More Black Belt Testing

Jingle Bell looks ready to watch "The Polar Express" and have some hot chocolate!  There's a new mug to add to the collection, one with the word "BELIEVE" on a ticket, and yes, there's one of those ticket too.  Oh, and some hot chocolate too!

Maddie was off to school this morning, and we're back to normal in a way.  Although today we were pretty much recovering for a good bit.  We spent a good bit of time working on Christmas cards today, filling out names, writing notes, writing addresses, and putting down Christmas-themed stamps.  Tomorrow we'll send out our first batch, and then we'll send out a few more shortly after that.  We've gotten about fifteen to twenty or so cards thus far, and it's certainly nowhere near as many as what used to be sent.  Soon Christmas card sending will be old news, like Blockbuster VHS tapes or Christmas Seals.  Anyway, we found some great cards, ones with Biblical verses - one set has a Nativity scene on it, and the other set we found has cardinals on it, with the same message from our tree:  "Let Heaven and Nature Sing."

We did some quick shopping today, but we got back in time to go pick up Maddie from school.  While waiting in line, I was reading Hogfather, still going through that book and hopefully done by Christmas.  But the other thing tonight was a testing session for Maddie at taekwondo.

This is testing #2, something she'll have periodically as she moves forward in classes.  I think there are five or six of these tests, and then after that she earns her second degree black belt.  She's wanting to get there, and after that, we'll see what happens next.  Anyway, tonight's black belt class started out with some sparring, which you can see above.  There were other parts of testing, all ending at the point where Maddie did her form in front of Master Edge and the rest of the class.

She did really well, of course!  And so did all the other students too.  Afterwards, there was acknowledgement of each student's accomplishment, so I snapped a few pictures of Master Edge congratulating Maddie in front of the class.

After that, it was time for some practice for this Friday's ceremony.  Maddie's black belt ceremony is upcoming, and that will be a special night.  

We got home, and she had a bit of homework.  But we still put up a tree in her room, one she'll decorate tomorrow.  We were watching a few episodes of a television show where houses were going crazy decorating their yards and so forth with amazing displays of lights and so much more.  But we were still pretty worn out from Sunday - it was such a long day.  We got upstairs to read, and then to pray... and then we were all asleep shortly afterwards...