What Is Your Life's Blueprint?
Six months before he was assassinated, King spoke to a group of students at Barratt Junior High School in Philadelphia on October 26, 1967.

I want to ask you a question, and that is: What is your life's blueprint?

Whenever a building is constructed, you usually have an architect who draws a blueprint, and that blueprint serves as the pattern, as the guide, and a building is not well erected without a good, solid blueprint.

Now each of you is in the process of building the structure of your lives, and the question is whether you have a proper, a solid and a sound blueprint.

I want to suggest some of the things that should begin your life's blueprint. Number one in your life's blueprint, should be a deep belief in your own dignity, your worth and your own somebodiness. Don't allow anybody to make you fell that you're nobody. Always feel that you count. Always feel that you have worth, and always feel that your life has ultimate significance.

Secondly, in your life's blueprint you must have as the basic principle the determination to achieve excellence in your various fields of endeavor. You're going to be deciding as the days, as the years unfold what you will do in life — what your life's work will be. Set out to do it well.

And I say to you, my young friends, doors are opening to you--doors of opportunities that were not open to your mothers and your fathers — and the great challenge facing you is to be ready to face these doors as they open.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great essayist, said in a lecture in 1871, "If a man can write a better book or preach a better sermon or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, even if he builds his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door."

This hasn't always been true — but it will become increasingly true, and so I would urge you to study hard, to burn the midnight oil; I would say to you, don't drop out of school. I understand all the sociological reasons, but I urge you that in spite of your economic plight, in spite of the situation that you're forced to live in — stay in school.

And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. don't just set out to do a good job. Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn't do it any better.

If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. If you can't be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.

Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If you can't be a highway, just be a trail. If you can't be a sun, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.

— From the estate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Do you see her sticking her tongue out? She gets it from her dad:

Boo! Happy Halloween! Jared was a Skull Warrior...whatever that is!

And Jacie? Well, surely you can tell who she went as...

And she even had her little dog, Toto:

The kids and I have gone on a couple of little trips recently.

We went to the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, SC, where we discoverd Jared is a bird whisperer of sorts:

And we went to Folley Beach:

Okay out of time...I'll post more tomorrow of the beach, Jacie's school party, Jared's BIG, HUGE award and possibly even more! So exciting!

And also, it's a little hard to post new pictures when I have to deal with the following...

Me: "Hey guys, I wan't to take your picture."

Them, doing a quick about face: "NO" (Alex is coaching Jared on how to get away from the camera....he's a bad Dad!)

Me: "Hey, turn back around...it's a picture for the blog! THE! BLOG!"

Them, walking into another room: "Grr...Go away"

Alex tells Jared: "The trick is to never give in to her. Eventually, she will just quit asking...trust me, son!"

Me: "PLEASE?!"

THEM, finally:

Ha! I love it when I get my way...so what if I had to chase them around the house and beg! At least I won and that is all that matters. Right?

Me: "Jacie, a lot of people think we look alike."

Her: "Uh, no!"

Me: "No? Why?"

Her: "My hair is longer and I don't have side bangs and I am shorter. And! My birthday is in December and yours is in July!"

Can't argue with that, people!

Quick Tae Kwon Do (TKD) lesson: Deputy Black Belt is the rank immediately before Black Belt. They are required to be Deputy Black Belts for at least 6 months and to have  a certain amount of leadership classes(where they help lead a lower belt class once a week-they started doing this as red belts) before they can test for their black belts.

(The quality of these videos is really not very good but it's the best we can do with the technology we have...hey, it's better than nothin', right? The video clips all start and end rather abruptly and you can ingnore the list of "related videos" that pops up after the clip is done playing because they aren't from us, they are just other videos on You Tube.)

Okay let's get this started:

The first part of the test is their "Poomse" (pronounced: poom-say) (or Form). Each higher belt rank has a more difficult poomse with more steps. They are always required to first do the previous belt test poomse before they are tested on the current poomse. You'll see both of the kids do both of the poomses here:

The second part of the test is "One Step Self Defense". They have 6 "One Steps" they perform against an "attacker" This would be a good time to tell you that ALEX was the camera operator, not me ;)

The next part of the test is sparring. This is not just a free for all fight-fest. They must do certain combinations and number of techniques, and do them properly, to get a point. Here Jared spars Drew:

When you spar you are always, always, matched up with someone close to your size, skill and belt rank. You see how Jared and Drew are pretty much the same size and it looked like a pretty even match. The same thing is true for Jacie and her sparring opponent...

Well okay it's not really the same thing with Jacie but there aren't any other tiny children her level to spar against so she almost always spars an instructor. It's a shame they don't enjoy Jacie at this school ;)

Next is board breaking. This is done at every belt level with progressively harder breaking techniques required. Sometimes it takes more than one try, no biggie

And sometimes it only takes one try!

The last part of this test is endurance. This only done at the higher belt levels. They have to do these kicks and follow it up very quickly with their first two forms they learned over 2 years ago:

Here they are receiving their new deputy black belts from Dr. King (she is in the blue) and Master King!

First we went to Paramount Carowinds here in Charlotte.

You may have heard--it has been very, very hot here lately. So we played it safe and waited until late in the day to head to the park.

Of course it was still pretty warm so Jacie wasted no time in jumping into the sprinklers:

Then we watched the park's big Nickelodeon parade:

Jacie is way too mature for Dora. She was not impressed...not in the least. No, that is NOT a half smile upon her face. She is too old for DORA! Quit suggesting she liked that part of the parade!

He definitely got a kick out of the Sponge Bob float...no one is ever too old for Sponge Bob!

Next it was time for rides:

Here are Alex and Jared in the front row of this crazy coaster.

What? Don't believe me? They really are riding in the front row of that coaster!!

Here is proof. See the picture of them on the monitor. Never doubt me again. Oh and Jared loved it!

Jacie wasn't going to ride that big thing!  Para-sailing over the ocean, sure! Big crazy roller coaster...not on your life!

"No way!"

So while the guys rode the roller coaster she drug me to a harmless "hot air" balloon ride. The balloons went up, of course, but that is not all. They also went around.

And around.

Faster and faster. Higher and Higher.

Until the world was nothing but a blur. Good thing I didn't eat before this ride!

After I got over the motion sickness we caught up with the boys. And we had lots more fun. But there aren't anymore pictures because my camera batteries died. You'll just have to take my word for it that there was lots of good times!

Here is our one family shot:

  Someone is missing.

Hmm, still not right.

  Close enough.

More summer fun photos coming in the next couple of days so be sure to come back!

I've added a page. Go check it out and then be sure to come check again in the next couple of days as I will be adding Jacie's page and more pictures!

So the other day I  figured out that my digital camera can record short video clips. Cool! Too bad there is no sound, though!

Oh well! Can you guess what she is saying?
Toolazyto Scrapbook and Vimeo.

You will say: "But, you are putting pictures of your kids on the internet! For the whole world to see! Are you crazy? What if some weird internet person sees them?"

I hear ya and all I can say is that I won't give out our address, telephone number, or anything at all personal. And I'll keep their heads covered with a paper bag when we go out in public. Not really.

Now that we have that settled-

Family, friends, non-weirdo-internet-strangers: My kids!

J-man.

Look at those blue eyes!

Our girl. She's too cool in those new Chucks (hint: Chucks = shoes, very cool shoes)!

Lots more to come soon. I even have a video of the girl. Video!

Do me a favor, would ya? Leave a comment and let me know how the place looks and if you can see the pictures. Just click on the "comments" link right below this post and type in the comment box. You don't even have to leave your email address which is why I chose typepad instead of blogger, it's much easier for the commentor. It's all about you, people!