Spring Briarlake Baseball

Jackson could barely support himself with the helmet and gear on.

 Jackson has been playing in the Briarlake Baptist Church baseball league for years and this year Catie decided to play with absolutely no experience.

Even though Catie was the tallest and most physically intimidating girl on the team, she was the only 2nd grade girl and enjoyed hanging with the "older" girls. She is such a gamer and good sport, always giving it a solid effort with a good attitude.

Just looking at this crew you can tell they are players!

Jackson all ready to pound the ball into the outfield. The Braves were a great group of kids that made for a fun season. The team had some good hitters but the fielding could have used some improvement. Bad News Bears anyone???

Catie was a big surprise! She started out totally afraid of the ball (just like her dad) and had no idea where to be in the field or what to do when the ball came her way. By the end of the season, she had developed an understanding of the game and was one the most consistent hitters on the team.

Catie Cooper!!!

Catie is a member of the Northlake Children's Chorus and really enjoys singing (we are not sure she is ours) and performing. One of their recent performances was held at NorthLake Mall.

Notice the fancy outfit...

Several of the girls participated in a piano recital at the mall before the chorus performance. Not wanting to be left out, she volunteered to play a solo guitar performance for all the lucky patrons at the mall. She was nervous but played confidently and put on a great show.

Ann participated in career day at Kittredge Magnet School presenting to about five classes. Jackson was proud to have his mom talk about being a doctor and letting everyone hold a real human brain! The real brain never fails to amaze...

Mrs. Franklin's 5th grade homeroom class learning about the human brain. Jackson was lucky to have the reigning teacher of the year as his teacher.

Easter

We have obviously gotten too busy, as we neglected to post our Easter pictures and are months behind our posts in general!  We had kind of an uneventful Easter this year and even had to cancel the annual Escoffery/Schwartz Easter egg hunt due to weather... kind of a bummer.

Now that we have been in our house for almost 10 years, the Easter Bunny is running out of fresh places to hid the kids' baskets.

Abby has to be a scrapper to find any eggs competing with her older siblings! 

The master egg finder seemed happy with himself. The smile soon faded when he tried to get out of church.

BadAss Dash

 

We signed the kids up for the BadAss Dash (nice kid friendly name!) just down the road at Stone Mountain Park. As you can see, all three of them had their game faces on prior to the start.

Abby was all business during her "short" version of the obstacle course. 

Where is the finish line???

Catie had an awesome race, finishing high up in her age group and even smoking a certain sibling...

Jackson was excited to be finished with the course after a tough outing. Someone needs a little work on their endurance running.

The Schwartz children celebrating a great time after they completed the tough obstacle/run course.

Midvale Elementary Career Day

Abster handing out the latex gloves to her classmates.

Once again this year, Ann decided to participate in the Midvale Elementary Career Day to talk about psychiatry to the classes. Abby and Catie happened to be the first two slots of the day and they were both proud to be their momma's helper.

The pre-K class was full of good questions about what makes a healthy brain.

The real human brain was the hit of the day as all the kids were talking about how they got to hold a "real" brain. Abby showed her classmates how to hold the brain and not be afraid. 

Catie was just as excited to be a helper as Abby and even wore her veterinarian costume to look more official.

Caite displaying the rat brain to her class.

The 2nd graders were incredibly insightful and asked some really hard hitting questions of the head shrinker!

Basketball

The 2013 Bobcats made up of 2nd and 3rd graders.

"Coach, put me on their best player... I will shut him down!"

 

Catie took a strong interest in playing defense this year and velcroed  herself to her opponent. Next year she needs to stop playing defense while she is on offense.

 This was Jackson's last season in the Briarlake basketball league and he went out on a high note. The Hawks had a great season going 5-1-2. Yes, they had two ties as there is a time limit on the games. They were a really good team that could have won all their games if they did not have a 2 1/2 game shooting slump!

Jackson believes that talking to your opponent is an essential  part of defense, even if you are not paying attention to the play around you.

Celebrating another last minute nail biter of a victory. The last  4 games were decided by a total of 2 points!!!

 Caties's 2nd grade class was learning about Dr. Seuss as part of Language Arts class. She and Allison dressed up for the showing of the Lorax movie.

The girls are really into "Girl Scouts" as Catie is a Brownie and Abby is very proud to be a Daisy!  We can finally keep all of our Girl Scout cookie investments in the family.

 The Pigs are growing....

Kauai Trip: Part II

One evening, we attended a Luau that was part of Ann's meeting where we were treated to some fast moving hips and intense fire dancing. Little did we know that our life would be changed forever by an unexpected conversation during dinner... we were introduced to Instagram by one of the couples at our table (We know... we are that last to jump on this app...)! We have been posting nonstop ever since.

http://instagram.com/

This fire master put on an awesome show!

The Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge was one of the stops on our tour of the north side of the island. The dramatic backdrop of steep cliffs plunging to the ocean is one of the best places on island to view wildlife. The refuge is home to some of the largest populations of nesting seabirds and is a great place to view spinner dolphins and whales.

The light house was built in 1913 and is listed on the national register of historic places, and it made for a great photo op!

On our first day on the island, we spotted a double rainbow and were all excited, even pulling over to take pictures. We soon realized that they were almost as common as the roosters that seem to be everywhere you turn.

Queen's Bath is a "pool" carved into a lava shelf along the north shore with a black rocky shoreline and fantastic views.  During the winter months, it can be dangerous because of rough surf conditions. However, the surf was cooperating during our visit and the water was calm and crystal clear. 

Now that Stiv is such a "strong" swimmer he decided to test the  rough winter surf and go for a swim in "the bath."

We took a break and enjoyed lunch at the St. Regis Hotel.  We wanted to check out the site for future stays and experienced one of the best views on the island.

The lifeguard tower at Ha'ena State Park beach made for a picture perfect postcard shot. This is a beautiful beach located next to some cool sea caves that are supposed to be over 4,000 yrs old!

Hanalei town is a neat little town surrounded by the Misty Mountains and Hanalei Bay, making for the most impressive backdrops for a pseudo-tourist town. We bought most of our souvenir gifts for the kids here... coconut purses, etc.

The trailhead for the famous Kalalau Trail is located next to Ke'e Beach. The trail is 11 miles to its endpoint and takes a full day to reach. Most people hike the hour to Hanakapi’ai Beach or 2 hrs to Hanakapi’ai Falls and return on the same day.

We had planned to hike to the falls but changed our plans after talking with another hotel guest. The day before our planned hike, a lady was killed when trying to cross a rapidly rising stream. It swept her down river and out to sea were she tragically drowned! In addition, our fellow hotel guest was one of 54 hikers who were moved to safety by emergency helicopter and were forced to spend the night on the trail because it was too dangerous to hike back!

The perfect hiking boots for a technical trail... don't try this at home.

What a difference 24 hrs makes on the trail. We eventually found ourselves at the trailhead just before sunset on our last full day on the island and decided to hike up the trail to experience some of the views. We encountered many hikers making the return trip who were no worse for wear. Just goes to show how critical it is to take weather seriously when in the wilderness.

A view of Ke'e Beach from the Kalalua Trail.

Spectacular sunset at Ke'e Beach, the very end of the road on the north side of the island.

We spent our last night and day in Kauai at the Marriott Resort, courtesy of the Grand Hyatt (they were overbooked and set us up there)!  The hotel is located on the rather large and beautiful Kalapaki Beach. We took advantage of the location by surfing in the morning and paddle boarding in the afternoon before taking the red-eye home. Our surfing experience was the same as always, with Ann riding the waves into shore and Stiv trying to balance with long-drawn-out spectacular crashes!

The paddle boarding was a lot of fun. However, it took more work than we have experienced in the past because the chop and waves were much more challenging than were are used to.

After a full day of water sports, we took a final dip in the pool, showered and headed out for our final meal on the island (Korean BBQ in Lihue... yum.). We were exhausted and ready to sleep on our flight back home.

A special thanks to Kim and Lorann for "volunteering" to watch the kids for the week. It may have taken a year off their lives, but they maintained a much more organized and peaceful household than we could ever hope achieve! We are so thankful that they enjoy the duty so much and can't wait to "give them a chance" to do it again very soon....