Did You Blog About Our Awesomeness???

This is the question I get from my kids. They are just teasing for the most part, but they are very proud of the accomplishments they achieved this school year. So, I am going to take this opportunity and brag them up...
The school holds an awards assembly and these are the ones that the kids got...

Nikole:
"8th grade MESA Outstanding Student" (for this, she also received a calculator)
A Participation Award for competing in the Battle of the Books. She also got a letterman patch for this.
An "Outstanding Attitude Award" for her Gifted Literature class
For her participation on the soccer team, she also got a letter like one to put on a letterman jacket.
Plus, for being in the Junior Honor Society this year, she got to present Meganne for the Junior Honor Society for next year.
The school had a reading incentive program where the kids had to read 9 books of different catagories (fiction, non-fiction, etc.) and they had to fill in thier tic-tac-toe board. If they did this, they got a spaghetti dinner hosted by some of the teachers at the school. Nikole qualified for this dinner. It was YUMMY!!!

Meganne:
She also got a "7th grade MESA Outstanding Student" award (no calculator for her)
A "Most Improved in Pre-Algebra" award
An "A List Award" for maintaining an A in science
And an "Outstanding New Mexico History Student Award" for maintaining an A in her history class.
For her participation on the soccer team, she also got a letter for a lettermans jacket.
She also qualified for the Junior Honor Society for next year.
Meganne didn't qualify for the spaghetti dinner by reading, but the ones in charge of it invited the advanced orchestra to seranade us. So, by default, Meganne got to attend also.
We are very proud of both of them.

Philip and I also got awards for "Outstanding Parent Volunteers". Go us!

The pictures are of the Junior Honor Society Induction Ceremony. It is a formal event so we had to get dressed up. It is kind of fun.

A TRIBUTE

I can't let this day pass without paying tribute to the greatest mom ever..
Thank you for the love you always have for us. Thank you for the words of encouragment you always give. Thank you for the way you can lift our spirits when we talk to you. Thank you for the example you are.
I love you and am grateful that you are my mom.

A NIGHT OF CULTURE

True to school tradition, we had the end of the year concert last Tuesday. Orchestra is a class that Meganne has thoroughly enjoyed and hopes to continue on with it. Her teacher keeps telling us that she is a natural and he is amazed at how fast she was able to pick up not only playing the instrument, but also the musical concepts. As you can tell by the middle picture, there were a few "sour" notes. But overall, it was pretty good. We are very glad that she enjoys this so much. The violin would have been a bit easier on the transport thing, but I guess that is where the truck comes in handy. For those that don't know, Meganne plays the bass cello.

And now we stop...

Hi to everyone trying to keep up with us. I think that it will be easier now (I am hoping). M.E.S.A is done, Battle of the Books is done, soccer is done, all within the week. All great experiences for the kids and for us. So here's the results:
M.E.S.A: The kids ended up getting 5th overall in the wind energy challenge. To see all the scores and the number of teams, refer to the following web page:

http://www.nmmesa.org/images/pdf/Event%20and%20Overall%20Score%20Sheets%20MS%20and%20HS.pdf

This will give you a pretty good idea of how well we think they did considering they were the only team from thier school that didn't have an advisor and they were also the only ones to place in the top 5 in thier school. We are very proud of them. On this trip, they got to ride a tram to the top of one of the mountains and there is a picture of Albuquerque from this tram.

Battle of the Books:
Nikole is actually the only one that competed in this one, but we got to go in the room that she was in and observe. A little background...there was a reading list of 21 books put out at the first of the school year. The kids read the books from this list and memorized the authors name. When they got to the compitition this morning, they were assigned a team. Not all thier team members were from thier school so they didn't know the other people. They put 5-6 kids on a team. The teams went to different rooms with an opposing team. There was two adults mediating the compitition for them, one would read questions and the other would time. Alternating teams, the reader would read a question about one of the books. The team had 30 seconds to come up with the correct book and the last name of the author. If they answered correctly they would get 7 points (5 for the book title and 2 for the author). If they missed one or the other, or the whole question, the other team could steal the points by giving the correct answer. A sample question would be like "In what book are there words and thier meanings?" and the kids would have to say, "The dictionary by Webster" There were 4 rounds in which they competed against different teams. At the end, they tallied up the total points that each team earned and awarded madals for 1st, 2nd, and 3 place teams. So, two girls out of the 8 team members from Nikole's school got 2nd place finishes, but Nikole and the other 5 kids didn't get anything..except a really fun time and memories.

Soccer:
This one had kind of a dramatic end to the season. First I will say that the team ended up not winning any of thier games, but did improve as the season progressed. The last game they played was Thursday. It was 95 degrees with no breeze. HOT!! And for anyone that knows about heat also knows of heat stroke. Well 3 of the kids on the Sierra team got a mild case of it, but one additional girl had to be taken off in an ambulance.
Again, something that the kids had alot of fun with. It gave them a chance to get to know people outside of thier comfort bubble.

And now we are just back to the everyday stuff for a while. The kids will get out of school on the 22nd, and we will see what the summer has in store. I am kind of hoping for the sleeping in a bit thing, but time will tell I imagine.