So Was it Worth Staying Up Until 11pm?

Philip had his Science Fair project due last week. We have done many many science fair projects around here and have determined that the best time to do them is the weekend BEFORE they are due. Unfortunately, Philip forgot his science fair folder at school that Friday. Even with me having connections to people with master keys to the school, I could not find that folder since the teacher had not returned it - and who likes shuffling through a teacher's desk - esp when that teacher is your coworker??? :) So, Philip only had Monday and Tuesday night to finish his project. Then, this past Tuesday the school had the science fair. Philip was pretty happy to see that he had won a Grand Prize! Now, his project gets to go and compete in the regional fair.

For those that don't know, his project tested whether boiling water on a store bought backpacking stove boiled faster than a homemade one. If you were wondering, the store bought ones work faster. And, if you are one of those people who are wondering how to build your very own backpacking stove out of soda cans, I suggest you email Rik and get the lowdown. It takes a very special/patient/dedicated/(insane) person to build these from scratch.

And, I asked Philip if it was worth it staying up so late to finish his project... his response? I guess so. *sigh*

This was pretty cool...

How often is your name up in lights? Good job Caitlin!!!

Valentines Day...

Well, if you remember correctly, it was last Saturday which just said to us that every restaurant would be teeming with people. So, we decided to carry on our own tradition - which we've been doing now for the past couple of years. We make heart shaped pizzas and everyone gets their own. They get to top it with whatever they want. Your own personal pizza! I think they turn out pretty cute! It was much more fun that spending an hour waiting for at table at some overpriced restaurant! :)

Football season is..

Finished now. It was over a couple of weeks ago, I'm just slow in getting my pictures off the camera. It doesn't seem like a difficult task, but... :) Anyway, for the 6th grade teams they play the other 5 elementaries in our district. I think they won about 1/2 of their games. Philip even made a couple of touchdowns along the way! He was even happier that he was number 13 for his jersey because that didn't happen last year! He thinks he's going to play next year in jr high. I think this is still open to debate - after all - this is *flag* football he's been playing - tackle is a whole different story. While I want to encourage my kids to follow their dreams, etc, I'm going to have a really hard time signing that permission slip. Luckily, I still have a few months to talk him out of it.

Scary and depressing...

The powers that be here are messing with the budget. Arizona is flat broke, and for some reason, they think it's a great idea to cut spending on education, even though we are so low in spending already. I don't think they realize that this will trickle down to them eventually, even if their children are attending private schools. We had a mtg at work this week about it, and for the rest of the year, there are no extras. No extra paper, pencils, or field trips. If they don't own it right now, the district will not be buying it. The only exception being toilet paper! ;)

Next year is still up in the air, but even scarier. We were told that there is a "high probablity" of job losses. More than the normal people retiring or quitting. This has everyone running scared. And, it's the same in all districts around here. I talked to a friend who works for another district and they pretty much got the same talk we did.

So, I encourage you to write everyone you can, from Jan Brewer down to your legislator. Tell them how you would like to see education in Arizona.

I'm not sure why, but none of my links are showing up this moring, including the video, so you're going to have to follow this link and watch the video... www.speakupnowaz.org

Weekend away...

Rik and I went to Flagstaff this weekend to celebrate our wedding anniversary that happened a couple of weeks ago. I was pretty excited about this because it was kind of a mini-honeymoon. Remember, 16 years ago, we were too broke to have a honeymoon, and then, kids came along, and well, we were not only broke, but exhausted and busy too! So this past summer when Rik mentioned that he thought it would be fun to go snowshoeing for our anniversary, I decided to take him up on it.

It turned into a snowshoeing/cross country skiing adventure because the place that I found that you could do this at offered both. We decided to do skiing one day and snowshoeing the next. What I learned is that cross country skiing is a whole lot harder than the people in the Olympics make it look. While it is fun, I think I need a lot more practice before I make it off the green, easy loops. I am in total awe of the people who we saw up there on the black, hard loops.

Snowshoeing is a lot easier. But, it should be - right? I am not trying to glide across snow, clomping across snow is much easier! It also took us to some quieter, more beautiful spots. The one thing that no one had told me and I had never thought about it how NOISY snow is. Being the desert rat I am, I have all these Christmas card images of snow flakes quietly falling - and did not realize that snow is crunchy and loud once all of those snowflakes get together on the ground.

We also spent sometime walking around downtown Flagstaff. Why is it that this city I live in cannot have a nice downtown like this? I loved it because there were lots of cute shops and restaurants. It wasn't scary to walk out there, even at night. We ate lots of good food (Thai, German, pizza, etc) and I was scared to get on the scale this morning. We even topped it off with Cold Stone - and this one didn't get the message about Dark Chocolate Peppermint being only available during Nov/Dec. They still had some on Jan 31!

And, after being in 20º temps during the mornings for the past couple of days, it seemed almost warm here this morning. Everyone at work kept saying it was chilly out and strangely, I hadn't noticed. :)