Wow! What an incredible week! Mostly for Allison. This week she had to give her speech for the Distinguished Women's Girl Scout Award at the yearly gala. This involved her spending the day at work last month with a woman CEO chosen by the Girl SCout council as a Leader in the Baltimore community. Usually it turns out that woman was also a Girl SCout or currently has a daughter that is a girl scout. Allison's mentor owns a chemical company in Baltimore. Allison spent the day with her at the factory, driving a fork lift and taking a tour, then over to a school where the company was sponsoring a fund raising event, and then off to a meeting at city hall where Allison's mentor had to give a speech concerning the status of small and independent businesses. Mrs Partlow also invited us to a High Tea GS fund raiser at her home as guests of honor. So Thursday night Allison had to give her speech about her mentor and how they spent the day at the company, along with 5 other girls. Normally, there are only 5 girls total, but this year since it is our 100th Anniversary, they added another Award to our Mayor of Baltimore, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. and had a scout follow her around City Hall for a day.

Allison had to practice her speech in front of the GS delegation on Monday night, and then again at a dress rehearsal at the Country Club on Weds. night. But the Thursday night gala was her big moment, and Tom and I and SCott were all able to attend at no cost to us($100 per ticket). And we think Allison did a great job giving her speech to approx 300 people. What a wonderful experience. You can listen to her speech on my video link.

She didn't slow down then. On Saturday night she had her High School Prom. I  spent the morning picking up her flowers and getting her to a manicure/pedicure appt. She also had to pick out her makeup. But most importantly she had to get some homework done because she plans on sleeping all day Sunday. Not only did her group go out to dinner(all you can eat Chinese buffet) and then the actual prom dance, but then the school sponsored an Up All Night party at our YMCA. They had gambling, karoake, dancing, swimming, movies,  the gym and rock wall climbing were open, as well as door prizes and character drawings. Allison got a great character drawing as an archer. The best part of all was that I did not have to do any driving(picking up and dropping off). One very nice parent purchased a stretch limo for Allison's group.  So the limo came to our house to pick them up after photos, then to the restaurant, then the hall where the dance was held and then to the Y for the after party and  each kid was dropped off at their front door at 5am Sunday morning. All I had to do was let Allison in the front door. I would have been happy to stay up all night and volunteer at the After Prom party since I am used to those kind of GS events. But Tom was gone and I did not want to leave SCott all alone for the night.

Tom  had headed off to the airport Saturday night as Allison was getting dressed. He will be in England all this week. Apparently along with my brother Dave who is working in London probably until July. I think he should stay for the Olympics! Dave did actually get the chance to see some of the Olympic games before when he was working in Korea. 

I asked Tom to look for some fun High Tea items since I am going to have a tea party with my scouts and their moms this month. Works out for Mother's Day! I have been busy picking up odds and ends tea cups and tea pots at the Goodwill store and garage sales. Didn't think I would have so much trouble picking up a few cups, but apparently people are holding onto those. I believe I will do better at our big Treasure Sale at work coming up just before the tea.

I had a few other activities I would have liked to have done this weekend, we just ran out of time. The Girl Scouts had a 100th Anniversary camping weekend that I would have taken the girls to if we did not have the prom scheduled. A few other girls in my troop were going to prom as well. We were also supposed to lead a campfire sing a long at the campout on Friday night with the GS choir, but Allison had to work, SCott had gymnastics and I did not feel like driving 1.5 hrs to get to camp to sing and then turn around and come home. By myself.  There was also an amazing Science and Engineering FAir going on in DC this past weekend. I really wanted to take the kids, and Tom too. Bill Nye the Science Guy was there as well as the Myth Busters, Jamie and Adam. They also had an incredible number of authors, shows, a career tent and lots of activities-everything from math programs to outer space/astronauts/physics/marine biology/medicine/robots-everything. We just did not have enough time.

Scott spent his Saturday wrapping up his community hours for his boy scout Citizenship in the Community badge. He worked all day at a church kids fair-set up/games/clean up. 7 hours total. Plus an hour for road side clean up last month to reach his 8 hrs volunteer work for the church. Way to go Scott.

Tom and I managed to get away for a quick date since we both had Friday off. In between running errands, we went to see a movie-The Raven. It is a murder mystery based on the writings of Edgar Allen Poe-like The Pit and the Pendulum. It is based in the 1800s in Baltimore where Poe lived and wrote a lot of his stories. (Hence our football teams name, The Ravens. Plus it works well with the Orioles).  Poe is also buried here after he died and was found lying in the streets. The movie was OK, it was mostly fun just hearing them say Baltimore over and over again. AFterwards we cheated on our dessert free diets and had lunch at the Cheese CAke FActory and brought home a slice of cheesecake for everyone.

Overall quite an amazing week. I even had a chance to get out and do a bit of yardwork on Sunday. I had some plants to move and started weeding the flower beds. ONe day we will order mulch when we are around to put it down. And Tom got the grass cut Saturday morning before we actually got some rain. As opposed to the beginning of the week when it snowed in the Maryland mountains.

Well, time to go make dinner and study with SCott for his upcoming week full of tests!