Atlanta Math Fest 2008

Today was Pheonix's big day, it was the next level of Mathfest. Her along with 7 other first graders (and 45 other students from the other grade levels) from her school we made the trek to Atlanta for her to compete. We started this whole journey with absolutely no expectations, and as such we did nothing to prepare her for the competition except to tell her to have fun and do her best. I do not think she understood how big of a deal she could have made it. Chris and I were more nervous for her than she was for herself, which was good I hope.
So out of the eight first graders from her school participating, six of them (out of 200 total first graders) made it to the top 50 and moved on to the second round. Phoenix made it somewhere in the top 30 (between 20 and 30), they only gave medals to the top 16. I was very proud of her. There were kids coming out of the second round room (it felt like American Idol while we waited outside the door for the kids to come out when they were eliminated) bawling their eyes out, they were so crushed. Phoenix comes out looking a little worried, but she sits in my lap and says its ok because the rest of her friends were still in there and she was proud of them! I was truly impressed. So of course I asked her what kind of problems she was missing she tells me, I was astounded at the complexity of the problems they were giving first graders, and they were getting them right. She said she got the problem X + 41 = 185 what is x right but missed the 38 times 3 because she only had 5 seconds to answer the problem and could not write 38 down tree times to add them together in 5 seconds. Right before she was eliminated one of the proctors came out and told us these first graders are doing 3rd and 4th grade math.
The whole event was well organized, there was a a huge exhibition hall with games set up all over, games that encourage math of course. While waiting for their event the kids could play the games and earn tickets to redeem for prizes. That was a lot of fun.

Mother and Daughter

People always tell me my daughter looks like me, I just do not see it, but I ran across this picture of the two of us taken not so long ago and boy it just jumped out at me. she is her mothers daughter.

Easter

Another year, in a few short days Phoenix will be 7 (count them 7) years old. Unbelievable how fast time goes. We spent our weekend doing the usual Easter Activities, we had an Easter Egg hunt and egg toss at church..check out daddy and daughter nailing those tosses. I think they make a great team, they did not win, daddy overthrew one time and the egg went rolling into the parking lot where it met it's demise. After the Easter Egg Hunt Phoenix performed in a dinner theater production of Fish Tales, very cute! Let me tell you , she had to make her statement. She was very upset she was not chosen for a solo and She told me that they picked girls you could barely hear, so she protested by singing at the top of her voice for all the songs. You could hear her above everyone! Somehow we ended up going home with four more additions to the family, two Mickey's, a Minnie and a Pluto ( I think they are lobbying for a Disney Vacation). Yep, every kid went home with two goldfish, lucky us. Thats her and Griffin with their two best friends Savannah and Montana.




We spent Easter Morning hunting Easter Baskets, at church, and having our own little hunt in the front yard. Sometimes I long for the day when we do not have to do so much for Easter and/or Christmas, but I know that means they have to grow up so I will cherish this as long as I can.






It's been the first Easter we have not had a house full here in Georgia and I kind of missed the hubbub. Never thought I would say that, as much as I like my quiet and like to be a homebody I missed having people around. Guess I get that from my mom.

Hope everyone had an awesome Easter!

For Stacie

My cousin wanted pictures so here are pictures.

Reminiscing

So, Club Scrap started the Pro Scrapbooking League a few weeks ago and I eagerly was drafted onto the red team. There are weekly challenges that are very specific and this weeks challenge is mix and match, that is to create scrapbook pages using elements from at least three different Club Scrap kits. Well, I thought it would be fun to go through some old photos and get some of those on those pages. OMG, not such a good idea. I have spent the entire week going through photos and reminiscing (weepy eyed of course) and not finished (well lets be honest, I have not even started) a page. But I ran across something interesting...almost telling...maybe a little too telling. I have no idea when I wrote it...sometime before I got married..anyway it was a list of the 100 things I want to accomplish in my lifetime. I only got to 54 things at that point in my life. Now there are some of the predictable goals like:

Get Married (done)
Become a Mom (done)
Celebrate my 5th anniversarry (done)
Celebrate my 10th anniversary
Go to NYC
See the Grand Canyon
Own a home (Done)
Run a 5 K (Done)
Have a garden (did that in Florida)
Spend New Years Eve in New York
Hike the Appalachian Trail
Earn my Professional Engineering Liscense (done)

I can say of all those above I have not done, I'd still like to do. Then there were things that very obviously had to do what I was involved with at that time in my life like:

Site see at Florida Southern (not sure why thats there)
Visit Arcadia Catholic Charities (again..I am at a loss here)
Earn my Advance Toastmaster Bronze Award (yeah...I was very involved in toastmasters back then..not so much now)

And then there are the ones I probably thought I would never accomplish back then but decided to put them on there like:

Make all my Christmas Gifts (Done...did that this year..go figure!)
Teach Sunday School (did that this year too)
Leave Florida (did that too)

Out of 54 I listed I am sadly reporting I have only accomplished 10.

I think it is time to update this list, and hang it on the bulletin board so I can get busy learning how to paint, buying a motorcycle, seeing Mt Rushmoor, travelling to Australia, going to Africa, buying Gator Football Season Tickets, buying a sailboat, helping a soup kitchen, riding a train cross country, etc, etc, etc....

We tried to cure the doldrums...

So it was such a beautiful day today we decided we should spend at least part of it outside.

Ok, in my family we cannot make decisions, the morning chatter went something like this...."So maybe we should go to Amicalola Falls, they are having a backpacking clinic today...or how about going to home depot and buying some pine straw, renting an auger and doing some landscaping in the front yard...or maybe we should take a trip to Cloudland Canyon so we can get another punch in our canyon climbers card...or how bout a breakfast at Amicalola Falls Lodge and a quick hike to the base of the falls then we can come home and work in the yard..." You get the picture. We did end up driving to Amicalola Falls and eating breakfast and peeking in on the backpacking clinic. But we really wanted to do a hike so we set off the Chattahoochee National Forest, without a map mind you. We were looking for Dukes Creek falls Trail or Springer Mountain (the Southern terminus of the Appalachian trail). We did find signs for each of these and we drove aimlessly in the forest on Forest Service Roads for most of the afternoon, but the only trail we found was a not so pretty or well maintained trail around a wetland that was dry. Oh well...we need to invest in some maps if we are going to go on these adventures. We could not have been too far from Springer Mountain, and the kids really wanted to set their feet on the Appalachian Trail. We were traversing along the crests of some mountains, and the view was beautiful, but we did not find a trail head. We came upon the Army Ranger Training Facility, a trout hatchery, lots of neat camping sites, but no Springer Mountain Trail. So eighth hours later, with nothing accomplished we wended up back home.

The doldrums....

Well, as I come off a week of being sick, with the week before being totally crazy because my brother likes to make a habit of going through near death experiences, I find myself kind of bored...yep bored. I played in my scrap room today (it really , really needs to be cleaned and organized, maybe my mom will come do that for me when she is done cleaning Kevin's place) but even playing with scraps did little to lift me out of this doldrum mood. Oh well. Trying to talk hubby into loading the tent up and going on an impromptu camping trip, we will see how that goes.

So I somehow got roped into a years worth of personal training sessions (twice a week for 52 weeks) with a gal from work. It started innocently enough, when we were at the gym one day she said she was going to go talk to a personal trainer. She figured she would get some input since she only has an hour at lunch and she wants to make the most of that hour. Oh, see if he will train two at a time and maybe we can save some money. Well, I got called away when Kevin decided to crash himself on the bike. Meanwhile, Audie sees the trainer, who decides he wants to see her twice a week for a year. When I arrived back she asked if I was still interested and I said of course, and she imed me saying he wants to see me twice a year...which I though was odd, of course I wanted more than twice a year, and she imed me back saying twice a week. I said great not realizing it was twice a week for a year and its a contract thing. Probably would be a good thing for me since I can't seem to be accountable to myself and there is that whole class reunion thing coming up and I really need to get all the weight off I've been carrying since I was pregnant with my six year old (very convenient excuse, but for crying out loud it's been six years). So I start Tuesday with Robert....

Well guess I should go tend to dinner before it burns...