Saturday, May 23, 2009

Rotary Club Luncheon

Wednesday, Kris and I joined Sarah at North Hills Country Club for the Rotary Club Luncheon. Why you may ask? Well it was because Sarah was receiving the Rotary Club Student of the Month Award. We thought it was just something like what Riverside gives out for Student of the month, but we learned Wednesday that this was the highest honor that a Riverside student can receive. It is given to students who stand out academically as well as exhibiting leadership skills and extra curricular activities.

We got to sit at the table with the chief of police, who coincidentally, was the speaker at the girls scout ceremony of achievement. We also got to hear a presentation from someone at one of the other area Rotary Clubs who was pitching their youth exchange program, which is essentially an exchange student program that they sponsor. All very interesting, but Sarah said she really doesn't have any desire to go overseas for a year. And to be honest, I'm not sure I would want her to.

That will be the only time I think that we will ever be inside North Hills Country Club. Funny that it took a 10 year old to get us in.



Thursday, May 21, 2009

Reflections Awards

We made it back from Steven’s Point without incident. The awards luncheon was pretty lame, but the art show that was outside the conference room was pretty nice. If we ever got enough entries from the students at Riverside, that is what I would like ours to look like. And actually Kris had asked me if I could perhaps help Paulette at the High School to have the MFHS students submit projects. This was because when we were reading the programs at the event, almost half of the winners were from Germantown, from grade school through high school. So why not have the falls kids submit more. That might take more work. It hasn’t been a big drain on me since in the two years I have been the Reflections chair for the PTA, we have had 5 entries and 7 entries, and all in different categories, so we haven’t had to do any judging we just sent the entries to the state competition.

Anyway, here is Sarah standing next to her winning entry.


And here she is on stage getting her award.



And finally with her friend Zoe and her sister Olivia, who were also award recipients.


Next year’s category is “Beauty Is…” so I’ll have to start helping Ali think of ideas for her project. She already knows what she wants to do, we just have to figure out the best way to present it.

Girl Scout Awards

Sarah and some of the other girls in her troop attended the “Ceremony of Achievement” last Thursday Night to receive their Bronze Awards. They were the only Juniors there, the rest were girls who are in high school or adult members who were receiving awards.

Sarah and the other girls organized a blood drive last winter at Riverside, and also raised money for materials to build small, portable bridges to be used in girl scout bridging ceremonies. They built the bridges, painted them, and stenciled them with “Girl Scouts”. (2) are being presented to the Girl Scout Council, and the remaining bridge is going to stay at Riverside.



Even Alison got to help out being the official “greeter”, welcoming people as they entered and handing out programs.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Getting Ready to Go

We're heading up to Steven's Point today for Sarah's luncheon for the State PTA Reflections awards. I estimate that it'll be about a 2.5 hour drive, so wish us luck that we can find where we need to go. Pictures to follow later tonight or tomorrow.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Mother's Day '09

Kris had to work this year so her Mother's day started off pretty crummy. The girls were very excited to give Kris her presents when she got home. They got her an iPod and docking station/boom box. So I spent the afternoon loading it up with music.



Wednesday, May 13, 2009

As Promised...

The neighbors had their storage shed, errrrr, garage door open so I ran upstairs to get a couple of pictures.





I don't know, maybe it's wrong of me to be annoyed by that, but I am!

Students of the Month

Alison got the Student of the Month Award this month for her class. We ended up going to the PTA meeting last night so she could get herself a student of the month pencil (apparently a very big deal). And she got to have lunch with the principal yesterday as well, again, a very big deal for her.

We were also contacted last week by the principal and informed that Sarah was going to be the Menomonee Falls Rotary Club student of the month for May. I’m still sort of fuzzy on what exactly the requirements are and who votes for the Rotary Club Student of the Month, but no matter. Sarah gets to go have lunch at the North Hills Country Club at the monthly Rotary Club Lunch where she’ll get her certificate.

Way to go girls!

Caffeine

In an effort to try and improve my health, I have cut WAY back on my daily intake of caffeine. Short of a Pepsi here and there, I have gone cold turkey. I have even taken to drinking decaf coffee in the morning, but that is mainly because I like having something warm to drink when I wake up. But I can honestly say I’m feeling it. It has been hard getting through the day when I get up early and go to bed late. No coffee in the morning makes it hard to keep my eyes open. I am hoping that it is just something I have to work through and as I get accustomed to not having caffeine flowing through my veins, I’ll become less tired.

Wet, Wet, Wet

I finally was able to cut the grass on Monday. I had to wait until the ground dried up a little bit, but even then the backyard was still very wet. It was like walking on a sponge. It almost makes me wonder why I put the 18 yards of dirt back there 8 years ago. If I need to build up the yard every five years it make me wonder if it is even worth it. Then I look at the clown behind me and think I suppose if I did feel that way I would be like him and have a wetlands in my yard for six months a year.

Update

It has been a while since I have had a free moment to sit down and write out what has been going on, so here is a brief description of what we have been doing for the past two weeks.

Kris had a mother-daughter event with the girls for scouts where they painted plates. They spent two hours designing and painting. In the end the people running the event took the plates back to put a glaze on them and bake them in a kiln. We should have them back in a couple of weeks so we’ll post some photos when they get here.

Next we had “family night” at dance, which is code for allowing parent to sit and watch. The girls have their recital coming up in about a month so they are working hard to get their routines down. The girls also got to pick up their costumes. They were very excited to finally get them, more so Alison than Sarah. One of Sarah’s costumes is VERY glittery. We took it out to make sure it fit (and also because we have to do a slight modification to the straps) and it got all over the floor. Pictures are coming up on 5/21 so until then it’ll stay in the bag, except for fixing the straps.

I was finally able to get some fertilizer down on the lawn. It really needed it, especially in the backyard. When the pine trees were cut down last year and we filled in where they were as well as behind the garage, the plan was to lay sod, well the sod farm was out at the time and if I had waited for the sod farm to cut more it would have been October before I could have laid it. SO I seeded the spots instead. However, the topsoil now has sprouted what appears to be some sort of goldenrod type weeds. As soon as we have a few dry days in a row and the sponge that is my backyard has dried up enough, I’ll be spraying weed killer to see if I can kill them. It may be a moot point since I have plenty of low spots that I am going to attempt to fill and seed this year.

Kris's Finger

I get home from work yesterday and Kris shows me her finger. It looks like she got a blister that popped, and she says, nope. At the very least it is infected. Over the course of last night it had gotten more red and swollen. I told her she should go to the ER and have it looked at, but she refused. We’ll see how it looks today after soaking it in alcohol and some triple antibiotic. Let’s just hope we don’t need to cut it off.