Ella's 1st Basketball Season

We just put a wrap on Ella's first season in basketball.  I ended up coaching the team after there was a desperate plea for someone to volunteer and coach.  Coaching kids in basketball that have never played is actually pretty complex.  It is no wonder that soccer and baseball are so popular for kids, they are really easy.  Trying to teach 1st and 2nd graders about travelling, double dribbling, how to setup on offense and defense is really tough.


Ella did great, she really put a lot into practice and by the end of the season she was the team's best dribbler and defender.  She definitely wants to play more, we will probably look for some summer clinics and stuff so that she can continue to get better.

The team did great too, while we don't officially keep score, we for sure won more than we lost.  Looking forward to next season.

Ella's Writing

Ella is really getting into writing in school, she really enjoys writing about all kinds of things, but usually writes more non fiction than fiction.  Here are a few samples unedited to enjoy.  Sometimes she included a quick drawing to go with it, so I scanned those in when I could and included them below the writings.

I am going to start with our favorite one, which happens to be the most recent.  The class really put a focus on writing after getting back from Christmas, so this was her main story in a whole book of "Persuasive Letters" that was sent home recently.  Jump down to some of the letters beginning in January of 2012, and you can really see a big improvement in her writing very quickly.  I copied these verbatim, italics are her words exactly.

Not Title - 1/27/12
Dear owners of shelter,


Perhaps you know that poor NEED SHELTER?!  I want to tell you a few reasons to GIVE SHELTER TO THE POOR!  Every day the poor are FEERZING.  They have NO FOOD at all.  All they have is curmbs.  The kids that are poor don't have any toys.  They would want toys like other kids that are not poor.  They also have to live on SIDEWALKS.  I, Ella Wynn, declare that we Washongtin help the homeles with NOTHING.  P.S. I am not the govurment.  GIVE SHELTER TO THE POOR!


Do it for happiens!


We have had some conversations about how we can help the local homeless so that Ella learns to become part of the solution and not just complain about problems without doing anything about it.  She seems pretty encouraged to try and raise some money that we can take to a few local shelters to help out.

Christmas with the Wynns

With the holidays behind us, and us starting to get settled down and back into a routine, I finally found some time to get caught up on the site.  Small update on Christmas, which was great as usual.  While it is always hard to not be with our friends and family in Michigan around this time of year, we had a very enjoyable relaxing day on Christmas.

Both Ella and Max got way too many presents, which happens each year.  Ella snagged a guitar from Santa (arranging some lessons for both her and I right now), and Max scored a whole slew of brand new Lego sets from the fat man (that I then spent hours and hours building with him).

Sarah has made me promise that we will get to Michigan this year sometime between Christmas and New Years.  Looking forward to getting home and seeing a lot of people that I have not seen in several years now.
That is a serious amount of presents

2011 Florida Vacation Report

Finally getting around to writing down how we spent the rest of our vacation before Christmas.  In case you didn't know, a cruise was a big part of that trip and you can read everything about that here - http://www.the-wynns.com/2011/12/disney-cruise-review.html.  This will be another long post with a bunch of photos, hope that you have a few minutes.

After we finished the cruise, we were able to go to Disney to stay for about another week to have some fun together and see some friends.  My parents and Aunt Laurie were even to make it down for some time with us too.