Olivia's Art

One of Olivia's drawings was chosen to be in a local art show.  We made a point to go by and see her work while it was being displayed.

Academic Awards

 The kids both participated in various academic clubs and activities this year, and their participation was recognized at the annual Academic Boosters Award Ceremony.  The way this works is that students earn time units for participation and points for achievement in academic competitions each school year.  These points and time units accumulate from year-to-year and eventually students who earn enough get an academic letterman jacket.  Olivia has already earned enough points to receive her academic letter (just the letter- not the jacket).  We are keeping her letter on her bulletin board until she qualifies for a jacket.  At that point we can turn in the letter and it will be sewn onto the jacket.  I don't think she can qualify for that until she is older, though. In addition to earning the letter, Olivia received time units for participating in math team, robotics, battle of the books, technology club, and science fair.  She also received points for placing in math competitions and in the stock market game.

 This was Owen's first year to be recognized at this ceremony.  He received time units for participation in battle of the books, math team, and two different technology clubs.  He also received points for placing in one of the math competitions.  Brian and I are proud of how hard the kids have worked this year.

Stock Market Game

Olivia's WINGS class competed in The Stock Market Game this year.  In this game teams are given a hypothetical portfolio of $100,000 that they invest over a 10-week period. The team from each public school district or geographic region with the highest portfolio value at the end of the 10-week trading session wins.  Olivia was part of the winning team for our region and was invited to a celebratory luncheon in Atlanta.  I don't know if she and her teammates were more excited about attending the luncheon or about the fact that they got to miss a day of school to do so.  I think that this is such a great activity to be involved in.  I know very little about the stock market, so I'm glad that Olivia has the opportunity to participate in something that will teach her how it works.  I asked her what her team did that caused them to win, and she said that their best investment was in "Buffalo Wild Wings".  Who knew?  

Baby-palooza

We recently welcomed two new additions to our family.  My sister, Cassie, gave birth to her second son at the end of last month.  His name is John Daniel, and he is just precious.  I am excited that I will get to meet him in about two weeks.  I can't wait to hold my sweet nephew.  

My cousin Jessica also has a new edition.  Her daughter Elyse was born two months ago. I have met her and I can certify that she is a pretty and sweet baby.  

The birth of John Daniel and Elyse causes James and Riley Quinn become older siblings.  There are certainly enough little ones to go around, and that's a good thing because everyone wants to be around the babies.  

Easter

We had the best Easter this year.  It was just wonderful in so many ways.  To start off with, Brian's brother Brandon was driving through town on his way back to Baltimore so he was able to celebrate Easter with us.  The kids just love their uncle Brandon, so they were so excited to see him.  

Earlier in the morning the kids had woken up to find gifts left by the Easter bunny.  They ate a few pieces of their candy and found the eggs that the bunny had hidden before getting dressed for Sunday School.  The church service was very good and well-attended.  It was nice to see so many people coming together to celebrate.  

After church we went to have lunch at Granny and Papa's, and while everyone wasn't there we still had a large crowd.  We ate a delicious meal and then celebrated the March / April birthdays.  We weren't able to hide eggs last year due to the weather, but it was nice and sunny this year so the egg hunt was able to take place.  It was such good weather that even Papa got in his scooter and rode around during the egg hunt.  I was definitely tired by the end of the day, but it was a good kind of tired.  It was just a great day all-around.

Easter Prep

Easter is always full of lots of fun, praise, and church activities.  Because of the way that our spring break fell this year, the kids were not able to participate in the spring production by the children's choir.  The kids did sing a few songs in church on Palm Sunday, so they were able to do a little with the music that they had been rehearsing.  

The church Easter egg hunt is always a much-anticipated event.  It's funny how it takes so long to hide the eggs and then the kids find them all within five minutes. The kids are blessed to have such a good group of church buddies.  They all get along so well together.  

After having performed their songs in church and participated in the egg hunt, the last bit of "prep" work was getting the eggs ready.  Brian is usually the orchestrator of this, and I'm glad that he took this role again this year.

Philadelphia

Olivia is studying the founding of our country in school this year, so we thought that this would be a great time to visit Philadelphia.  Philly is only about two hours or so from the Sanders' house in Delaware, so it was an easy drive. Once we arrived, we went straight away to get tickets for Independence Hall.  Even though we procured the tickets in the 10 o'clock hour, the first available tour wasn't until 3:45.  I'm glad we went ahead and got those tickets right off.  We saw several people wanting to tour and being turned away later in the day because the park service had run out of tickets.

After getting our tour tickets, we walked across the street to the Liberty Bell Center to see the bell. That didn't take long.

 It was getting close to noon and we had some time to kill so we decided to walk around Philly.  The plan was to walk to Reading Terminal Market because I had heard that that was the place to get a Philly cheesesteak, and I wanted Brian to have that (because he is such a foodie).  My guidebooks didn't lie, Reading Terminal Market is indeed the place to be for lunch, and I think that everyone in Philadelphia was there. I'm okay with crowds, but this was too much.  There was a long line at every stand.  We could barely move around. We quickly began looking for a plan B, but lots of other people were too.  Many of the restaurants around the market were also full.  We ended up just walking back to the historic district and having lunch at a pub in that neighborhood.  Although our trek failed, we did get to see some interesting things along the way.  We walked through a part of Chinatown, saw the surprisingly beautiful City Hall, and went into the fanciest department store (a Macy's) that I've ever seen.

 After lunch we still had a little time to kill until our tour.  So, we walked around the historic neighborhood checking out some of the other buildings and catching Pokemon.  Yes, the kids want to hunt for Pokemon everywhere we go.  They are really into it.

Three forty five finally rolled around and we were able to enter Independence Hall.  We got to see several rooms in the building- including the room where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were debated and signed.  Olivia had to memorize the Preamble to the Constitution for her class this year, and we videoed her reciting it in three different places within the building where it was written.  The park ranger heard her reciting it and he gave her a card that had the Preamble written on it.

 After our tour we returned to our car and drove back to Delaware.  Later in the evening the movie National Treasure was on t.v. and we watched it.  There was a long sequence in the movie when the heroes are in Philadelphia.  It was cool to see the places that we had just been to that day in the movie.