Science Olympiad

Helen volunteered to take the Science Olympiad team from her school to a competition at Southern Tech last Saturday. The teacher who was originally supposed to go is very pregnant and looks like she's about to bust, so Helen graciously told her several weeks ago that she would handle the Science Olympiad.

I dropped Helen off early Saturday morning before 7 and she rode with the students on the bus to Southern Tech. In the afternoon, the boys and I drove over to Southern Tech to pick Helen up. It took us several trips around the campus to find the right building.

We had hoped to see some of the competition but the events were spread out across the campus so we just looked at some of the displays in the Technology building where Helen's team was based.

The students seemed to be having fun at the competition. We stopped for lunch at Chick-fil-a on the way home. It was a nice little trip.

Derek's Band Concert

Derek's band, along with a couple other local school bands, did short performances of the songs they will be playing for their next competition

Adam was really into it..."Can we go now?"

Our neighbor, Becca, in the foreground on the clarinet

The Girls

Hammy and Chub Chub enjoying a Cheerio snack

What About Football?

Helen snapped this picture of a rare occurrence - the neighborhood kids playing football in the backyard. They play a lot of XBox, of course, but they also play chase games and other unstructured things which, I guess, is okay, but whatever happened to baseball, football, basketball, etc? When I ask the kids about it, they say that those games aren't fun or that nobody can agree on the rules so the games just break down.   

Happy Valentine's Day

Helen went to the effort of making Valentine's Day at least a little bit special with a low key candlelight dinner and chocolate hearts. The men in her life failed to match the effort, but we appreciated it. Who thought of all these land mine days anyway? Can't we just get back to regular programming? 

In Sickness and Hockey

Last Sunday I woke up and saw that our mailbox door had fallen off so I spent some time repairing it and, let me tell you, it was cooollld outside! Also, the boys and I had hockey games later in the day and I decided we needed to clean our skate bearings so I was in the cold garage all morning cleaning bearings...too focused to really worry about the cold. By the time the afternoon games rolled around, I was chilled to the bone and pretty sure I was getting sick.

Since I was a kid I never believed that wearing a coat kept you from getting sick. Whenever the kids go outside and Helen wants them to wear a coat, I always say to let them wear whatever they want. And it irks me that the school can dictate to my kids that they have to wear a coat on the playground. I always hated to be told to do things...whether it was for my own good or not. Give me the information and let me decide. Live and let live. Live and learn. Evolution at work and all those kind of things.

After being outside in the cold all weekend and then playing in a game Sunday night at 6 and then waiting around in wet clothes and playing another game at 8...I was officially exhausted, run down, and sick. At some point, my fever broke during the night and I went to work on Monday morning, but as a bonus I also got a stomach bug that stayed with me all week. The rest of the family had a stomach bug the week before and they all came home from school early at some point. Helen even stayed home for a day, but I never got it.

If I get sick Helen usually makes an effort to avoid getting whatever I have by keeping her distance, but I never go out of my way to avoid sickness. I figure there are so many germs out there that you're going to get whatever you're going to get. Just try to eat right, exercise, and get enough rest and let your body do its job. This time I didn't give my body a fighting chance and I paid. I knew it was going to make things worse if I played in the hockey games, but there's just no way I was going to not play. It seems like whenever I get sick it's because I was already worn down and still played in some sports activity. Man makes decisions and must deal with the results - evolution at work.    

The travel hockey team was having a bake sale all weekend and we contributed more than our fair share to the cause

Trying to stay warm in the sun

Adam's team was in the 10U championship game. They won a thriller to get into the championship the previous day against our neighbor Ryan's team. Adam's good friend Evan is also the goalie on that team. In that game, Adam scored with a little over a minute to go to put the game into overtime and Patrick our next door neighbor scored to win it. We felt bad when we saw Evan crying after the game.

The championship game was against the Blackhawks who had only been beaten once all season - by Adam's team early in the season in a shootout. The Blackhawks jumped out to a 4-1 lead but Adam tied the game at 4 just before the end of the second period. A couple of the kids on the Blackhawks were crying and we thought we had them, but the Blackhawks scored a quick goal at the start of the third period and pulled away 9-4. I think if we had gone ahead we might have won but the Blackhawks were the better team. It was a great game and a fun season. 

Christian, Connor O, Ryan, Delaney, and Connor B

Adam's coach telling the team how proud he is and that it was a great season but that he doesn't believe in participation trophies so the team wasn't getting any

The coach did, however, get the kids a puck with the team picture

Derek's team was in the 14U championship game at 4. They only lost one game all season and it was really the only close game they had so we expected a fairly easy win. However, the other team came to play and their goalie was terrific. The game was still tied at 0 going into the third period. Derek's team scored early in the period and then went up 2-0, but the other team scored with a couple minutes to go and then almost tied it up a number of times before the buzzer finally sounded. It was a really fun game and made the win more satisfying.

Derek's team after the win

Helen and the kids were going to hang around for my 6 pm game but it was so cold and everyone was tired so they all went home and went to bed early

Channeling Ok Go

Derek relaxed in the afternoon after his ACT by building a Rube Goldberg Machine. He was inspired by the latest Ok Go You Tube video. 

ACT

We took Derek early Saturday morning to take the ACT. He's only in 7th grade but he was able to take the test as part of the Duke TIP. Here we're returning in the afternoon to pick him up.

Derek said his brain was tired and he was hungry and wanted to get something to eat. Adam chose Panda Express.

Derek chose Philly Connection