From Yellow Belt to Orange Belt!

YAY EVIE! Another belt testing "under her belt!"
Evie is climbing up the belt ladder again.. not as swiftly this time, but she is doing it the right way! Above is her essay that she had to write.
We were very excited and proud to have her Uncle David, Aunt Lauren, cousins Di, Zadee, Joel and Rick with us to witness her testing.
She did a fantastic job! Thanks to David and Joel for these pictures!!

Evie kickin' butt again!

Hey all!!
Well.. I know that I had mentioned in an earlier post that Evie had switched taeqwondo schools last summer... long story.. Anyway, they had let her keep her current belt rank (4th) in the new school but Evie had trouble keeping up with all of the new moves.. turns out even the white belts at this new school were ten times more advanced than the camo belts in her old school.. so we made the decision to demote her back to white belt. It was for the best because she is learning the techniques and has power and conviction behind what she does.. plus she is learning WAY more steps and respect.
Evie FINALLY graduated a few weekends ago to a yellow belt (2nd rank). She has never been so proud! She EARNED this belt, that's for sure! We keep telling her.. "it's not a race to get to black belt", (it was scheduled at the last school whether you were ready or not). So she knows that she's not gonna get that promotion until it's perfect! It makes her try even harder!

Here are some pics from graduation.

Belt Promotion Time!

Evie had a mid-term graduation tonight.. she now holds the rank of "Lion Patch" to her camoflauge belt.. in 8 weeks she'll test for her green belt!

Congrats, Evie! And great job sparring tonight!!!

Evie's 6th Birthday Party!

Evie had her birthday party today at her taeqwondo academy. She had 18 friends attend and it was an awesome event! She even got to be a black belt for the day!! Thanks to Mandi for the awesome cupcakes and to Miss Melanie for conducting a fun party!

Evie's first tournament!

Evie participated in her very first martial arts tournament today!
She did a fantastic job!

Here she is with her friend, Chloe and Miss Melanie




I took 4 videos of her being judged and receiving her enormous trophy for "Best Intensity"..








We are so proud of you, Evie! Keep up the good work!

CAMO BELT!

She did it again! Another belt promotion! At this rate, we'll have ourselves a black belt in no time!

She has really grasped the concept of how important learning the techniques are to her. Her jumping front kicks tonight were phenomenal!

Here's the video of Evie receiving her camo belt.. you can hear Mr. Master's booming voice when he yells Evie's name and then you can see Miss Melanie not wanting Evie to have her camo belt.. (means she's going on to a new class and Mel doesn't want to let go of her leaders).



And here she is with her new belt and Mama tightening it. Camo looks good on her!

Cheetah Patch!

Evie's new rank as of tonight, Cheetah Patch! It's her mid term rank to her Yellow belt.. and in 8 weeks, she'll be a camo belt! Amazing. This girl rocks!

Here I am tying on her promotion headband and she's holding the patch that I am to sew onto her belt.





And here she is yet again with the Number One Instructor, Miss Melanie Newberry



Congratulations, Evie!

Our Super Star!

So I get an email from my friend, Kacee telling me that she saw Evie in the Central Illinois Families Magazine that was in Saturday's News Gazette. She was telling me that it was a big picture and a couple of small ones. I called the News Gazette and picked up a few copies yesterday and was so suprised to see that Evie was in so many pics and that the "big" picture was in fact an entire page photo!!!

Check this out!
And if you click on the pictures you can blow it up to read the article... it's actually quite good!

Table of Contents page.. first pic is Evie!


Top WHOLE page for the sports section:




First page of article.. she's in line waiting to do kicks...



And then the 2nd page of article, she's blocking Miss Melanie's punches..




I scanned the magazine pages and the magazine is pretty large so it was kind of tricky for me to get the whole page so I apologize for some missing edges on the article but you can still make out what it says. (If you blow up the pictures anyway)

Just wanted to share it with you! I'll be sharing graduation pics with you later tonight or tomorrow as Evie has mid term belt graduation tonight.. she'll have a "Cheetah" patch and headband to accompany her yellow belt.. in 8 weeks, she'll be a camo belt! WOW!

A class with a World Champion Extreme Martial Artist

We had an amazing morning! Today is Newberry's 20th Anniversary teaching Martial arts and they are having Open House. Evie's Tiny Tigers had an hour long class with 4th degree black belt Mr. Von Schmeling, a world champion. He was awesome! And he brought one of his students with him, (Mr. Harley) who was amazing as well.. I forgot my camera and my video camera :( and that sucks because they were doing flips and jumps over kids heads and other extreme martial arts stuff. The kids were in awe and were great students. I thought Evie did very well.. she didn't have the "wiggles" and stayed focused the whole time. Mr. Von Schmeling also noted that in front of the class. I was so proud ;) All of the kids were fantastic, though.. not just Eve.

I took a pic of Evie and the Masters with my camera phone, so the quality is poor. And I scanned Evie's autographed picture of Mr. Von Schmeling.
These guys are world reknowned, so it was pretty exciting!

And then when we got home, Evie was practicing flying side kicks on my kitchen island.. and I looked over and saw Evan doing it, too! It was pretty funny, to say the least! I had to take a video..


I think I have another martial artist on my hands!

YELLOW!!

Another successful graduation.. Evie is now a yellow belt!
Congrats, Evie! You are one step closer to your black belt!



Here she is receiving her belt


and just for fun, here is Miss Melanie demonstrating what the kids will be learning in the next 8 weeks.. the flying side kick!



YAY EVIE!

My Martial Artist

Wow.. Evie had professional pictures taken by Boster's photos a while back and they just came in.. They turned out fantastic!
http://www.photo-kicks.com/ is the link to the martial arts photographers.
They know how to capture the moment because they themselves are martial artists.





The first pic is actually a poster that says "Confidence" at the bottom, but it was too large to scan... it looks amazing, though!

Tomorrow night is Graduation!!! She will be a YELLOW Belt!

Evie's 2nd martial arts graduation!

YAY! Evie is a "Tiger Patch"! A Tiger Patch is a mid term graduation promotion that is added to an orange belt. She wears an orange "Tiger" headband and a patch on her belt.

A quick video of her receiving her patch..


In 8 weeks, if she passes her tests, she will be a yellow belt! Hard to believe that she is advancing so quickly.. but she is just enjoying this so much and doing a fantastic job! She received gloves and boots that she will start using once a week in class to get her used to sparring gear. We can't thank the Newberry Family enough for their great support in Evie's accomplishments! They are the best teachers in martial arts, PERIOD! I'm so greatful that we chose them over all others because of their family oriented class, their discipline and the love and kindness they show my daughter and the other students. Master Tina Newberry even took time out of her hectic schedule to talk to me on parental stuff at my request... who does that???!!!!

Here is Evie getting ready to demonstrate some moves with Destiny Newberry,



Receiving her headband and patch




With the BEST teacher (and Evie's best friend) in the entire world hands down, Miss Melanie

And the proud parents!


Congratulations Evie!!!!

More of Evie at the festival

Grandpa took these awesome pictures of Evie on stage!!!!

Standing like a black belt



Power Punch!




Front kick




That girl amazes me!!

SWEET! (corn festival!)

YEAH! Evie was asked to do a martial arts demonstration today for the Urbana Sweet Corn Festival!



I am very proud of her! I took a video of the entire program.. check back, I may or may not upload it to YouTube and put it on the blog, it's 25 minutes or so long, though. She did a fantastic job! She is the only one that is not wearing her uniform jacket, so you'll see her with the red Newberry Academy t-shirt. It was so hot, (97 degrees) and we weren't told (well, at least I wasn't) that she had to wear full uniform, so I had her wear her summer program shirt which she wears to class. I felt kinda bad that she was the ONLY one not in full dress, but you know.. I'm kinda glad! I could find my girl easily and she wasn't as boiling hot as the rest! There were only two Tiny Tigers selected to represent the group so it was aweome that Evie and her friend, Anju, got to be up center stage in front of the crowd!

Congrats Evie!!

(And thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Hoctor, Hope and family and Kacee and family for attending!)

Here are Evie and John Michael walking and eating together discussing the music that was on the other stage as we were walking by.. they thought it was "terrible" LOL
I think John Michael's word was "Yuck!"




On the way home, we saw a group of girls doing a fundraising car wash and Evie and I thought it would be fun to let them wash the van.. Evie said that she would like to "try to help".. the girls loved her! And the van is shiny!