Ebony and Ivory

As if she didn't have enough extra-curricular activities on her plate....Kalissa requested to add piano lessons a few months ago.  We had actually talked about piano lessons last year after her 1st grade teacher recommended them to assist with her math learning.  We didn't move forward with it then but since she was now interested on her own, we went ahead and did some research.  It wasn't easy to find an instructor but we finally did!

She now attends 30 minute weekly lessons and we had to invest in an electric piano (not to be confused with a keyboard) for home practice.  At the advice of her instructor, Mr. Fernando, we purchased a Casio Privia px160.  Apparently the difference between it and a keyboard is the feel of the keys which is paramount for learning piano. At her first lesson last week, Mr. Fernando assessed her sense of rhythm with a metronome and found that our baby has so much soul that he didn't think it necessary for us to buy one for home use 😁Last night was week 2's lesson and she has some major homework practice to do before next week.

She seems to be extremely motivated & eager to get better and Mr. Fernando thinks she's doing great so far.  In the meantime, we will be heavily utilizing the headphone jack on her piano at home!!

Hip Hop Run 2017

Hip Hop music + Running = Our definition of a great family outing!  A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across an ad for a Hip Hop Run in San Diego.  My interest was immediately piqued by the promise of DJs lining the course, spinning hip hop for the runners and the super cute finisher’s medal.  I checked with the family and they were all in so I signed us up for the 1/29/17 race!  If you know me, you know I LOVE a good theme.  And once I get started with a theme, there’s no stopping me!  I knew I was going to represent LL Cool J in this hip hop race…that was a given.  But who could Kali represent?  We decided on Salt N Pepa and she was TOOOOO cute!  The fact that she already knew “Push It” made it even better!  Daddy was going to be the hard one.  I knew he would not be overly happy to “dress up” and I didn’t want to push it (no pun intended) too hard, for fear he would nix the whole dress up part entirely.   He settled on Eric B & Rakim and even wore a fat gold chain! J  I was waaaaay too excited for this run!  The thought of being able to practically dance a whole 5k was sending me over the moon!  And it did not disappoint!  Kali and I were actually sick last week (and we only found out about this run 2 weeks ago) so we didn’t get much training in.  We had time to get in one 2.5 mile run two weeks ago and that was it so I wasn’t expecting great time results.  But I was wrong!  33 minutes and 30 seconds for Al & Kali and I crossed at 33 minutes and 37 seconds! I am super happy with this result because we hadn’t been training at all and we were just getting over being down with some pretty wretched colds. 

All in all, we had such a great time and I’m hoping this run will come back to San Diego next year!  ....but how ever will I top this year's costumes??

To top it all off.....the organizers of the event named us Best Dressed family!  How cool is that!?! ...and we made a cute cameo in their video ( :34 mark).

 

Training Days

The Whitakers are in official race training mode! On March 26, Kalissa will run her 2nd official 5k (alongside Daddy) while I take on the15k at the Hot Chocolate Run.  Last year, Kali ran the last 1/4 mile with me to the finish line but this year she will be an actual participant.

To get prepared, we hiked Cowles mountain yesterday.  This hike is nothing new as we've been climbing it for a little over a year now but we tried to add some speed to it for a true training session.  We completed the 3 mile, 1,592' ascent, trek in 65 minutes.  Not a bad benchmark but next time our goal will be under an hour.

Since I'm always lagging behind them, I get to hear other hikers comment on her athleticism and enthusiasm as she passes them up!  We try to make being healthy fun and rewarding so hopefully she will want to keep fitness as part of her life as she gets older!

Happy New Year!

Welcome 2017! 
Last night Daddy and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary with a delicious dinner at Fleming's Steak House. Kalissa and Qiana joined us for dinner this year with Kali giving us another heartfelt toast.  She's so profound! : )

After dinner, we went home and played board games until midnight, then toasted the New Year with sparkling cider and bid 2016 farewell!!

The USS Midway

We have lived in San Diego for many, many years and never once had I ever had the desire to visit the USS Midway.  My tune changed a couple of weeks ago when I visited for the first time, due to my employer being a title sponsor of the Poinsettia Bowl college football tournament.  There was an event hosted aboard the ship and I was in AWE!  I knew we had to bring Kalissa and Qiana is visiting with us this week so we thought now would be the perfect time to visit.  We spent 4 HOURS touring the ship and didn't even see all of it!  The girls had a great time!  I even rode the flight simulator but I will definitely not do that again (I'm old and get motion sickness pretty bad!).

We can wait to return and see the rest of it!

We Wish You a Merry Christmas!

What a great Christmas we had with our family this year!  It started out a little rough for me.  After 17 years of faithfulness, I made the hard decision to put Graham to sleep on Christmas Eve.  I know it was the right decision but was nonetheless a difficult time for me.  Kalissa, on the other hand, is now anticipating a new puppy but we are NOT taking that on any time soon...at least not until late next year :)

Christmas Day was wonderful.  Daddy cooked us a delicious breakfast and after opening our fabulous gifts, we headed to Sea World as we normally do.  This time was bitter sweet because it was the last time that we will see the killer whale shows as Sea World has discontinued them due to backlash from the documentary, "Black Fish".  It was a beautiful day in sunny San Diego and the girls had a good time, riding rides and taking in the marine life.  Kali even got her wish of playing in the snow thanks to Sea World's manufactured snow!

 

 



4 Eyes

Wow, so much has happened since my last blog post.  I got sucked in to the Facebook vortex as a means to post updates but I am happy to say that I have broken free!   Kalissa is now 7 1/2 years old and in 2nd grade.  At her 7 year check up in early August, she was 4' tall and weighed 54 pounds....and she is now wearing glasses!  Kali was complaining about blurry vision in her left eye for a few months so we had her vision checked at her annual check up.  Her pediatrician referred us to an optometrist who diagnosed her with amblyopia in the left eye, hypermetropia in both eyes and monocular esotropia in November.  These are fancy words meaning lazy eye, near-sighted, and cross eyed respectively.  You would think that with these 3 eye conditions, we would have noticed something was wrong by looking at her but luckily, none of the visual symptoms that usually accompany these conditions are apparent just by looking at her.  In children, these conditions can often be reversed by wearing glasses and/or a patch for a few weeks.  Her follow up appointment is approaching and we'll be able to find out if her vision is improving.  For now, she is LOVING her glasses (thank God!)