A Great Rainy Day

Great Expectations

Free image courtesy  from imagerymajestic
of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So, with all respect to the title of this post, this is about the newest project that we have embarked on with our eldest two children that is slated to last for the summer...

How many books would you think you could read over the summer...if you had the summer off like the kids do?  10?  15?

Jaden got his summer reading list from school and he is required to read 2 books for the summer.  1 fiction and one non-fiction.  Now, I know that is the assignment and that he can do more...but it just irks me that the bar is SO LOW right now.

So, I told Jaden he was going to read ALL the books on the schools list that the kids had to choose from...He promptly said no way and then went on to count how many were listed...it was 65, I think.  Ok, so 65 books over the summer was a bit aggressive, so, I have backed off of that target and decided that I would approach it in a slightly different way.

If Jaden and Jacob only read 2 books this summer (actually from now through the end of summer...which gives them an extra 2 weeks...), that is fine.  That is their choice.  But, if they read 5 books they get prize level 1.  11 books is prize level 2.  18 books is prize level 3 and 26 books is prize level 4.  26 books for the summer is my goal for them.  However, I am helping them choose the books and they have to write up a small report or summary on each one to prove they are comprehending it.  They also have to mix some non-fiction in with the fiction stories as well.

I refuse to give them a low goal.  It is going to be hard for them to make level 4.  I don't want to discourage them, but I don't want them to not realize that they can do things with some hard work either.  We have put a big carrot in front of them if they can make level 4...an iPod Touch...but it will be hard work to get there.  I have Great Expectations of them.

Now we will encourage and support them to get there.  I will give some updates as we go over the next couple of months.

Kristen's a Graduate!

Kristen and me after her graduation ceremony

It is official.  She graduated last night with an Associates Degree in Nursing and deserves congratulations for making it through an incredibly difficult program over the last 2 years.  I hope that the joy, excitement and fulfillment that come from the graduation are sweetened by:

• the time invested
• the money invested
• the close calls on tests
• the study sessions
• the missed opportunity costs
• the frequent prayer requests

While many people were part of the loop as she has gone through this over the last 2 years, only a few really know how difficult it was.  God blessed Kristen's determination, heart and diligence.  Now we will get to see her bless others in a wonderful career where she will care for people as a nurse.

Kristen's Nurse Pinning Ceremony

Kristen and one of her best friends, Cindy Gentile right after the ceremony

Kristen had her pinning ceremony last night.  What a huge milestone!  See the video link below as well.  She was fortunate to have her brother, and mom in from Colorado to attend and also had her sister, brother-in-law, niece and a friend from church, Christy Rejmer.

It was a very nice ceremony (despite it seeming like the faculty was a little too proud/full of them themselves throughout it) and it was wonderful to see the culimnation of a lot of work that Kristen and others in the program had invested in the planning of the event.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=4028652159758

Only 2 days till graduation...what an exciting week!

Mother's Day

 Another Mother's Day was just celebrated here and I thought I would capture a couple pictures for posterity.  This was the way the table was set up for Kristen as she came down this morning.  There were cards, flowers, baloons and gifts.  A pretty good display, if I do say so myself.

As Kristen came down to check everything out, she was all smiles.  Especially since she had some coffee in bed to help her start the day.  It was a new dark coffee that I bought as one of her gifts called Obsidian.  She also got some dark chocolates to enjoy as well.  Jaden made mom a card with an optical illusion in it.  Jude had a painting he had made at school and Jacob had helped Dad with a card as well.

We enjoyed Monkey Bread for breakfast with all the boys as Kristen opened everything up and she was very happy.

We had one other gift for her, but it was not much of a surprise...though the way she got it may have not been expected.

You see...somebody had pretty much made it known that getting a Pandora bracelet was not a request...it was pretty much a demand as she had been talking about it for a couple months...not just to us but even to her classmates.  So, that is what she got.  I picked up the bracelet, two spacers and a charm for her to start her collection.  You can kind of see it on her wrist...a beautiful blue charm to remind her that her three boys got it for her on Mother's Day.

Then, after church, we enjoyed a lunch out as a family (including Papa!).  Hopefully, a good Mother's Day for Kristen.



F1 Trip with Dad

 Yesterday I took Dad to a place called F1 Boston.  An indoor go kart facility.  It was a thank you for all the work he did while out here and an opportunity for us to have some fun together.  I thought we should go during the week, so I took a day off from work and we had the place almost to ourselves.

Here are a few pictures and the race results:

 Our first race out was for 15 laps.  Dad started out in the first position, we started with a warm-up lap and then the green flag flew and we were off.  Dad was much faster to start and in no time, he was far enough ahead that I didn't even get a glimpse of him for a good portion of the race.  You can see from the results on the left how it took me 7 laps to get comfortable enough to start running laps as fast as Dad.  So, it was a pretty good thrashing, but a really fun start to our day.  Best lap time for me, this race...21.94 seconds.

Our second race was interesting and eventful.  We were joined by another gentleman who started behind us in the third position.  It was his first time and, unfortunately, it showed. 

I started in the first position this time and as the green flag dropped, we started racing around the track, lapping this gentleman about 2 times per each of his laps.  It was very difficult as we were not ever sure where we would come upon him as we went around the track and we both had to get around him while battling each other.  As you can see, on lap 8, Dad caught and passed me as I tried to get around the other driver on the high side and Dad went low.  He passed both of us and I stayed on his tail all the way around for the rest of the race.  I even got a warning for bumping as I hit him as we went into the corkscrew turn.  Another victory for Dad.  Best lap time this time, 21.06...about a 1 second improvement from the last race...and that was with lapping our friend 2 times per lap.  You will notice that we got to go 25 laps vs his 11.  The race was only supposed to be 15, but they let us keep going just so that he would get enough laps in to be worth his fee.

So, we felt we were doing pretty well and we were getting positive feedback from the worker from the facility that was working with us.  So, he gave us a couple pointers, asked if we wanted to consolidate our 3rd and 4th races into one long race and back to the track we went.  35 laps to see if I could muster a challenge to Dad.  We were given the 2 fastest carts (supposedly) and the green flag went down.  This time I managed to keep Dad at bay the whole race and took the checkered flag and we both managed to improve our times again.  Another second improvement this time too...down to 20.09.  Dad even managed to break the 20 second barrier just so he could hold that over my head ;)  As you can see, after only 3 races we were less than a second (Dad only around 1/2 a second) off of the course record.  Pretty impressive, I think.

 

Overall, a wonderful day and happy that I could spend the quality time with my Dad before he went back to Colorado.

 

Dad Retirement

 My dad, after 25+ years on the fire department retired this year and he had a party at his home yesterday in Colorado Springs.  Joel helped plan the event and is was pretty disappointing to not be there.  It is definately one of the biggest struggles with not being near family.  Since we couldn't attend, I asked for everyone to send me video clips and I spent a bunch of time creating the video above.  I may not be too great at video editing, but I was reasonably happy with how it turned out.

Jaden, ambassador

Jaden was nominated to go be an ambassador for his class to a visiting "celebrity". He got a jump rope out of the deal, but he was very excited to be viewed like that by teachers in the school.


A cool memory for him today.

Kristen Birthday

Kristen celebrated her birthday this year with Oreo cookies (she love Oreos and we had been keeping them out of the house for a little while in an attempt to eat better), cards and a beautiful picture frame that the boys picked out.

Then Kristen decided that she wanted the family to go bowling.  While we had a wonderful time, it didn't end up being the best idea for Kristen's shoulder.  It throbbed for a full week after the day of the bowling.  And even though it was Kristen's birthday, I still couldn't let her beat me...so, she may not have got everything she wanted this year, but hopefully it was a fun day.

(Isn't she a beautiful woman?)

Over the weekend, we also got to celebrate Kristen's birthday with her sister's family and went out for Mexican food together.  Kristen got some more cards, a CD and I got a picture of her in the hat....despite her reluctance to wear it :)

Not too shabby

Just wanted to share that I did get to participate in the go-kart activities as described yesterday...I took Jacob in a two person car and away we went.  Unfortunately, we were too fast for Kristen to catch any pictures, so I thought I would share the Lap Times print out that they gave us as we finished.

We smoked everyone in our session and then, as you can see above, posted the 5th fastest lap time of the day.  Considering we only got to do one race and all the people on that list were going over and over and over again on a day pass kind of deal...I thought that was pretty respectable.

It was also a ton of fun.  I think we may have to go again...even if it was a 45 minute drive.