Happy Spring Ahead! So Tom and I have been slowly getting back on our feet-fighting colds and stomach upset. So far it looks like the kids are staying healthy. A good thing since both have packed schedules, although Tom is busy once again with his new class.

Scott actually tried out for the Boys Track team again. He participated in the shot put event last year and really enjoyed it. This year, the entire football team showed up to participate and Scott quickly dropped to the bottom. The new coach assured Scott with lots of practice, including Saturdays, he could improve Scott's skill and participation on the team. Unfortunately, Scott just does not have the extra time to give to improving in this sport. With school, work, scouts, video club, and guitar, he really does not have enough hours in the day or week to squeeze in one more event. He would have loved to continue, but we decided the other activities took top rank. Especially school.

Scott had some big tests in math and science, so Tom kept him home from everything so he could study. Including his last planning meeting for scouts and the weekly meeting. Instead I dropped by the scout meeting to pick up bags for the upcoming scouting for food drive. Last Saturday morning, Tom and Scott headed out to place bags on local neighborhood mailboxes. This weekend, they will make the same rounds and pick up(hopefully)bags full of food.  Scott did participate in an after school choir competition at a local theatre. He had to drag his tux in to class all day. And I asked Tom to drop by my place of work last Friday afternoon and bring Scott so he could start his Eagle project.   I am still helping fill in extra hours at work, so I went in on Friday afternoon. The weather had been absolutely beautiful, so I thought Tom could bring Scott over to my nursing home to scope out an Eagle project. Our activity coordinator, Donna, would like Scott to make elevated wheelchair accessible planters. Scott toured the facility and chatted with Donna and took photos, measurements and made sketches.  She took his photo to put an article in our newsletter and gave him a volunteer application to fill out. Now Scott just has to write up a plan and speak to his Eagle project coach. Then he will be meeting with the multiple Eagle boards for approval of the project before he can even get started. Plus he may need to look for some donations for building supplies for the project-maybe Home Depot or Lowes or Ace Hardware. Our rehab team was hoping to have him build us benches to place outside for family members or patients to sit on while visiting.   Not sure if  we are going to get any benches. The director wants about 6 planters. That is a big Eagle project right there. So Scott's creative brain is working on it.

He also has to fill out a National Honor Society application. It has gotten so complicated for our kids. When we were in school, they automatically signed you up for NHS if you had good grades. Now you have to apply with good grades, be incredibly involved in sports/clubs/arts clubs, demonstrate community volunteerism and get forms filled out proving all your participation along with 5 teacher references. And if you get in, you have to maintain 20 volunteer hours each year. So it has become a thing. Allison managed to become a member. Many kids just don't want to spend the time filling out the application. And the kids that participate in scouts do have an advantage over other applicants since they commit a portion of their time to volunteer work. Eagle projects usually push it over the top!

So Scott and Tom spent about an hour at my work place. That is the first time Tom has been to my workplace in almost 3 yrs. He agreed that the place is a dump. But we do have a great staff-unfortunately, we rent the building and can't do much about remodeling. And Medicaid does not pay that much. Scott's planters will be a nice addition. And possibly the scouts can do some landscape repairs on a few flower beds that were built into the side of the hill. The wooden logs holding up the hillside have collapsed. A 15 yo Eagle scout project that needs repair. But that would also include further donations.

Besides initiating his Eagle project, Scott did get to his guitar lesson this week. He also stopped into robotics to pick up his tshirt and drop off his permission slip for the robotics competition last weekend. The preliminary competitions started and he spent all day last Sunday at a high school in Bethesda MD watching the robots in action. Good thing he brought along his tablet, phone and homework. It makes for a long day. We ran out of the door this morning 5 mins before the bus was leaving at 7am. I really hate the spring ahead! The tournament started Friday night.  Looks like their robot had some electrical issues  and they missed 3 matches while they did repairs. Scott is one of the members of the pit crew. He does not like being responsible for the computer programming or operation of the robot. Too much stress. He enjoys the building. Hopefully they will not need his services. Apparently their robot was the biggest there. Robots have to compete in multiple tasks and gain points to win. Their robot was too big to go under obstacles, but it is the only one that was built to go over obstacles. They did not earn a lot of points during this tournament, but other teams want them to join in an alliance for a bigger win. We will see how they do this coming weekend.

Allison came home for Spring Break on Friday. Looking forward to having her around the house, although she considered traveling. We just did not have time to put that all together. Instead, she has a busy schedule planned for her time off. We spent Friday  night having dinner at a new chinese restaurant that opened up nearby. I think we found a new favorite eatery. We then stayed home to enjoy watching The Martian. Allison just finished reading the book and really liked it. We thought the movie was very good. Scott had already seen it at school.

I did kick off Allison's Spring break with a new experience. One of my coworkers was looking for some company to attend a Christian Rock concert in downtown Baltimore last Sunday. I thought Allison and I could join her. How bad could a christian rock concert be? And Allison has really enjoyed the music of Christian singer, Steven Curtis Chapman, although he was not playing at this event. I thought there might be similar performers. Turns out it was quite an experience-an all day experience. Ann purchased VIP tickets so we had seats on the main floor right next to the stage. Also we had early seating and a few private performances before the main concert began. And we enjoyed lunch at Outback before heading to downtown Baltimore. It was a very busy day downtown too with the St Patrick's Day parade, the musical Motown at our Hippodrome theatre and this event. All in the rain. Overall we had a really good time. The concert was a mix of single performers, a few of them previous American Idol participants, as well as a few bands. One of the groups, Newsboys is featured in an upcoming film, God is Not Dead II in which a teacher goes to the Supreme court to fight her case against answering a religious question in public school. We missed God is Not Dead I in which college students fought against a professor who tried to make his students admit that there is no God. The Newsboys are also headlining along with a few of the other groups at Busch Gardens during the upcoming Glory in the Garden concert series. So even though Allison was a bit hesitant to go, as was I, we just enjoyed the whole concert experience.

I also pent some time with my mom last weekend. We both visited the Hair Salon. I needed a hair cut and she needed a wash and set. I did not want her spending time in our house, catching a bug. So this past weekend  since we were feeling better, I dragged her out for some grocery shopping before coming over to the house. I also put up her St Patty's Day and Easter decorations. I can't handle two holidays in one month!  We were able to have mom over for dinner and a movie while Scott was at work. We watched The Intern-it had a good start but then kinda fizzled out.

Looking forward to having Allison home for a week during her Spring Break.

We enjoyed performances by Christian Rock groups including The Family Force Five and Newsboys. The FF5 performed with trampolines and chainsaws. Crazy.

 The light show and special effects were pretty amazing, including the Newsboys drummer. His entire drum set was on a rotating and spinning elevated platform. Crazy,

 We enjoyed the uplifting music by multiple soloists such as Jeremy Camp and Mandisa. Most performers also do Missionary work and travel all around the world. They played lots of videos of their travels on the large video screen onstage during their performances.

Mt Hebron High School Robot