More Crystals!

Our rock candy ended up in the win column. Mom learned a few things to make the process go more smoothly next time and the kids got a tasty examples of crystals to admire.

I'm a bit behind the times as these pictures were taken several days before Valentine's Day. We have even been continuing the crystally fun...more on that soon!

En Garde!

Bug and Bean both joined a local fencing club just after the first of the year.  Bug adored it from day one, practicing advances and retreats and lunges as he moves around the house.  Bean was a bit more skeptical.  She is at the young end of the club and things weren’t falling in place as easily for her as they were for Bug, who is both older and more agile.  But we have been sticking to it and keeping on and last week they were rewarded with getting equipment to use and getting to fence in their first bouts. 

  

Both of them were very nervous about being shish-kebabbed and half convinced that they were going to die from stab wounds, so I was curious to see how it would go.  Their opponents were a brother and sister pair that were the next newest of the newbies. They fought valiantly:

Miss Bean was a bit tentative (which isn’t exactly a huge surprise for those who know her personality), but nevertheless managed to back her opponent almost to his end of the strip twice, but still lost three touches to zero.

Bug jumped right in (which is also not a big surprise to those who know him) and scored two touches before his opponent got her bearings and ended up beating him three to two.

I remembered to get a picture of Bug shaking his opponents hand after the match:

I will admit a bit of trepidation after the matches as some of us are not known for being gracious losers and were very nervous about the whole thing to start with, but, after I checked for stab wounds that might leak when drinking water, I was very pleased with the verdict:  Huge smiles, sparkling eyes, and unanimous declarations of “That was SO awesome!”