Last Friday we saw the movie "Night at the Museum 2". The only part I didn't like was the fact that they never showed out the Smithsonium cleaned up. Great movie. I recommend it.

Tonight we saw "Up". I am told it is based on the book "21 Balloons". It was also a really great movie.

Community Service Recognition

It's been a busy time here the past few days, but I wanted to post a quick update with the few minutes available right now.

As you may or may not know, Grace has been working hard since we moved here putting in a lot of time training and running 5K races in the KC area. Through the hours of training and participating in these races, she has helped raise awareness and funds for a variety of important causes including research in viral myocarditis and preventing sudden cardiac death in children, the Fox 4 Love Fund for Children, Harvesters, Parkinson's Research, Brain Tumor Research (and many more). Lakewood Elementary is great about encouraging community service among its students and as a result, Grace was recognized for the 110 hours she has put forth since August. Amazingly, the students of the school contributed over 4,000 hours of their time to give back to the community through various means. It's great to be encouraged by so many young people!

Contact me for information on upcoming events and feel free to join her!

Chicken Scampi

Today I was searching for a fast recipe that didn't use a lot of ingredients so I didn't have to run out for something unique. I ended up searching my trusty recipe box on "allrecipes.com" and found this yummy recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chicken-Scampi-II/Detail.aspx

I used a premixed Italian Herb mix from the Planters Seed and Spice company instead of the individual spices ( http://www.plantersseed.com/). I also added white wine as suggested in some of the comments. It is definitely a "make again" recipe!

Next time I will make sure to have a loaf of fresh bread to serve with it. If I plan it out properly I would also add red and yellow peppers near the end of the cooking time as another reviewer suggested.

Some may want to rename this recipe to "Heart Attack in a Pan" due to the excess amounts of butter and oil. However, it is well worth every drop:)

Bon Appetit!

Poetry, Punch, and Lunch!

This morning I had a nice time visiting Grace's classroom for poetry readings from her class (they served punch). They have been working on poetry for several weeks and did a fine job presenting the fruits of their labor. Some classes even wrote poems all over the sidewalk around the front of the school too!

I also attended a wonderful Volunteer Luncheon put on by the staff at school to thank everyone who has volunteered their time throughout the school year. It was great! I was so full I couldn't eat snacks at Costco today:)

Field Day...

Today Lakewood Elementary held their annual Field Day. I volunteered to help and spent the morning watching kids throw hula hoops on safety cones (they did really well) and the afternoon monitoring the back end of a gigantic blow-up obstacle course.

Anastasia's favorite event at field day was Tug of War (the girls won).

Grace's favorite event at field day was water ball toss.

It was cloudy much of the day, but thankfully the rain held out until the kids were done with Field Day activities. Now it's pretty gloomy and rainy so we will be finding indoor activities to occupy our time.

Have an awesome weekend!

KC Zoo...

Today I spent the day keeping four 1st grade students happy at the KC Zoo. Overall they were well behaved. The worst part was the scariness of the suspension bridge, which was swaying like CRAZY because there were SO MANY schools visiting the zoo today. But I made it through and everyone made it back safely. We were even able to please everyone by seeing all the animals on everyone's list with a final jaunt from Africa to Australia to see the Red Panda's (it's quite a jaunt at this zoo just like in real life). The only animals we didn't see that were on the list were the animals that are not actually on display at the zoo like the Polar Bears and Beavers.

Peace.

Grace's Birthday

Uncle Gary helped Grace celebrate her 11th birthday last week.

Race Pictures and Mathletics....

Today Grace was so excited to compete in the Mathletics competition after school. She was even assigned to a team with her friend, Amrutha. Her team did really well and took 3rd place!

I am also attaching a couple pictures from the Mother's Day 5K on Sunday. The "start" photo shows Grace right out in front. The girl near her in all red is the person who came in first place overall. The other photo shows Anastasia's incredible stride as she sprinted to the finish of the 5K. Enjoy!

Happy Mother's Day!

Today I ran my first 5K. I "ran" with Anastasia and we completed it in about 45 minutes (which is the time I was shooting for). Actually Anastasia liked to sprint then walk, sprint then walk, etc. Toward the end she was pretty tired and I eventually convinced her we could sprint the last 100 yards to the finish. Grace did awesome and came in 4th place with a time of 25:15 in the age 11-14 category. Anastasia came in 31st place in the 10 and under category (and her friend, Deven was 32nd place--Deven ran with a very steady pace). I was 63rd in the "old fogey" age group. All the race results can be found at http://www.mararunning.org/mothers2009.htm

I will update this post with pictures soon. I just haven't checked to see what kind of pictures Guy took today.

I have to go so I can eat my French Toast which my family made for me:)

Life is busy as usual and I REALLY hope to update the blog with the many things that have happened this year very soon, but the big news of the week can't wait. We now have a new niece (Eric and Jasmine are finalizing an adoption this week). With that, we welcome Jenavieve Ruth Kapri Sovel-Charnesky to the Charnesky family. She was born on May 6th at 1:34 pm, weighing 5 lbs, 7 oz and is 18 inches long. We look forward to meeting her in August when we are scheduled to return to Michigan.

Last Thursday, Grace was in a musical with about 150 other kids in her 5th grade class. It was really fun and she had a great time.

Saturday Grace ran a 5K in Olathe and did really well. She took 4th place with a time of 26:49 in the 14 - 9 year old category (after they changed the original age categories... with no change she would have been 1st).

Monday, Uncle Gary came to visit for a few days. Wednesday we celebrated Grace's 11th birthday and stuffed ourselves silly with our favorite barbecue at Jack Stack and finished off the stuffing process with the big chocolate cake from Costco (you know I would have baked her a cake if I had the appropriate pan, but things are limited here).

Last night Grace played in the spring orchestra concert. It was excellent as always.

Grace, Anastasia and I are entered in a 5K race on Mother's Day. It is a "girls" only event. I will try to post news on this soon after it happens.

There's a brief update. Hope everyone is having a great spring!