Well we all survived our very busy week (last week) . Tom spent most of MLK Monday studying science and geometry with Allison while I went to work. Scott just enjoyed playing with the neighbor's son all day.
Tom was off to Orlando bright and early on Tuesday morning, so I had drop off for both kids. Allison had a full day of school on Tuesday, and started taking part of her midterm exams-gym and piano. She is done with her gym class now(which seemed more like health class) and now she actually takes health class next semester. She is happy though because she knows the instructor-Miss Allison! I sent our Allison to a summer camp fitness and fun class about 5 years ago at the local community college, and Allison really enjoyed the class. Especially the pogo sticks! We spent that summer hunting down a pogo stick for her very own and finally found a good one at the Salvation Army store in Michigan! The kids have long since worn out the spring, but now I see they sell them at Toys R Us. So if anyone gets any jumping ideas, we're all set. Anyhow, she is happy to have a class with someone she already knows. Kinda like Linda Seitz running into the kids she used to babysit and from the daycare(wait until you've taught for over 30 years and are retired from teaching for about another 10 yrs like my mom Linda!).
So the midterm exam week started off on a good note(no pun intended/piano theory exam), but it got a lot more intense as the week went on. The rest of the week was scheduled on half days with two exams per day. Weds she had History and Piano again-the kids each learned to play a new piece and had to play for each other and the teacher. Thursday was Science and English. Friday she had Geometry and Spanish. It was helpful that she got home by 1130 each day so she could spend time studying. I just had a hard time helping her review-not many hours left in the day by the time I pick up Scott from school and get home and make dinner. And she had so much info to cover. Tom had made her lots of Geometry quizzes to complete on the computer, and I practically downloaded an entire book off the internet for grammar. I think the English midterm was the toughest. The kids had 3 books to review(Night, Raisin in the Sun and To Kill a Mockingbird). They also had grammar and needed to know the rules on writing research papers and how to write an outline. It also gets more complicated since we have State Assessments that the kids have to pass in 11th grade in order to graduate from HS. Is this the same for all of you around the country? The kids have to pass math, science, govt. and english exams before they can graduate. Allison has already placed out of math, so she will just have 3 tests. So each semester they are given county assessments as well in order to prepare for the final tests(kinda like PSATs/SATs). Allison did not do well on her first English county assessment last semester, so I was trying to get her up to speed. However, the teacher changed their schedule and gave the kids the county assessment the week before he said it was scheduled. I was a bit upset since I specifically asked him when the test was scheduled so we could spend extra time preparing. He had assured me it was during midterm week. Then he admitted he made a mistake and gave it to them the week before. It did not give us a chance to trial the study quizzes on the state website he had also given us, but then again, when we tried to log on , the password he gave us was invalid. After that he said he couldn't help us. So glad this is an Honors class. After all of that, it looks like Allison ended up doing very well, and even bumped up her county assessment test to a B this time! Much better than the failing grade she got on the first assessment.
And she is very happy to have survived her first midterm week. Little does she realize how many more midterms and finals she has to go! We are just proud of how hard she has been working and her good grades, as well as babysitting, playing piano and playing field hockey on top of it all. She had two field hockey games Weds night, and then began practicing with our neighbor's team. His daughter is in middle school and they needed a goalie, so Allison is volunteering to practice with them. It is good for her playing skills she practices for 2 hrs Saturday morning. So she gets a long, 3 day weekend with Monday the 25th off. I decided to stay home with her and switched my day off so we can go see Avatar.
Scott wishes he had an extra day off since he is busy with lots of tests too. We did enjoy a trip this Saturday morning with his Environmental club to the Baltimore power plant. We had always thought the huge facility was a recycling plant, but it actually is a huge incinerator that burns trash to produce energy. It is a very clean facility with lots of filters and scrubbers so there is not alot of pollutants being put into the environment. And it produces steam which turns the turbines to make electricity. Our favorite part of the tour was looking down onto the 8,000 tons of trash being scooped up and dumped down the hopper into the furnace. They burn everything and then the ash is spread out over local landfills. Apparently a pretty green running facility built back in the 80s. It runs power for all of Baltimore and 20,000 homes. (Scott also enjoyed wearing the hard hat and safety glasses on the tour).
Tom enjoyed his trip to Orlando and even stopped in to see his Mom and Dad on Thursday night for dinner. He certainly misses the warmer weather they started having, but we have shot up to a balmy 40degrees so it's not too bad. The kids hoped to get off school last Friday as an ice storm was headed our way, but turns out it wasn't cold enough. They already had a half day, and I took Scott to the doctor since he fell off the playground equipment last week and has been complaining of jaw and neck and back pain. He had landed on the side of his head and I was worried about a hairline fracture or a cracked tooth. We have to wait for the xray results now.
When Tom returned from Florida, we had a fun evening planned on Saturday night. We ended up having dinner out an one of the better Italian restaurants in Baltimore. The city sponsors restaurant week with discount 3 course meals. We were able to get reservations for dinner before we went off to see Young Frankenstein at the Hippodrome theater. It was cute-just like Mel Brook's movie(but I missed Gene Wilder and the original cast). Igor was funny and cute of course.
We would have liked to have visited with Tom's cousin Jane and her husband Steve visiting DC from Indy. They were in DC to participate in the March for Life rally on Friday morning. I guess they had a busy short weekend though and couldn't squeeze in a visit. We'll see them though in June when we travel to Indy for Stacey and Matt's wedding.
So today I am off to rollerblade with the girl scouts for 3 hours. Hope my knees hold out!
Kathleen and Family