Destination ImagiNation and The Wiz

Hola! (Just so you know, I have tried for 5 minutes to get these spaces edited out of the post! I don't know why they won't "delete." I'm giving up on that computer glitch, but I thought I'd type IN the spaces so you know why they are there...) **You can also click on photos to enlarge them.**

I haven't said much about Kara's most recent successes...she's been working with a team for D.I., or Destination ImagiNation. It's kind of like Science Olympiad. They choose a challenge to work on, and the team problem-solves and comes up with a solution to perform the challenge.

Their team's challenge is to move 4 objects from the top of a 6-foot structure, to the floor, and 4 objects from the floor to the top of the 6-foot structure. They can't touch any of it, so they had to build some kind of contraption to move the objects. They had 8 minutes to perform the task. During that 8 minutes, they were also to talk about and "sell" the contraption, telling their audience how it worked and what it did. So, last weekend (9 days ago) they presented the solution at "Regionals."

There are 9 regions in Massachusetts. They competed against about 10 other teams on this same challenge. They won first place! That moved them to the "State" competition, which was held Saturday, 3 days ago. 9 regions, with 6 challenges. The first-place teams from each region, from each challenge, came to compete. There were 9 teams at the elementary level for their challenge, so they competed against 8 other teams yesterday. They did really well...actually, again, they took first place! It was very exciting.

So NOW...the Grand Pooh-Bah event of Destination ImagiNation is called the Destination ImagiNation Global Finals. They go to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville for 4 days, and participate in all kinds of fun activities with D.I. teams from all over the world, literally. 40 states (U.S.) are represented, as well as 30 other countries. The kids get to interact with and learn about the home countries of teams from those other countries and states. They stay on the University of Tennesee campus, and it's a pretty big deal. That's at the end of May. Kara is pretty excited. I'll include some photos. The kids built a kind of electromagnetic "crane" to pick up the items, as well as using duct tape (use #1034, I'm sure...) to help on some of the items. Kara and her team member Alex did the advertising bit, having a newscast interview talking about the crane and how it could pick up each item.

The other Big Event I did not mention was that Teresa performed in the middle school production of "The Wiz." She was a citizen of the Emerald City, bright green skirts and hair ties. The costuming was pretty elaborate (a stage full of 50 rainbow-colored munchkins) and the kids did a great job. Here are a few photos from that weekend.

The dark ones, where she is wearing black: she was a "Tornado Dancer," where they did a dance around the house during the tornado, spinning the house before it landed in Oz.

Then she stayed in the green costume for the rest of the production.

This is a good synopsis of these two events. Next time I'll talk about Kara's birthday party. My 20 minutes have expired. :)

Have a great week! Kari

Changes

Wow, Hola!

March is Marching on, and I haven't written in a little while. Here are a few changes around here:

SPRING. We can see lots of grass in the neighborhood now; the slightly warmer temps and rain have melted our snow down, inch by inch.

Our sump pumps are working overtime, and we have NOT had water in the house! Yippee, I can't tell you how relieved that makes me. Every. Single. Day.

(Blast from the recent Past: Exactly one year ago today, our flooding nightmares started. Basement water, round-the-clock shop-vac...I can feel myself start to hyperventillate just thinking about it. Anybody have a paper bag?)

BIRTHDAY TIME. We celebrated Frank's bday 10 days ago, with balloons and chocolate pie. Here is Kara helping him blow out his candle. Happy Birthday, Frank!

CHANGE. Frank has been working (another thing we are HUGELY grateful for), while looking for a job, since about November. He's been with this company for three years, and our expectations for the position and company have not come to fruition. Time to make a change.

After multiple interviews and meeting bosses and team members, he accepted an offer with Hewlett-Packard. Also known as "HP"--go ahead, look around your house--I bet you have SOMEthing in your house from HP! Printer? Laptop? Phone? He'll start a week from tomorrow. Still in Human Resources, except now instead of pharmaceuticals, it's a technology company.

The position is home-based. We will set up an office for him in our house. Lots of phone calls, computer work and video conferencing, a little travel and voila! No commute. Should be interesting--we've never done that before.

Onward and upward! Hope spring is inching its way towards YOUR neck of the woods.

Have a great week, love, Kari

Stuff This Week

Hello, World!

We just finished our "Winter Break" week. We did NOT plan any trips to the Bahamas, but well, you know, we made it to some other fun places.

Like...the Library! The Grocery Store! Ok, we did make it over to Boston's Museum of Fine Arts one day. Friends came over, the kids went to other people's houses. Kara would go to or have her own sleepover here, every other night. She loves those.

And Frank worked. Isn't that just how it goes! The kids get off school, and Dad goes in to work, business as usual.

Nothing earth-shattering. Just a break from the routine. I did not have to set the early-morning seminary alarm in the morning, and rush everybody out the door. That was the best part.

This morning we awoke to 5 inches of fresh snow on the ground. Just when we thought we'd start to see our grass again! Well, not really. The edges of the lawn, maybe we can see a little grass. Most of the lawn still has a foot of ice and snow covering it.

Oh, and here is Kara, playing the saxophone--her photo was in the local weekly newspaper, as she got ready for their Bandfest concert about 10 days ago.

Movies of note:

"Unknown" -- action-packed, keeps you guessing.
"Ella Enchanted" -- her stepsisters are pretty nasty.
"Social Network" -- I really hope Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook founder/boy zillionaire) isn't as unstable as the movie makes him out to be. Kind of a sad story, what he did to his best friend.

Back to setting an early alarm tomorrow. Have a wonderful week! Kari

The Mexico Chapter

Hola!

I used to like to take pictures. One drawback was, that I couldn't see the picture before I took the film in to be developed...I would have high hopes, thinking the lighting was just right or that I captured a wonderful expression on someone's face. Then I'd get the photos back, and ... not so much.

THEN...some genius came up with digital cameras. I can LOOK at the photo, seconds after I take it, and if it's a bad one? Delete! No wasted film processing fees or materials. Wow. Could this be real? If I miss a perfect expression or snap the photo too late, NO BIG DEAL! Now I REALLY like to take pictures.

I also used to like scrapbooking. But I got a little burnt out of it: it's messy, lots of materials to keep organized in drawers, and I could never get "caught up."

THEN...some genius came up with digital scrapbooking. I can do it all on the computer, and there's no mess to clean up and put away when I finish my session, whether I worked on it an hour, or just 10 minutes. I can not BE a professional, but my results look professional. I really like scrapbooking again!

Notice that I did not say I can be "caught up" with digital scrapbooking. I have accepted that it is simply an ongoing hobby. Even if I only do a few pages a year for each of my kids, it is more than they would have had otherwise, right! Those few pages look pretty cool.

OK: all that, to get to my drumroll please...we have been back from living in Mexico, for about 3 1/2 years now.

I finally finished our Mexico Book! (And there was much rejoicing.)

I have quite literally been working on pages, off and on, between other projects and life, etc., for 3 years.

Shutterfly lets you upload pages and they will put them in a bound book for you. We received it yesterday, and we like it very much! (Probably nobody likes it as much as I do, but...the rest of the family still likes it.)

I can't send you the book. I only made one. But I can give you the website, so you can page through our book!

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AatGrVo2ZMWLrw

Try it: go to the site, then click the yellow "View Photo Book," then click "Full Screen" in the upper right. If you also click the single square: "Single Page View" above the picture, it makes it a little bigger. It will play the slide show, or you can turn pages at your own pace.

Happy Wednesday! Kari

Old South Meeting House

Hi!
I have to say: one perk about living in New England is that the kids really go on some fabulous field trips.

1) The sixth graders study Henry David Thoreau, writing and reading and learning about nature, then one day ride their bikes the 8 or so miles up to Walden Pond.

2) The 8th graders study law-making, government and the details of democracy all year, and cap it off with a trip to Washington D.C. in the spring.

3) The 3rd graders study the Revolutionary War, walk part of Paul Revere's Ride, and go to the North Bridge in Lexington: the Shot Heard Round the World.

4) And this week, Kara (5th grade) went downtown to Boston. They were each assigned to be Loyalists or Patriots, and they each had a different character part. Kara was a Patriot, a Leather Dresser. Her business had benefited from the boycott on English goods, and she thought men should live free, not under the harsh rule of a tyrant like King George!

They went to the Old South Meeting House, where in actuality they DID hold this meeting in the late 1700's, cramming 5,000 people into this small building, and they debated on the blessings and curses of living under English rule.

Here is Kara in her "period dress." They made cool black paper hats, too, but it was also raining a little so those didn't last the whole day.

It is pretty amazing to be so close to the actual places these things happened. It really brings it all to life!

Kari

Surprise: Another Snow Post!

We spend our time digging ourselves out, waiting for the next storm. the snowplows pile it up higher, higher, higher! I took photos of Teresa in front of and on top of the pile on the corner.

Here is a fun winter poem for you.

"Too Much Snow" by Louis Jenkins

Unlike the Eskimos we only have one word for snow

But we have a lot of modifiers for that word.

There is too much snow,

which, unlike rain, does not immediately run off.

It falls and stays for months.

Someone wished for this snow.

Someone got a deal, five cents on the dollar, and spent the entire family fortune.

It's the simple solution, it covers everything.

We are never satisfied with the arrangement of the snow,

So we spend hours moving the snow

from one place to another.

Too much snow.

I box it up and send it to family and friends.

I send a big box to my cousin in California.

I send a small box to my mother.

She writes, "Don't send so much. I'm all alone now.

I'll never be able to use so much.

To you I send a single snowflake, beautiful, complex, and delicate,

Different from all the others.

Have a wonderful week! Kari

Round 4

Hola--

This time, it's not just a New England storm! Newscasts show a monster storm that stretches from Arizona to Boston, covering the midwest and reaching up to the northeast corner of the U.S. Snow, Snow, and more Snow! And rain. And ice. And sleet. Don't forget the sleet.

For the past 2 years, we have had NO snow days where school is cancelled. This year, however, today makes number 3 for us! (And actually, most districts around here have had 4--we just had a "delayed start" last week when every other district cancelled school.)

The first snow day is fresh and exciting. Yippee! A day off! The next time is also kind of fun.

Then the kids start listening to the parents complain about the shoveling and driving in it. Then they look at the calendar and realize that every day we get "off" because of snow, they have to attend school further into the summer.

So, while this will not deter most school kids from getting out in it and having some fun with the white stuff, there are also a few disappointments that other activities are being cancelled.

Frank's cousin has a theory: every 7 years, New England has a very snowy winter. Her recollection (she lives in Rhode Island) is that during the 2003-04 winter, they got many, many inches and even feet of snow. Since then, just a couple of storms a year, not all that impressive.

And here we are now! Winter of 2010-11. It just keeps coming.

Not a whole lot has changed. We're still carving out the mailbox after the snowplows come through and cover it up. The snow still comes down white. And we still have to rake the roof. Again.

Happy Snow Day! Kari :)