Laura Ingalls Wilder

Hi--

Here's a quick note on one of Kara's 5th grade activities last week. They had been working on biography reports of important people in the history of our nation and world. These included scientists, artists, mathmaticians, authors, explorers...anyone from Elenor Roosevelt to Amelia Erheart to Benjamin Franklin to Isaac Newton.

Kara did a biography report on the author from the 1800's, Laura Ingalls Wilder. The kids were also supposed to dress the part.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, Kara enlisted the help of her Grammie D and asked her to make her a pioneer dress. After she got off the phone, she told me what she had done. I choked. "Kara," I stammered, "this is not an hour's worth of work, or one afternoon. You have asked your Grammie D to spend hours and days on this project. Sewing is not easy."

She thought for a moment. "I'll wear it for Halloween, too!"

So, here is Kara in her wonderful dress, and some of Kara's friends, too. It was a really neat morning, where parents got to wander around and ask questions of all these famous people. The kids had to memorize stories and be able to explain their character's contributions to society.

It was a pretty impressive morning. And the dress was nice icing on the cake! :)

Knoxville Report (Destination Imagination)

Hola!

It is a beautiful spring day: sunny, bright, with flowers everywhere. Just heavenly.

Kara and I made it back from Tennessee! A grand experience, to be sure. I was so impressed with the whole University of Tennessee--it's a beautiful campus, with wonderful facilities.

Knoxville hosted the World's Fair back in the 80's, so they have huge Expo and Conference Centers. An olympic-sized pool with the tall, tall diving platforms to have diving competitions.

The kids did such a good job--I think I told you before, that there were 6 different challenges, and each challenge was split into Elementary, Middle School, and High School/University competitions.

For Kara's challenge, at the Elementary level, there were 68 teams. So, against 68 teams, her team came in NINTH PLACE! Yippee! Pretty cool to make it to Global Finals at ALL, and then to get in the Top Ten against that many.

Besides the competition, there were activities galore, at the Expo Center, swimming & diving boards at the Aquatic Center, 3M was a sponsor so they did a Duct Tape Costume Ball, and Nasa was there with their space displays and radio-controlled moon cars.

We stayed in the dorms and ate cafeteria food. There was a lot of Pin Trading going on: each state/country came with their own sets of pins, and there were areas to spread them all out and trade with everybody else who wanted to trade.

The kids had a wonderful time, and would do it again in a heartbeat. Me, I'm not so good with huge crowds so I was "done" about halfway through! I think I heard there were 13,000 people there. They had shuttle buses which were pretty crowded and standing-room-only most of the time. Lots of walking. I told Frank I needed to go to the first half, and HE needed to go to the 2nd half! It was a great experience for the kids.

I took a bunch of pictures, of course! If you click on this Shutterfly album website, click "View Album," then "Play Slide Show," then in the upper right corner it says "options." You can make it faster, so you're not sitting there too long...a photo per second will make it 2 1/2 minutes or therabouts.

I better boogie--Have a great week! Kari

Tennessee Bound

Hello, All!

Kara and I have spent the last little bit of time preparing/packing for our trek to Tennessee! Her team is presenting at the Destination Imagination Globals this week, and we'll be staying at the University of Tennessee in the dorms. There are supposed to be 15,000 people there. Wow. (The link above gives an article on the program this weekend.)

Kara (5th grade) has been working hard, and is very excited! We leave Wednesday, tomorrow...she was fully packed 2 days ago.

I, on the other hand, am NOT fully packed. Actually they warn the adults going, that it is more like camping, and not a hotel. Nobody to change the sheets or give you extra soap. Being located in warmer climes, they even already turned off the HEAT in the dorms we'll be sleeping in! So they told us (the adults) to buck up, basically, and save our complaining for July. (Small joke there. The leader of DI in Massachusetts did email that she would listen to complaints AFTER it was all over, and not before.)

Frank, David & Teresa will carry on here, business as usual. There is a church campout for them on Friday night. Let's hope we all see some sunshine this week!

I'll have my cell phone with me still. We'll report next week, after we return (Sunday night). Good Luck Team Techno (Kara's team)!

Kari

Mulch and Turtles

Hola--
We finally got a Saturday with acceptable weather--that is to say, "Not Raining." Funny how this can be a tall order! Not like it rains every day or anything. But Saturdays are just 1/7 of the time, and you need a block of "dry" time, on that 1/7 of the week, to spread mulch.

It finally happened! Yesterday the Mulch Guy came at 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday, and we had exactly one hour before the activities of the day started: YW Camp certification, soccer game, and David had neighbors' lawns to mow.

It's not very often that we are all working on the same something, in the same place, at the same time. I couldn't resist taking photos.

Today we were looking out the front window and Frank saw something crawling towards us in the grass. A baby turtle who lost his way! Teresa put him in a box and brought it in before she showed it to the neighbors and put him back by the stream across the street. Had to photograph that, too.

Our special treat for church today was hearing from Elder L. Tom Perry (one of the church leaders we usually only see when there's a broadcast from Salt Lake City). He was in the bishopric when our church building was built, in......wait for it......1965! Holy cow!

Our current Bishop, Danny Ainge, found a program from the dedication of our building, dated 1965. Who knows how he found it, but there were photos in it. There was Elder Perry, (he turns 89 this year) looking like a young whipper-snapper 45+ years ago. He gave it to him as a momento.

It's been a full week. Nice to have a Sunday to regroup! Love, Kari

Mother's Day

Hello and Happy Mother's Day!

What a beautiful day--May is wonderful because of flowers, flowers, flowers. Pinks and yellows, purples and reds. All mixed in with the fresh green that can only be brand new leaves on the trees and buds on the bushes.

One of the speakers in church told us about his mother, who always kept on worrying about her kids, even though they were grown up with their own families. You always wear your mother hat, he said, it's not something that ever ends. Knowing how list-oriented I am, and how I do love to "check things off," Frank leaned over and said, "Sorry about that."

Well, I can't say I'm sorry about it. My family is awesome (I may be one tiny bit biased)!

My highlight on Mother's Day is that the rest of the family makes dinner, and I get to come in when called, sit down and eat my dinner. YES! It's an amazing feeling, which I look forward to all year. (You think I'm kidding, or being sarcastic...and I'm not.)

The other funny story about mothers in church was the quote by Tenneva Jordan: "A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie."

Okay. Just so you know, I would never say that. Not in ten million years. OUR family would be cutting off little slivers, and measuring amounts, and counting crumbs, making a huge mess of those pieces, but by golly we'd all get some!

Life is way too short to miss out on pie.

Have a great week! Kari

Welcome May and Spring!

Hello!

This month has flown by, and I have let the blog postings slip. Ugh! My problem is, I enjoy posting photos, and I think they make the blog more interesting, so if I don't have any photos or clipart ready to put in, I think the blog is a little boring.

Problem is, adding photos takes longer, and in my mind I say, "I don't have time to add photos," and then I don't post anything at all.

Soooooooooooooooo! I am setting my expectations a little lower for myself! "Something is better than nothing," in this case...I think! Maybe ALL my posts won't include photos. But I'll write more consistently.

Here is a little of what we've been doing.

APRIL BREAK! The kids had no school for a week, 10 days ago. We went to the New England Aquarium in Boston one day, and there were playdates and sleepovers for Kara. David had a group of friends over to play games one night. It was awesome to NOT have to rush everybody out the door by a certain early time every day!

DESTINATION IMAGINATION. Kara has been working hard, brainstorming with her team, making the presentation better here and there. Remember they are preparing for the Global Destination Imagination in Tennessee later this month. Saturday we spent participating/holding a Yard Sale, to earn money for the kids for the trip.

(Yes, more awful fundraising for Kari--if you don't know, it's just about my LEAST favorite thing on this planet to do. I am sucking it up to give the kids an educational experience...Kara for her Tennessee trip, Teresa for Peru. Maybe I'll get my Mother of the Year award yet...??!?!)

SOCCER, GYMNASTICS, TRACK and ULTIMATE FRISBEE. Let the spring sports begin!

Our general rule is "one sport a season," but because of a little miscommunication and confusion, Kara is doing both soccer and gymnastics this round.

Teresa is running 8th grade track. Last Friday she ran the 4X100-meter relay (3rd place), 400 meter race, and the high jump (2nd place).


David is playing Ultimate this round--I think it's a "club" sport at our high school right now. They plan on making it a regular sport in the fall. It used to be called "Ultimate Frisbee," but the word frisbee is a brand name so they changed it to just "Ultimate." It's a pretty big deal on the West Coast and the East Coast. More and more colleges and universities are adding teams and competing.

I like the competitions and even watching the kids practice. But with these 4 sports going on, plus music practices and Kara's D.I. continuing, every day after school becomes a driving loop for me. Luckily, the kids are not so little, so it doesn't matter if I'm a few minutes late. When they all finish at about the same times, SOMEbody has to wait a little.

SPRING. It is finally spring here--beautiful flowers and bursts of color welcome one of my favorite New England months: May. Our neighbors have a beautiful Forsythia bush and a big Magnolia tree that are blooming right now. Gorgeous!

Have a wonderful week. Kari :)

Peru This Summer

I never did talk about Teresa's Peru trip coming up. Actually we are planning for both of us: I am going, too!

Teresa's favorite social studies teacher, Mr. Fernandez-Davila, is from Peru, and he is also an archaeologist. Every summer for the past 13 years, he takes a group of students and parents to one of five remote villages in Peru. They raise money for school supplies for the children in the village, and this year they are also helping re-build the school building itself, which is dilapidated and falling apart.

The villages are far off the beaten path, as a huge understatement for you. The group flies into Lima, then drives in big trucks north and into the mountains, as far as the roads are paved. Then they get on horses and hike, on narrow trails and through the mud for a few days.

They finally reach the village, and it's a celebration to be had! The supplies are opened and it's like Christmas for the kids, and like I said this time, during the days spent in the village, we will also help build the school building and a playground for the children. Teresa was just ecstatic to be invited on this trip. The draw for me was: the service opportunity.

If I planned my own trip to Peru, it would not be anything like this. Daniel (Mr. Fernandez) has his endless network of family and friends down there, and has the whole trip down to a science.

He also has us hike to some archaeological sites in between, to learn about the ruins and mummies of ancient civilizations. Since last October, the students have been working hard all year to raise money for the Peruvian children, and for their own expenses down there.

Teresa is raising money in a few different ways. She has been baking zucchini bread like crazy, taking orders from people at church and school. She has also been babysitting, recycling ink cartridges from printers, and selling Silpada jewelry. We had 2 Silpada parties with neighbors and teachers, since Teresa's aunt sells Silpada jewelry.

It has been a learning experience, to be sure, for all of us. But I think it has been good for her to learn how things like this work, and how fundraising does actually help you but it takes time and energy! We will be gone the last week of June & first week of July. Yes, a two-week adventure that takes lots of preparation.

We'll bring back our own photos, of course! And hopefully a new appreciation for a different culture and for our own lives and circumstances. I think it will be a good experience.