First Tournament

Today I am going to skip the part where I apologize for not posting anything and hope to fix what I am doing wrong but since this has done nothing in the past lets move right into the Beef in this mighty burger that is my blog shall we. Today as you could tell was my first tournament in the ATA world and I left very proud of myself. Today I left with three different trophies. One trophy each category. The different categories are Form, Weapon, and sparring. I got a second place trophy for Weapon and a 3rd place trophy for sparring. To top it all off is that the only reason why I didn't get first in forms is because I tied with the other person and I screwed up the second time around with the moves. Well either way for a first time tournament I can't argue with at least one trophy earned and not to mention 3. If you want to dad has gotten some recordings of it all so even though it might be a little shaky at times it is still something to give you all an idea. Warning I sucked at sparring so be aware of this before watching. I am also the person facing the camera in the beginning in sparring.

Form
Weapon
Sparring


You might all remember my reading program where I have to read at least 4000 pages before the end of the year. Well I am absolutely decimating the system and I have read about 3200 pages so far and that has been withing the few weeks that I have known about my chain. Of course were going to have to make the chains much longer or rewards farther between since we have seen the how fast we can all read. I haven't read very much but I have taken a liking to a couple of Kristi's books from here Nook. The first one that got me started was Look Me In The Eyes which wasn't that bad so it got me started on the other 3 from them. The one I'm currently on which I have taken a break from is Raising Cubby. This is about An autistic dad raising his autistic son which has lead to some really fun stuff that they do together or separate.

Recently I got in contact with my mom and this has been a great chance for us both. I know I don't talk about my mom very much on this blog but despite this she has been extremely important in helping me be the person that I am now. She has been having some problems lately which has been keeping here from coming around and seeing us recently but we got in contact and set up a date to see each other and we got to have a great day of just hanging around and catching up. The main reason that made it so great is that we haven't really been seeing each other at all lately so it was fantastic to be able to sit down and talk. We got together for lunch and some movies at her house and while I'm not a big movie watcher it didn't matter because it was all really cool just to be with my mom again. We ate some Bratwursts which is a tradition over at my moms because we have some very heavy German background as well as a love for Brats in the family. We all love to gather at the grill in the family and talk on the Schmutzler side of the family. Even if there is nothing to talk about we can find something in the long run.

Apologies All Around

I'm so sorry everyone I can't seem to remember anything unless it means that I am having a certain level of fun. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy typing up a blog entry but it does not get me up in the morning every day either. Even then saying that fun is what gets me remembering things can be somewhat of a lie considering that having fun with something else can help me forget something important as well. I didn't get any notification system set up or anything like that because I said I would and then forgot the next day about my plans which makes me feel like a liar which doesn't help out my apology to everyone.

Recently I have been attending more classes in Tae Kwon Do. This fills up my schedule for at least 4 days of the week which isn't that bad but it makes things a little bit harder to plan for my Summer. I have been enjoying going up there but things are a little bit tight considering that I am doing the morning classes now to help keep things smoother with the family for the Summer and I won't have to worry about the rest of my day afterward. The only problem with this is that open mat is currently only in the afternoon or else I would get that out of the way in the morning but it isn't as important as the actual classes due to the fact that open mat is just practice so I can do that at home but going to open mat helps me out a little bit to help me remember to practice at all.

Along with my usual summer schedule of slacking off and Tae Kwon Do I have begun reading like a mad man. This is mainly due to the fact that we have gotten a new system for reading in out household that lets us earn certain things from reading a certain amount of pages. Each of us has a certain goal at the end of the chain as well. For my brother Nate he will be going fishing with our Grandpa and Uncle while Zoe will be going roller skating with friends. For me I will be going paint balling with all of my friends. That doesn't mean there isn't anything to earn along the way. Some of the things include eating at Rusty Horse Tavern with Dad or even having a couple of friends spend the night. There is a lot to do before Summer is up and I hope to share those things a minimum of once a week. I do need to try harder to get in a proper blog during the week. I'll make sure to try hard for the next one.

Keeping up with changes

Sorry about keeping everyone waiting for another blog entry I know that I said I would do one every week but it has been difficult. I am going to be seeing about getting notification on Thursdays so that I can post on time. I haven't been doing too well so far because of the fact that I always seem to forget that my blog exists because I'm busy with my friends or reading or doing some kinda project on my computer. Other then those  things I do things with the parents like going to super splash USA.

A really good example on what I do with my family is something like last Sunday. What happened is that Kristi's church had bought this really large and nice church but it wasn't really what they needed at the time and it put them into debt while also being too big for them. What happened is that the pastor had found someone to buy the church from them and then pay off the rest of the debt which is fantastic for them so they went out and found a smaller area that is a small strip mall. If you remember my day I was doing demolition on March 6th which was me helping out with the renovation of the place. Well we all celebrated the progress of what we had accomplished with some fantatic food which I sadly have not taken a picture of. Either way things were great and happy and I was really surprised to see the progress of what the church had accomplished so far. I have a reason of liking this church more then the others and why I would go to this church willingly with no fuss. The reason why is because this is one of the few churches that doesn't care about just itself but instead uses most of its' money to help those who need it more then those from the church.

I had a little bit of a crisis this week which had been driving me crazy. It had felt as if I was still in school and that summer just wasn't the same as it used to be. What happened is that Kristi had decided to help by bringing me and my friends over to super splash USA which was extremely fun and we all had a good time. Afterwards we came home and settled down for some gaming and then went our separate ways. Later that night I had decided to ask for some dessert and while I had ice cream earlier dad had made some fantastic parfaits. I loved these because they had chocolate pudding, bananas, vanilla wafers, whip cream, and then shaved dark chocolate over the top complete dad's masterpiece. It was a fantastic way to end the day and a great reminder that it is summer whether I feel like it is or not.