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.

The Snowy River Adventure

Ok so it took twice as long to get into Snowy River than it was supposed to - don't go on a caving expedition with a Reporter and a long-winded gov't employee (most are like this anyway). We got to the Snowy River at 3:00pm - this was the time we were supposed to be out! Can you tell I was thrilled - Joyce wasn't either. We finally left and got out of the cave at about 7:00pm. Total miles into Snowy River I think was 4 with about 1/3 of that crawling or "squat walking". My muscles are rebelling today.

Here are a few pictures:





Of course I have more but I am in ABQ for a MESA competition that the girls are in - stay tuned we will have that in a bit.

Until then - toodles.

What He Dug Up

So after Philip read the blog about him going to Snowy River, he dug up some web sights for you to look at if you are interested. Here are the links:

http://eideard.wordpress.com/2008/07/28/snowy-river-underground/

http://www.nmt.edu/mainpage/news/2007/23july01.html

Sorry I couldn't get the links to come up, but you can copy and paste.

Enjoy the reading.

Rest At Retirement???

Hi to everyone. I just got a minute so I thought I would update those who want to know about our goings on.
I didn't say much about our Easter. We took the kids to "Explora" in Albuquerque. It is like a hands on science museum. We had alot of fun there. I had never been, but Philip and the kids went there last year. It is a pretty cool place. Then, right across the street from that is the "Natural History" museum, so we also went there. Also a cool place. All in all it was a fun day.
Our lives are quite busy with everything happening on the same day it seems. Today, the kids had a M.E.S.A meeting until 4:20, then soccer from 4:30 until 6:00, and then Meganne had to be at a rehersal for an orchestra festival from 6:00 to 7:00. Tomorrow, they will have another M.E.S.A meeting, then a soccer game at 6:00. Wednesday, they have soccer from 4:30 til 6:00 and young womens from 6:45 til 8:00. Thursday, another soccer game at 3:30 and Friday Meganne has another orchestra rehearsal and Saturday another soccer game. Sunday we will get ready to go out of town to Albuquerque for the M.E.S.A compitition..be gone Monday and Tuesday. Get home Tuesday night, recover from that and head to Las Cruces Friday and Saturday for Nikole's Battle of the Books compitition.
On Monday, Meganne is supposed to participate in her orchestra festival, plus the kids will also be missing a soccer game that day too. One of the teachers said that it is stuff like this that should make the argument in favor of cloning...how do we get them everywhere at once? We don't, we have them chose what they want to do and tell the others sorry..what else can we do.
Also on Monday (yes, the same one, the 27th) Philip has a chance to go caving. There is a cave called "Fort Stanton Cave" that he has been down in. There are tours that people can go on probably 4-5 times a year to this one. At the bottom (end) of the cave where not many people are permitted to go is a place called "Snowy River". It is basically a bed of white gypsum that looks like a river of snow. It is a very protected place that you can only go to by special invitation, and he got the invitation. It is so protected that when you get down there, before you go to the river, you have to change into a clean outfit and put on cover-alls and non-skid shoes with protectors over them. It is an amazing opportunity for him.
So, there is our life right now. If I go a while without catching this up, please understand. Also, if it is a while between phone calls, please also forgive me. I try to keep up.
Oh yea, school is going good...so far an A in class and a B in lab but only because I need to do a few more of the exercises and then it will be an A. Test on Thursday that might change all that, but we won't go there yet.
So, that is all for now. Thanks for reading and I will try and update after the compititions and let you know how we did. Until then, love to everyone.

Happy Easter

FROM US HERE IN ROSWELL, TO ALL OF YOU THAT READ OUR BLOG

HAPPY EASTER! ! !

WE HOPE THAT YOU ALL HAD A GREAT DAY.

Did We Learn From The Past??

Two days out of the year..yes, year, the White Sands Missle Range opens its gates for the public to view a piece of history. The first Saturday in April and October.
This area is known as the "Trinity Site". Brief lesson(copying out of the flyer we got)...
The story of the Trinity Site begins with the formation of the Manhattan Project in June 1942. The project was given overall responsibility for designing and building an atomic bomb. Three large facilities were constructed. At Oak Ridge, Tenn., the scientists isolated the uranium 235. Hanford, Wash. became the new home for nuclear reactors producing plutonium. And Los Alamos (White Sands)was established to build the bomb.
Long story short (too late) it was here that the first atomic bomb was built and tested officially at 5:29:45 a.m mountain war time.
The pictures that I attached have to be put into context of what precautions are taken today with any kind of radioactive stuff. Lets just say that I don't think the men in that area had an inkling of what power this stuff truly had.
Pictue 5: This is the monument that was built to commemorate the testing of the atomic bomb.
Picture 4: There was a 100 foot steel tower that was built to suspend the bomb from. This is what is left of the tower and the only reason this is left is because it was underground and encased in concrete. The rest of the tower vaporized.
Picture 3: This is trinitite. This is what became of the sand around the blast area. There are theories as to how this formed, but obviously nobody knows for sure. Imagine the whole area covered in this. They have since cleared the area and buried the majority of it, but little pieces can be found.
Picture 2: When looking at this picture, imagine all the precautions taken today..this is the house where the actual bomb was assembled. The door on the right hand side led into a "clean room" that was sealed off to the outside elements and that is where everything was put together. That is either ignorance, stupidity, or trust in everyone around you not to mess up thier part!!
So, the determination that I try to make is this, "Was this a success or a failure" and I come up with--both. Yes, we did harness the power of the atom, but at what cost over the course of time?
The first picture is some barbary sheep that were by the roadside. We thought it was cool to see them.

Finish the thought

Okay, so Philip and I went out to lunch a while ago and there was a group of family/friends in the same room we were in. They were very entertaining in the topics they discussed and the comments they made. They got into a discussion about age and life at certain stages. The comment was made that.."life begins when the kids move out and the dog dies. That way the kids don't catch you and the dog doesn't bite who you bring home!!" Quite the insight we thought. Indescretely we laughed. They were talking loudly enough that we weren't really eavesdropping, but we couldn't really laugh out loud.
Anyway, since then we have been coming up with our own endings and we invite our "followers" to participate.

"Life begins when..."

Let us hear yours----