Alli is on the Mini Level 2 competitive cheer team for Cheer Central Suns. They took team pictures a few weeks ago - can you find her? :-)
Monday, March 30, 2009
Alli Cheer Team
Alli is on the Mini Level 2 competitive cheer team for Cheer Central Suns. They took team pictures a few weeks ago - can you find her? :-)
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Johnny's Tower Project
Johnny’s 5th grade class had a science-engineering project to build a weight bearing tower. How fun is that! So, the first thing we did was talk to Jason and he drew us a great design in CAD.
After a couple weeks of procrastination, we finally got started. Gluing up the popsicle sticks to make the legs, floors and braces took forever…well, the construction did too! But Johnny and I had a ton of fun doing it together.
Each corner leg is 6 ply, the top and bottom floors are 4 ply and all the bracing is 3 ply. We drilled and pegged (with skewers) each joint, then wrapped the joint with kite string and smeared glue over the string. It was really fun to watch the tower get stronger with each brace we added.
There are two categories in the competition up for grabs. 1. The tower that supports the most weight. 2. The best tower weight to load capacity ratio. We’ll find out in a couple weeks how we did! Unfortunately, Johnny will be out of town the night of the competition, so we’ll find someone to video it for us.
Here are some fun facts:
1. Over 1200 popsicle sticks
2. Over 100 yards of string
3. Over 12 feet of skewers
4. 32 ounces of Elmer’s wood glue
5. Over 30 hours of work!
Spring Break Castle Project
Today is the last day of Spring Break 2009 for the kiddos and me. While we did not have any vacation plans because of our two upcoming trips in 10 days (the kids and I are going to LA for a week and John is going to Moab for Easter Jeep Safari - more blogs in the future on these two trips), we did have a great and relaxing time at home.
But......this Spring Break included two very BIG school projects for the kids. Johnny had an engineering science project, complete with an actual tower built out of popsicle sticks, skewers, glue, and string and a poster board explaining the construction of his tower, and a paper. John and Johnny spent over 30 hours over the last week building the tower (our kitchen is in shambles!).....it's amazing....I'll let John write up a more detailed blog on this project.
Allison had a castle project - she had to build a castle that looked like a castle from the Middle Ages, along with a paper. Alli's project is amazing too! John and Alli built the castle out of big and small marshmallows, toothpicks, rocks, glue, construction paper, popsicle sticks, paint, and markers. And she had to mark at least 10 details of the castle (and to be the over-achiever that she is - she marked all 16 details that were given) with 'flags' that we printed out and she cut and glued to toothpicks, and then hot-glued to their places.
John and Alli spent about 5 hours working on her castle, and then I helped her for another 2 hours for a total of 7 hours spent on building it. Notice the beautiful placement of the rocks around the castle - she did such a great job placing each pebble to represent the 'rocky ledges' that were around castles in the Middle Ages. The 'moat' - she cut out the paper herself - she drew the black lines on the castle to represent the 'arrow loops' - I can go on and on....
Both kids worked on their entire projects and although we helped them out - they were apart of each building step and we can truly say that these projects were theirs, not ours, and they did it - with our help - but THEY did it. John and I are so proud of them and we know that they will always remember their projects that they worked so hard on and be proud of themselves for this. And for all of the family time we spent together this past week - working together - helping each other - just being a family - I know I will always remember it!
Do you remember your school projects that you did? And how proud of yourself you were for the success of them? I remember mine - the most vivid one was the 'Insect Project' I did in 5th grade - my mom still has the report today.
Although we got a fairly big snow storm over Spring Break and really only went out a few times, I would have to say that it was such a great break for us - for all four of us - I just love hanging with the three most important people in my life. And with the dogs - they loved us just being home and hanging out too! I hope everyone's Spring Break was just as great!
But......this Spring Break included two very BIG school projects for the kids. Johnny had an engineering science project, complete with an actual tower built out of popsicle sticks, skewers, glue, and string and a poster board explaining the construction of his tower, and a paper. John and Johnny spent over 30 hours over the last week building the tower (our kitchen is in shambles!).....it's amazing....I'll let John write up a more detailed blog on this project.
Allison had a castle project - she had to build a castle that looked like a castle from the Middle Ages, along with a paper. Alli's project is amazing too! John and Alli built the castle out of big and small marshmallows, toothpicks, rocks, glue, construction paper, popsicle sticks, paint, and markers. And she had to mark at least 10 details of the castle (and to be the over-achiever that she is - she marked all 16 details that were given) with 'flags' that we printed out and she cut and glued to toothpicks, and then hot-glued to their places.
John and Alli spent about 5 hours working on her castle, and then I helped her for another 2 hours for a total of 7 hours spent on building it. Notice the beautiful placement of the rocks around the castle - she did such a great job placing each pebble to represent the 'rocky ledges' that were around castles in the Middle Ages. The 'moat' - she cut out the paper herself - she drew the black lines on the castle to represent the 'arrow loops' - I can go on and on....
Both kids worked on their entire projects and although we helped them out - they were apart of each building step and we can truly say that these projects were theirs, not ours, and they did it - with our help - but THEY did it. John and I are so proud of them and we know that they will always remember their projects that they worked so hard on and be proud of themselves for this. And for all of the family time we spent together this past week - working together - helping each other - just being a family - I know I will always remember it!
Do you remember your school projects that you did? And how proud of yourself you were for the success of them? I remember mine - the most vivid one was the 'Insect Project' I did in 5th grade - my mom still has the report today.
Although we got a fairly big snow storm over Spring Break and really only went out a few times, I would have to say that it was such a great break for us - for all four of us - I just love hanging with the three most important people in my life. And with the dogs - they loved us just being home and hanging out too! I hope everyone's Spring Break was just as great!
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Johnny's Class Song
Johnny and his 5th grade class recorded a song for a CD for the organization "Up With People" - which they will be producing and distributing and selling around the world. Listen to the first rough version of the song!
Listen Here
Download Here
Listen Here
Download Here
Welcome to our blog site
To keep up with the Bloggers (or to come into the 21st Century) I've added this blog to our site. Hopefully we will keep it up to date and you will enjoy the stories of our day to day lives.
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