Our church was doing free professional portraits for their church directory, and we got a couple of poses done that turned out pretty nice. The scans are just okay, but I can get you reprints if any of you family-types are interested.
This stuff is gold... it warms my heart. A little feedback like this makes the whole day worth it! Definitely I'll be back in a year to do it all over again.
Since Luke has been so keen on the World Cup this year, I decided to have a Luke and Dad night and take him down to the DC United game at RFK stadium.
I love the end of the school year. All of Luke's school work comes home for review. I get such a kick out of his writing. Click the images below to download the two different projects.
Here is a recording of our church choir's performance of The Lord Is My Shepherd (Psalm 23) from last Sunday's service with the bishop.
The choristers lead off the piece with a beautiful angelic unison, and then the larger choir and organ join into the piece as it continues. The whole piece is really gorgeous and very professional sounding.
I'm really proud of how far along Luke and Eddie have come in their singing. This choristers program at our church is such a great musical education that they just wouldn't get anywhere else. The boys are very lucky to be part of this program and to have a teacher like Mrs. V.
The choir is off for the summer, having earned a well deserved break for all the work during the school year.
Every year, Mountain View Elementary School hosts their Science Olympiad. This is when parent and industry volunteers come in to perform experiments with the kids' participation. Becky and I volunteered for this last year, and we had so much fun, we didn't want to miss the chance again this year to participate. The kids really get a lot out of these interactive science exhibits, and it's always nice to come in for a day and work with the fourth and fifth graders.
This year, the school had Dr. Presun Desai as a keynote speaker. This is the gentleman who actually landed the NASA Mars rovers on the planet. He works in the NASA Langley center, and goes all around the nation talking to kids in school. His message? Don't worry about making good grades, work hard and things will come to you. Don't hesitate to "Dream Big" and take advantage of the wonderful opportunity we have in this country to do whatever it is we want to... as long as we are willing to WORK for it! A good message.
Other exhibitors were folks from Virginia Game and Wildlife, showing various native taxidermied animals, a station on "Who polluted the Potomac?", the county sheriff deputies doing fingerprint analysis, aerospace engineering, hydraulics demonstrations, computers, etc.
In our station, I set up a distillation apparatus (why not?). In the flask, I placed water with food coloring and sugar. Then I boiled the water and produced for the kids clean distilled water. I let them taste it before and after, so they could really see what we were dealing with. Then we talked all about the three phases of matter (solid, liquid, gas), and about concepts like boiling points, freezing points, condensation, evaporation, and osmosis. The kids had a blast, but I had to remind them to sit, sit, SIT! Naturally, they kept wanting to touch all the glassware, and I didn't want any grabby fingers bringing down my glassware, which is ridiculously fragile.
All in all, it was a great day. Next year is the last year that we're in this school before Luke graduates to middle school. This has been such a wonderful school for the boys. It will be sad when we leave it, never to come back.
Luke's Futura program (the gifted and talented program at his elementary school) performed a mock legal case last week. Some of the kids were witnesses, some of them were lawyers for the plaintiffs, some were defense lawyers, and the rest were actors in the case. The teacher played the judge, and the parents were the jury.
The case is one of Ms. Clara Muffet versus her landlord. Ms. Muffet is being held in violation of her lease because she skipped out of her apartment without paying. However, she alleges that her lease payments are not due because she had an apartment filled with spiders, and the landlord did nothing to treat the spiders.
Enjoy the case:
I bested my 100 FR time and my 100 IM time today! Six seconds better on the IM, and two on the freestyle! Hooray!
| Event | Time |
| 100 IM | 1:22.40 |
| 100 FR | 1:06.46 |
| 100 BR | 1:27.84 |
| 50 BR | 41.44 |
Eddie's chorus performed several numbers under the direction of the very nice Mr. Baber, accompanied by his wife, Mrs. Baber, on the piano.
We had a really frightening night last night. At about 12:30am, all the house was slumbering deeply. We typically go to bed by 10pm, so we were deep asleep by midnight.
Suddenly, the smoke alarms in the house began to blare. The alarms are all connected, so if one goes off, they all go off. It could have been any room in the house that triggered the alarm.
Becky and I immediately bolted out of bed, and my instincts sent me running down to the basement. It was purely instinct, I assure you, because I was still groggy with sleep and only realized that they were fire alarms when I reached the bottom of the stairs. As I reached the basement, my heart was pounding. I met Becky on the stairs and told her, "Check the attic!" She ran up to do that.
This was really frightening for us. Only a few years ago, we had a house in our neighborhood burn to the ground. What had happened was that a siding nail had pushed through an electrical cord inside the wall. The problem had lain dormant for a couple of years after the house was built. Until one night, it decided to spark, and the fire grew inside the wall, between the outer and inner pieces of wall-board. The fire grew and grew until it reached the open attic space, where it became huge. By the time the fire burst through the fire-resistant wallboard, and it was only THEN that their smoke detectors were alerted, the family had only 120 seconds to get out of their home. The fire was so big by then, so ravenous, that they lost their dog and one of the cars in the garage. They simply had no time to react.
This has always been my biggest fear--a house fire. And here we were with a fire alarm blaring in the wee hours. As I met Becky back on the stairs, the fire alarms became silent. Nothing wrong in the basement, no fire in the kitchen, nothing on the bedroom level, and no fire in the attic. I walked the flights of stairs, and couldn't even pick up a trace of smoke or any burnt smell.
Clearly, there was no fire. However, with my heart still racing, I could not be sure. I checked each room two and three more times.
Finally, I settled back into bed, but I was unable to sleep. What if the alarm went off again? I was convinced that it was moments away from doing so. Restless, and still keyed-up from the event, I headed to the attic to check about 'false alarms' on the Internet.
Apparently, the newer photoelectric sensors can be somewhat susceptible to dust, spiders and insects. I checked each alarm again, but could see no sign of any of those. However, if a small moth or stink bug flew into the panel and out again, I would see nothing. Our sensors are less than a year old--I had just replaced them throughout the house--so I was fairly certain that they weren't faulty.
And so it goes: no real idea of what happened, but the scare of our life. I think I finally settled back to sleep about two am, but not to return to that blessed deep slumber for the rest of the night.
Unfortunately, this little fellow didn't make it. I found him in the driveway today while I was mowing. I couldn't see any damage on him, but he was dead when I found him. Just a tiny little thing--probably a robin, though honestly I have no idea.
This is my favorite coverage of our company so far. Not only is the report very detailed and in depth, and totally national in its distribution, but I really like how it highlights Becky's involvement in this business. So many of the reports to date have been about "a man and his dream". This one really brings her into focus, and she deserves it. She has been working really hard at this business, and I'm proud of her. Honestly, I've never seen her happier!
If we can just hang in there and get some sales, I think we can really have a good thing going here. Not fabulously rich or anything, but making a product we love, and hopefully making enough income to put the boys through college. That's really all we want.
Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/ns/nightly_news#37455056
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"If we are to have peace on earth ... our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective. No individual can live alone, no nation can live alone, and as long as we try, the more we are going to have war in this world. We must either learn to live together as brothers or we are all going to perish together as fools."
Martin Luther King, Jr. 1967
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