blog only has like three posts, I thought I'd give it another. So, it's time for a FAMILY UPDATE!..date...date...date..... We'll start with Padre. He just charged up his iPod to full battery last night! Right on, Padre. Madre is re-taking Algebra in attempt to understand what Kyle and I are learning in math. For Kyle's update, I'll use a direct quote! "Uh, not much more than school, uhhhh..." There you have it. Shelby pretty much just listens through her major collection of three cds. Holly is livin' it up, sleepin' in the sun, barking, eating, bla bla. Her life is boring. Me? You can look at my blog, I'm tired of typing... Thnx 4 reedn.

Happy New Year, a little late...

Well, following my usual pattern, we got all excited about blogging for the first few days and then got busy and ignored it for over a week. We'll try to do better in the future, but I'm betting a weekly installment may be the best we get.

Christmas in the Escott household was pretty mellow this year. All our extended family plans didn't quite happen on Christmas day itself, so we had a relaxed day of opening presents and watching the kids play with their multitide of wii games.

Holly didn't miss out either, getting a new toy and doggie cookies (see Holly's Couch for the details!). Holly's been having some hip troubles of late, not too serious, but she's been pretty spoiled as a result.

Later in the week we visited Jeff's folks, Charlie & Esther in Grass Valley for a belated Christmas. While there we were treated to about 2" of snow, just enough to enjoy. The kids had fun throwing snowballs and Holly romped around enjoying the odd stuff, unaffected by the cold.

New Year's Eve was spent finally getting to some long neglected house and yard work followed by an evening with Church friends in Brentwood. It was a joy to bring in the New Year with those that we hold dear and share a like common faith in Christ. You can see some of the evening's photos at The Combs Family Online, who were kind enough (or nuts enough) to host the whole group. We watched the Rose Parade the following morning. The float by Cal Poly (our proud alma mater), a cooperative effort between the original San Luis Obispo campus and the Pamona campus, won the Fantasy Award. You can see the float on a clip of the parade HERE, scroll down to video part 8, we'll be the second float, 1 minute into the video. You can also read about Cal Poly's 60th consecutive Rose Parade float on their official website.

The remainder of our week has been a slow return to normal life after a couple weeks of on-and-off vacation, capped off with some wild and wooly weather with 50+ mph winds and several inches of rain Thursday thru Saturday. And the good news is that Jeff's home spun roof patching stood up to the test with no leaks!