Friday, February 24, 2012

The Kazmierski Week of Domination

Yes, the Kazmierskis are awesome.  As Ben would put it, "we dominated!".

The week started out with a wrestling tournament on Monday.  Andrew won all his matches, and took first place.  Joey won 2 our of 3 and took 2nd place.

I really hate watching my kids wrestle.  For one thing, I just don't get the sport. I don't know why anybody in their right mind would want to do that, plus I have no idea how they earn points or win the match.  All I know is that it's bad to be on the bottom.  But for some reason, the boys love it.  So I let them wrestle even though I'd rather stick a fork in my eye.

The boys did so well, I actually had a hard time holding myself back from apologizing to the parents of the boys they wrestled.  Andrew completely decimated his opponents, and I really felt sorry for them.  I actually was hoping that he'd just let them get a few points.  But he didn't.

Joey got to wrestle his friend Remington.  I don't know why I was worried that they would not like each other when it was all over.  They are so serious during the matches, but after they were done they started laughing, so all was good.  We don't have many pictures of Joey's matches because we were video taping them, but almost ran out of batteries.  So we have mostly video of Joey, and only pictures of Andrew.



(even the wrestlers on other mats couldn't take their eyes off the spectacle of Andrew pummeling his opponent) 

(Haley works for the high school wrestling team keeping score, so she watched over this tournament and kept me informed on how our boys were doing, although it was apparent even to me that they were winning.) 


(poor kid, he never had a chance...) 


And the medals were handed out... 

Ben took a picture of the boys while I stood there telling them to smile.  Joey said, "Coach said 'wrestlers don't smile'".  So they didn't.  Ever. 

***

Andrew had a huge project due this week.  It was called "The Tower of Self".  There were many, many requirements.  I helped him build the Lego football field for 4 hours.  Then we found pictures and printed out all of his goals, and all the other requirements.  It was a pain in my butt.


I even lugged the thing to school so he could present it.  He was the only one who had all of the requirements on his tower. 
Dominated.

***

And in addition to the tournament and the tower project (oh, not to mention, it's Symphony week), we also had the Pinewood Derby contest this week.

Ben worked harder on his car than anyone else around here, but it is totally awesome.



So off the boys and Grace went to the derby, while Haley stayed home with Matt (it's just much easier that way), and I went to rehearsal.  I got a text from Ben that said in the open class, he took first, Grace took 2nd, and Joey took 3rd.

Then they announced the winners of the pack race.  Andrew took 2nd place! 
Dominated.

I think all the other parents will have it in for us next year.  We better bring it! 



Andrew's trophy: 

And here's a picture of the open class winners.  Grace was so sad that they didn't give trophies to the open class.  And, I have to say, not giving awards to the open class is just stupid, and somebody is probably going to hear it from me.  What would 3 more trophies have cost?  Ten bucks?  Poor Grace was crying her big blue eyes out.  Not cool, scouts.  Not cool.


But at least we dominated.

Valentine's Day

We're not really big on Valentine's Day around here.  We do what is required, like sending Valentine's to school, and Ben brings home flowers.  And that's about it.  That's just the way we like it.  There's always four thousand other things going on at the same time, that we just don't put much effort into it. 

Ben brings home flowers for not just me, but all of the girls.  Grace was pretty happy to get home and find a vase of roses in her room.  Matthew was pretty excited about them, too.  Not sure what the cowboy hats are all about.

Monday, February 20, 2012

More Snow Days

It's been awhile since we've actually had snow, but since I'm so behind I'm just publishing these now.  As Daddy shoveled the driveway (which seems abnormally large when you're shoveling), the kids played in the snowbanks.  Thank goodness for snowpants.






I'm not sure what Grace had going on here, but she sure was working hard: 

Daddy couldn't find Matthew, and after calling him a few times (with no response), he checked around the corner and there he was.  Making snow angels by his beloved garbage can. 

And then he decided to ride his bike in the middle of winter.  I don't think he got very far. 

Sidewalk chalk seemed like a good idea. But he didn't get very far with that, either. 

Andrew made a little tub for everybody to sit in.  Very comfy. 

And I'm not sure what all this was about, but he ended up on the floor: 




Sunday, February 19, 2012

Grace's Texting

Grace REALLY loves to text.  But the only people I let her text are Haley and Daddy.  Haley is in Red Lodge this weekend, and Grace has been having lots of fun communicating with her older sister.  Here is their converstaion from this morning:

Grace: Wat are you dooing
Haley: Watching a movie. What are you doing?
Grace: playing
Haley: What are you playing?
Grace: dro
Haley: What is dro?
(Grace comes into my room to ask me how to spell "draw")
Grace: you draw
Haley: Oh that sounds like fun
Grace: it is fan
Haley: Good
Grace: in the
Haley: What?
Grace: In the afternoon do you wontoo play with me?
Haley: I'm not going to be home until tomorrow
Grace: tomorrow can you?
Haley: Yes
Grace: wat tim?
Haley: Around lunch
Grace: 12 25
Haley: Yes
Grace: wat tim are you cuming home?
Haley: After breakfast
Grace: so at 9 47
Haley: close to that, yes
Grace: so 9 50
Haley: Yes
Grace: ok. it is giting funr
Haley: Yep we're gonna go walk around soon
Grace: yep fun fun fun
Haley: Yes very fun
Grace: ya?
Haley: Yes

Haley = The Most Patient Big Sister Ever

Joey's Birthday Party

Joey's 7th birthday was a hit!  We had the Grandparents, cousin Lita, and Great Grandma Bertha come over to celebrate.  Joey had lots of presents, including Star Wars guys and a lego ship, Heeley's, a sweatshirt with a hood, DS games, and a "Number Twelve Tom Brady" jersey.  (He never says "Number 12" without adding "Tom Brady".)


Matthew had fun trying to tell Grandma Bertha a story. 

And when he couldn't get her attention, he tried Grandma Nan.  That worked. 




Grace found something useful to do. 


Joey even got a mug for hot cocoa -- with a picture of him drinking hot cocoa on it! 

And this was the very first time that Joey was able to order a cake from the store. He's always been allergic, but now he can have things with egg cooked into them.  He chose the army cake, mostly because it came with a free transformer on top. 



(A Few) Snow Days

You'd think by looking at a few of my posts that we actually had a normal winter around here, but it's really been warm, thank goodness. We haven't had much snow, but when it did fall, it was usually warm enough to go play in it!  That's the best kind of all.

Joey, Grace, and Matthew decided to try and put together a couple of snowmen before we had to go back to school and pick up Andrew.  They worked very hard to build their "friends".  Grace's even had a little hat, but Joey ran out of time before he finished.  But I guess that's what tomorrow's for!






Joey's Tooth

Joey lost a tooth a few weeks ago.  He's lost teeth before, but this is the first one that we gasped at.  He had been working on pulling that thing out of his head for longer than usual, and when it finally was expelled we found out why:


That thing was huge.  I guess he inherited his father's roots.  Poor guy.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

New York City

I finally made it to New York City! My mom and I left the men to tend the children, hopped on a plane, and headed out to visit Eric. We arrived at night, and I just remember looking out the window of the plane and seeing lights go on and on forever.

When we got off the plane, we went straight to the taxi waiting area, where we entered our first car of doom.  Every stereotype you've ever heard about cabby's is true. I thought either my mom and I or anybody in our immediate vicinity was going to die. And nobody speaks English. Or, as Eric put it: nobody that feeds you or takes you places speaks good English. He was right.

Eric lives in the heart of Lower Manhattan, in the Financial District: right across the street from a Trump Building, and right next door to Tiffany's. Amazing.  Down there the streets are really narrow -- one way only.  Right in front of his building, and the streets surrounding him, there is no traffic because the streets are blocked off.  The only cars that can go through are delivery vehicles, and they can only go through once they've been searched by bomb-sniffing dogs.  Then somebody hits the button and part of the street turns, allowing them pass the barricades.  It's really weird.

Here's the view right outside Eric's fancy building (complete with doormen and marble walls):

 And if you look left, you see this. That church down at the end is on Broadway. It's called the Church of the Trinity, I think. It has the most beautiful graveyard surrounding it.  I LOVE graveyards. I love to walk through them, looking at the names and dates, wondering about who the people were and what they lived through. The older, the better.  This church had to be rebuilt three times. It was built at first in the late 1600's, and then was destroyed in the fires of 1776. It's just about the coolest place I've ever been.

 Because of the Occupy protesters (of which I saw none -- they've cleared out of that area, I guess), the police patrol on horseback.  There are cops on just about every street, which made me feel pretty safe, considering the vast quantity of pedestrians that made me feel uneasy. Another thing that made me feel uneasy was being surrounded by monstrous buildings all the time. And then, Eric told us that ice falls off them during winter storms. Nothing like dodging killer ice cycles in Downtown New York.

 Eric lives half a block from the New York Stock Exchange.  A few blocks farther, and you find "The Bull". There were lots of Asian tourists taking pictures of it. I was the only blond. In fact, I'm pretty sure I was the only blond in Lower Manhattan. I was definitely the only blond wearing a bright lime green ski jacket, which is why I got so many strange looks. I felt like I was on an alien planet, but I was the one who looked like a martian.

And just past The Bull was Battery Park, which runs up and down the Hudson River for miles.  You can clearly see Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. We took a few nice long walks because it was so warm, thankfully! 

 This is a view of the New Jersey side of the Hudson River.

 This building is the old US Custom House. I loved the detail and statues all over it.  You could see a brand new building just in back of it. That seems to be how all of the buildings were: old and new, or at least old and restored.


 Just down the street is the building where George Washington took his oath of office.  It was a really neat old building. There were lots of tourists always taking pictures of this, too.

 Around the corner from Eric's apartment is the New York Stock Exchange, which is in another beautiful building, surrounded by stock brokers smoking their lungs out.  You would be amazed at the number of people who smoke. We couldn't walk down the street without holding our breath.

 This is the view of the Hudson River from the patio on the top of Eric's building. You can't even see the streets below because we were so high, and the streets are too narrow anyway.  But in every direction, there's buildings as far as the eye can see.  It's definitely beautiful in it's own way; but I prefer mountains as far as the eye can see.



 This building just had a weird top, so I took a picture.  Such a strange color.

Building a new skyscraper. That would not be my favorite job. 

This is one of the new Freedom Towers they're building near the WTC site. This one is just about a block away, and the other is adjacent to where the North Tower stood. They are nowhere as tall as the buildings that were hit, but it is good to see progress being made on them. 

Here are the pictures from the WTC site. We had to have reservations to get in (although it is free). We went through security screening that was just like in the airports.  You walk around a huge construction site, where they are beginning to build where some of the other buildings that were severely damaged stood.

In the footprints of the towers, there are now huge water fountains.  They drop 70 feet into the depths of where the lower levels were.  Surrounding each fountain are the names of all those who perished in the attacks on the WTC, the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania. Also included are the names of the 6 workers who died in the 1993 bombing of the WTC.  Names are grouped together by what company they worked for, or what Engine number they belonged to if they were firefighters. Friends' and family members' names are right next to each other, as suggested by surviving family members.

The Plaza is full of trees that were planted pretty recently.  After the towers fell, the immediate area was searched for surviving trees.  Nothing in the Plaza survived, but three different kinds of trees were in the area surrounding the Plaza.  They planted dozens of those types of trees for the new Plaza. They had also taken leaves off the surviving trees and made impressions of them, which they now sell in the Memorial building at the exit. I got one for Haley, and it's beautiful.

(South Tower) 




This is the chopper that was made by the American Chopper guys. It sits in the memorial/gift shop at the exit, along with several other belongings that were found in the rubble.



We walked around the area for awhile, and found ourselves on the north side. We looked back and realized that in this empty space, you would have been able to see the North Tower, but it is gone. I'm glad they didn't rebuild right over the top of where the towers were.  It's better to leave the space open, so that we don't forget.