Howdy, Ya'll. We are a bit wind-blown, but nothing like the storms that hit west or east of here. Fortunately for us, the storm took a little break from it's destruction when it got to us and then intensified after it passed us. That said, it was still pretty scary when the heavy winds and rain came through so I can imagine the outright terror the tornados would have caused. Our prayers are with those who have lost so much.
April was a busy month around our house. The boys started off the month with their yearly testing. Both did incredibly well and felt good about their scores. Nicholas's averages were grade 6.1 for academic skills and 4.3 for academic knowledge (he scored 10th grade for spelling!!!! Way to go). Jeremy's averages were grade 16.4 for academic skills and 10.6 for academic knowledge (he maxed out the punctuation and spelling portion of the test which goes up to grade 18!) It was kind of a mother's pay day for me since I had some concrete evidence that the kids are learning at home. Some days you have to wonder!!
Jeremy had to have two teeth pulled in order to get ready for braces. Where did the time go? It doesn't seem like that long ago that he was learning to walk and now we are talking braces. YIKES!
The van finally decided to start it's slow descent. It has been a great vehicle for the last nine years. But, the poor thing is 11 years old and we have driven it everywhere. We started looking for another vehicle. Steve has always wanted a truck, and briefly had one when we first moved here, so we decided to start looking at the Nissan Frontiers (just like the one he had). Well, I will just say that the kids are a lot bigger than they were when we had the Frontier the first time. Poor Jeremy was in the back seat with his knees hitting the back of the front seat. It was a tight fit for all three. I suggested we look at a bigger truck and that is when we found it. The best part about the whole thing was talking them down in price and almost walking out three times because they were not going to meet our monthly payment threshold. There was a lot of luck involved in the whole process because on any other weekend they would not have been so amenable to our requests. They even gave us almost double what the van was worth (what we had been offered elsewhere) and they threw in a bumper-to-bumper warranty for another 100,000 miles. It helped that it was a major holiday/sale weekend and they had only sold 2 vehicles that day when the previous year on the same weekend they sold over 25 vehicles. Timing is everything. The kids were really excited about the whole thing until we asked them to help us clean out the van. They thought we were going to be able to keep both and there were quite a few tears which quickly dried up when they got to ride with Steve to go fill up the truck with gas while I finished up the paperwork. Steve was beaming as he drove his "new" truck off the lot and that was worth the three hours of haggling.
Our "new" 2008 Nissan Titan, a.k.a. "His Mistress"
The kids helped Steve wash the truck as soon as we got it home. You can never be too clean.
The beautiful iris in our backyard. They are all blooming and it is a stunning sight. Ihad to thrown in a picture since this makes me smile!!!
State Science Olympiad 2011
Raleigh, North Carolina
Steve and Jeremy went to Raleigh for the State Science Olympiad competition this last weekend. It was a two-day event with the first day being full of demonstrations from the various labs on campus (he really enjoyed the physics demonstration and has lots he wants to try here at home - YIKES!) That night the opening ceremonies were held and the feeling in the arena was electric. It was just the thing to get the kids excited about the actual competition the next day. That night they chilled in the pool at the hotel to let off steam before the big day.
On the day of competition Jeremy and his Experimental Design team felt confident about their work and had a good time. The mothers had told the kids to just go and have a good time and not worry about medaling as it would be harder time since they were going up against the best in the state. They didn't let the pressure get to them and they enjoyed the experience. Next was Bottle Rockets. We have pictures of this event since it was not behind closed doors, like Exp. Design. (I have tried to get this font smaller, but it won't cooperate, but that is okay because this is really exciting stuff!)
Jeremy and Alexa waiting for their turn to shoot off their rockets. Jeremy's stayed up 15 seconds and Alexa stayed up 18 seconds. Those are the best times we got in all the times we have been tweaking and shooting them off at home!!!
They placed 10th at regionals and so they were getting discouraged when the 5th, 4th, 3rd places were called. When they were announced as the 2nd place winners they both jumped out of their seats screaming. Here they are accepting their
2nd place medals!
That is the face of one proud kid. He worked really hard to perfect his rocket design for maximum time in the air. All the hours of hard work paid off!
As you can see we have been really busy around here. The next month is full of fun things as well so stay posted and I will get more our here for you to see.
