Tonight after Karate Andrew wanted to do one of the Color Blanks that he and Eva received as a gift from Uncle Jim. There are 6 in all and Eva did one while Andrew was at Karate so it was only fair that he wanted to do one as well. There are six animals in the box and he chose the turtle for his first one to create. He was really careful and meticulous about his design. He was quite proud of it, too.
He should also be proud that he earned his third stripe tonight at Karate. With that he has now earned his Green Belt and will be graduating this week. We were a bit unsure if he was going to make it to this rank this time around. He’s been a bit too silly, but apparently still not enough to pull it together when he needs to.
The photo was taken with my new Google Pixel 2 XL phone. I love this thing. It has a Portrait feature on it and that automatically blurred out the background to make Andrew really sharp. I am excited to see what else this phone can do.
For the past couple of years I have been fortunate to be home to get to go on the annual Christmas shopping trip with Uncle Jim, Allison and the kids. Uncle Jim comes into town and does his Christmas and birthday shopping for his Great-Nieces and Nephews. For a few years I have not been able to go because the trip would be on a weekend. Luckily, this year and last it was during the week and I could go along.
We went to Kohls over at Mansfield Crossing. This is a good place because it has so many things in one location. They also do some decent toy packages. The prices are marked up but then they are on crazy sales so it ends up working out okay. The kids picked out a birthday and a Christmas gift each and then one that they could share. This year the sharing gift was some Rose Art Color Blanks of animals with designs, sort of like the Mexican spirit animals from Coco. They both loved Coco so this was a natural fit for them. They even agreed on how best to divy up the animals in the package.
After our shopping we took Jim over to Mac and Walt’s for dinner. He took us out but we picked the place. It was excellent as always. We do love going there and even introduced Jim to fried pickles, a favorite of ours.
