Intra-Squad Robotics Competition

 Olivia's Robotics team held an intra-squad competition to wrap up the year.  The kids drew straws to determine who their partner would be for the competition.  Olivia and her partner ended up winning third place.  I cannot tell you how much Olivia has enjoyed robotics this year.  She is really looking forward to next year. Her sponsors have been  fantastic and have really brought the team so far this year.  I hear next year they are going to have four competition robots instead of two.  This program is growing by leaps and bounds.  Now if we could just get some competitions that are further south than Atlanta...

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.