Pinewood Derby

Last Sunday was the annual "Scout Sunday," where the Cub Scouts attend and take part in the church service at their home church, which is followed by a cake auction, potluck lunch, and the Pinewood Derby.  It's always a long day, made worse by the fact that its Super Bowl Sunday.  But its gotten more bearable (for us) over the years as Sam (and us) now have friends in the troop, and the boys are all so excited about their Pinewood Derby cars that its cute to watch.  Ben and Sam worked on the car off and on for about a month.  The theme for his car this year was "Wind" (the last two years were "Lightning" and "Fire," always a natural element - he even has his plan for his next two cars).  Sam helped do some of the spray painting this year, and is very involved of how the car looks.  Ben does most of the work to make certain the car runs well.  And Sam always puts a LEGO character on the car - this year it was Sensei Wu, a Ninjago LEGO that impressed many of the other boys. Sam's car made it to the top six cars this year, but only the top three winners get trophies.  Still, that was an impressive finish with almost 50 cars competing, and he was happy. 

Regional Qualifying Speller!

Monday we learned that Maria scored high enough to qualify for the Ohio University Scripps College of Communication Regional Spelling Bee.  She was declared the winner from FMS about a month ago, and that earned her a qualification opportunity which was done here with a teacher online.  She scored 44 out of 50 words, and anyone who scored a 41 or above moved on to the regional competition.  There were 70 spellers who qualified, and these 70 spellers will compete at the regional spelling bee.  The winner of that competition earns an all expense paid trip to Washington DC to compete in the national spelling bee.

The regional competition will be on Saturday, March 10 at OU (unfortunately) and we are making a family trip out of it.  Since it starts at 8:30 a.m., we are going down Friday night and spending the night in a hotel.  The competition is supposed to end around lunchtime, and Ben and I are already registered to run in a 4 mile race late Saturday afternoon, so we are hoping to be back in time for that.

Maria has worked very hard to learn all the words on her study list - hundreds of words.  Her teacher said she has never had anyone "take the initiative to work as hard as Maria did" for this.  Regardless of how she does at the regional competition, we are so proud of her for making it this far.

Basketball Season

Sam is playing basketball again this winter, and even though its his 4th season playing, its been much different this year.  In the kindergarten through second grade league, kids played half-court, with the nets lowered to 8 feet, and very easygoing refereeing.  This year, 3rd and 4th graders play full court, with the nets at regulation height, and two referees per game who call everything.  So it's been quite an adjustment for the younger kids.  Sam has a practice once a week, where the kids learn actual plays instead of just practicing shooting and dribbling skills.  I think its been a good learning experience for Sam, but he, along with the other third graders, are still adjusting to the new pace of these games.  Sam has yet to make a shot during a game, but has improved and even stole the ball from another player last week and dribbled it to the basket.  Even though he didn't make the shot, it was still an awesome play.

Braces Update

It was about a year ago when we first learned that Maria would need braces due to a missing tooth.  At first we were a little shocked, but have slowly gotten used to the idea.  Last winter, she had that baby tooth removed and has had a retainer to "maintain the space" until she was ready for braces.  She finally lost her last tooth a couple of weeks ago, and was on track to get braces in April.

But then we got a letter from her orthodontist stating that they were closing the Marysville office at the end of this year.  I was never very happy at this particular office anyway and thought it was the perfect opportunity to change orthodontists.  So we got some recommendations from friends, and went to the office in town where we probably should have started all along.  (I didn't go there at first because it was not who our own dentist recommended.)  

We had our first visit at the new orthodontist yesterday.  There was a small hope that we might be told that Maria didn't need braces after all, although I didn't think it was very likely.  And that's not what happened.  Maria does need braces, followed by a retainer until they can put an implant in, hopefully when she's 16 or 17 years old.  But this time, the orthodontist showed me what they need to do, and even showed me how her front teeth don't line up, causing bite issues on her left side.  And she explained how they are going to use the braces to move her current tooth into the space of the missing tooth, because the bone under that tooth should be better to put an implant in.  I had no idea you could just move a tooth an entire space over.  She told Maria that if she was very good about wearing rubber bands, she could probably only have the braces for 18 months, but maybe two years if she isn't good about the rubber bands.  I was just so pleased to have so much explanation - at the old office everything was secretive and information only given with a  "we'll explain it later" attitude.

So I was convinced Maria does need the braces.  And then we had a decision to make.  We can get started now, and have them off most likely before Maria starts high school.  Or we can wait until she's 14 or 15 years old, and then get the implant soon after the braces are off.  Advantages of doing this now is that she won't have to have braces in high school (where its less socially acceptable), and she can get it over with sooner rather than later.  But the bone where the implant goes may shrink after the braces come off, requiring a much tougher implant procedure when the time comes to do that.  The bone also may not shrink at all.  The advantage of waiting is that the bone wouldn't have much time to shrink  after the braces before the implant, but there is no guarantee of that not happening, of course.  Disadvantages of waiting is having to have braces during the first two years of high school, and for us, maybe having to pay for both kids' braces at the same time.  And right now our insurance will cover $750, which is not even a quarter of the cost but still helpful.  Our health insurance will change again at the new school year, and we might lose that option.

So Ben and I decided on our own that we thought Maria should have the braces now.  But Maria was still coming to terms with the fact she needed braces at all, so we were going to wait a couple of days before bringing it up.  Last night, though, Maria volunteered that she would like to go ahead and get it out of the way now too.  So she may have braces within a month.  After a year of going back and forth, I'm just glad to have a clear path ahead.

Finally...some snow

Friday night we finally got some snow on the ground here.  We were hoping for the 3-5 inches that were predicted, but a lot of the precipitation ended up as sleet and so we ended up with about 3 inches.  But it was enough to play in, which made the kids happy.  We are two thirds of the way through January, and there hasn't been any measurable snow until now, so the kids went outside both yesterday and today.  Yesterday they played with Mason and Lindsey, and Ben went out with them today and helped Maria and Sam build this snowman.  The snow is perfect for packing today, but these above freezing temperatures mean a short life for the snowman.  Most adults like a mild winter (except teachers, maybe) but the kids have been very disappointed with the lack of snow this year - especially after the last few winters have been pretty harsh.  So we are hoping this is the beginning of some more winter weather, although a weekday storm would be preferable to this weekend one!

Surprise Weekend Getaway

This past weekend we spent Saturday and Sunday at Fort Rapids Indoor water park resort.  It was a bit of a spur of the moment decision.  Tuesday evening our original Saturday plans fell apart, and Ben and I realized that we had a 3-day weekend (a 4-day weekend for the kids) with nothing planned.  The kids would go crazy without some type of outing, and we would too.  When we started to explore options, we thought maybe we would spend Saturday at Fort Rapids - only Maria had ever been to this water park before and it was fairly close to home - only an hour away.  Further research showed that for just a little bit more that the day passes price, you could spend the night and then play at the water park on both Saturday and Sunday.  So we made reservations but didn't tell the kids.  We wanted to surprise them.  We don't surprise them enough (probably because I'm such a planner), and there won't be too many more years that we can pull this off.


So Saturday morning after we picked up the kids from a sleepover and returned home after Sam's basketball game, we told them about the plan.  They were pretty excited, which made it worth it to us.  We got to the water park around 12:30, and the kids played for almost four hours, during which time Ben and I were eventually able to check into our room and I even took a short nap.  We went to eat dinner at Easton, which was only about 15 minutes away but worth it to not have to eat at the resort restaurant.  After dinner, we played again for a couple of hours (I even went on the water slides with the kids which I used to never do), and then we returned to the room.  We were all asleep by 10:00.

Sunday morning Ben and I got up early for our morning runs - he at a nearby park and me at the hotel "gym."  The kids slept in.  We were at the park when they opened, and we were able to get hold of the few valuable double inner tubes, so that each kid could ride with each adult and then we raced each other on a couple of the slides.  These inner tubes were impossible to get on Saturday all day, so the kids were really excited that we all got to ride together.  We left the park around lunchtime and came home. 

It was a fun getaway, and the kids had a blast, but I would not spend the night there again.  It just wasn't that nice of a hotel.  But I'm still glad we went.  Now its back to school and work, and with the snow outlook it doesn't look like we'll be getting very many more days off for a while!

Finished!

I always get the kids a new puzzle for Christmas, with the idea that it we can work on them while we are snowed in over the winter.  Maria and I started on hers the day after Christmas, and worked on it here and there for a couple of weeks.  I love having so much table space in the basement where we can leave projects for weeks at a time, if needed.  We finished her puzzle earlier this week.  Now that Sam is done with his LEGO set he'll probably be starting on his Star Wars puzzle soon.

Spelling Champion

About a month ago Maria was one of two finalists from the 7th grade (80 students total) to compete in the school spelling bee.  She was given a study guide with hundreds of words to study.  She did some before break but the intensive studying happened when we went back to school.  In addiiton to studying, someone at home (almost always me) quizzed her on all of the words.  Hundreds of words.  Then Maria would write the missed words multiple times in her notebook to learn them.

In other words, she really wanted to win this.

The spelling bee was today, and it was moved up from Wednesday so the weekend was spent going over A LOT of words.   The competitors were two sixth graders, Maria and her good friend Lydia (7th graders), and two eighth graders.  Maria almost got out on the word "sansei."  Before she spelled it she asked Mrs. Scott for the definition to make certain she had the right word.  Mrs. Scott gave her the definition for "sensei," so that's what Maria spelled.  When Mrs. Scott told Maria the spelling was incorrect, Maria told her she thought she (Mrs. Scott) had the meaning of the word incorrect.  Maria knows the meaning of "sensei" from Sam's Ninjago LEGO sets, and was sure she had spelled the correct word.  Maria was right, of course, and the competition continued.  The winning word was "apartheid."

So she's the 2012 Fairbanks Middle School Spelling Bee winner.  Now she moves on to the next round, an internet test, and if she scores high enough she'll move on to a competition in Columbus.

Sam, Master of LEGOS

(The title was his request)


Sam got the VW Microbus LEGO set for Christmas.  The set was marked age 16+, so Ben helped him build a little each night.  On Saturday they were about a third of the way done, and Sam decided he wanted to finish it himself.  So he spent all of Sunday morning and the first part of the afternoon working, and he did complete it all by himself!  He's very proud of it and carries it around the house with him.  It really is amazing, and we're so proud of him!

I'm Back!

I know I haven't updated this blog in months.  After school started this year, our lives became busier than ever - the older the kids get, the more stuff they become involved in, and on top of both working full time and making exercise (mainly running) a priority, it just didn't get done.  I'm teaching a new class this year (8th grade Science) and so that took up a lot of my time at home too, especially those first several weeks of school.  Then I got so far behind with the blog that getting caught up seemed like it was a huge job.

But twice in the last week a different person (Mom and Elise) asked me if I had changed the site address.  And then this afternoon I caught the kids going through posts from years ago and laughing while they were remembering.  So I decided I need to start back up.  I sure I have the time, I just have to MAKE the time, like anyone does with anything that is important to them.  So I'm not going to worry about catching up the past 5 months that I missed, and just get started with what is going on now.  My goal is to do at least one post a week, and maybe it will be more once I get in the habit again.

I'm sorry I've been out of touch, and hope to do better in 2012.  Check back for updates.