The Pascoal Family Virtual Scrapbook: CJs Birthday

On Saturday, we celebrated our friend CJ's 7th birthday with him at his Taekwondo School, Jaime's ATA Black Belt Academy in Lincoln. His instructor, Mr. Meyer, was EXCELLENT and knew just how to interact with the kids. The party began with a lesson for everyone. They taught excellent skills for the kids, like reinforcing that we don't let strangers touch us, how to say "STOP! Leave me alone!", how we should always listen to our parents, and lots of moves that looked oh-so-cute when the youngin's copied them. Aiden and Jeremy listened really well. We were impressed! Jeremy wandered off his spot a couple times- but he's only 2, so we'll give him a break!

CJ really stepped up into a leadership role in that environment. He was great at helping out the kids and gently redirecting his sister Kiera and also Jeremy!

The lesson was followed by cake and presents, a game, and CJ breaking a wooden board that all the kids signed for him to keep! It was really cool.

After the party, we drove to Loomis where the Choose Christ retreat was taking place. Andrew and most of his siblings participated in this program back in their teens. So we went to visit some of the old gang and support the retreat. It was nice to see everyone especially in such a loving environment. The boys went wild with all of the open space to run. Luckily, it was quite noisy during their running, as there was a large group (and I mean LARGE - like 35 people or more) playing pass the cup (*singing* pass the cup to the right like this...).

Aiden Kicking