Happy May! I hope I did not wear all of you out catching up on my blogs. I wore myself out just typing(and trying to input photos). As we end the month of April, we wrap up the monthly celebration of OT month. That's right, we Occupational Therapists have an entire month dedicated to our profession. This usually means more work for us OTs trying to explain to everyone what we actually do. So I made a fun poster describing adaptive equipment that we recommend for everyday life with lots of photos - Allison was my model. I set up a demo table during the lunch hour at work at the Retirement community and raffled off some goody bags I put together. My new boss wanted to extend the experience, so she took over my table during the dinner hour(I was busy treating patients-we have a very early dinner hour). So it seemed to be a great success. Even Mom's have homework. Happy OT month Laura! Hope your therapy is going well!
The kids are back to a busy school week too! Tom even helped out with Scott's science class this week by presenting a lesson in Simple Machines to the entire 4th grade class(in two shifts). The kids were absolutely amazed when Tom set up a lever system and two kids were able able to lift him up. The power of the lever! Scott also made a great assistant. The teacher thought it was great and really appreciated the extra support to her lessons. Plus we needed to add to our 30 hour required volunteer time we need to put in at Scott's school. The past several years Tom has been organizing and running a Science Fair for the school. He was hoping the teachers or administrators would take over the responsibility and add it to their classwork. No such luck. So this year he decided to just help out Scott's class. Also, he usually signs up for an outreach program with Northrop that donates funds to the school if the guys come in and put on some type of presentation in science and engineering. Tom missed the sign up this year as he was busy traveling, so he didn't feel as obligated to put on a big program this year. It just frustrates us when we try to talk to the powers that be at the school about expanding the science program and we are told "We are too busy". Sadly it is the kids that lose out. Usually in high school they are required to participate in the science fair. Allison and Scott are certainly prepared. And it makes no sense to me since the Archdiocese of Baltimore is planning on establishing a STEM(Science, Technology, Engineering and Math program) at several catholic elementary schools for middle school kids. I am so hoping they would pick Resurrection since I know Scott would absolutely love it.
I already have him signed up for an Elementary Engineering class at summer camp. He would have loved the robotics class too, but it was already full back in February. He gets to balance it out with Pets n Vets. I spent part of Friday filling out summer camp referrals. Allison will be taking a PSAT prep class, and helping with GS camp. We are headed to another orientation class tonite. She is going to be assisting with archery and the instructors hope to certify the girls as Instructors themselves. That would be a great addition to Allison's list of skills(and just like her Daddy since Tom was an archery instructor himself).
We also spent a few hours at a school fund raiser at Barnes and Noble bookstore in the evening listening to Scott and the school choir sing. They had a busy week as they sang during the school mass with a special guest, John Angotti, a christian musician that writes his own music. The kids even sang one of his songs, "Feed My Lambs" and he was very impressed. They still have a few more concerts before the end of the school year.
We also spent our weekend on a Cub Scout field trip to a Baltimore candy factory. The Moore Candy shop is actually located in the basement of a 100 yr old house in Baltimore. They were voted one of the Top 5 CAndy stores in the US from Food Network. The owners were and are very involved in Scouting , and they used to sell the candy as a fund raiser for camping. We had our own little tour, and even got to make our own candy. Yum.
And if you were not aware, last Saturday was free comic book day! Just so happens as I was driving down the street from the candy factory, I spotted some balloons and guys on the street dressed in super hero costumes. Hmm. What could that mean? Anyway, I located a comic book store and the kids and I stopped in to pick out our free comic books while Allison shopped for Teen Titans books and Scott found himself a Nintendo Mario and Yoshi character. Too bad Tom opted not to join us that morning.
That Afternoon, I took Cookie to two dog training classes(she had a scheduled class and a makeup class). We are working on stay and heel. She is doing very well.
And since the weekend weather was so hot and gorgeous, we decided to join Matt and Di and their boys at their house to celebrate all the April birthdays and break in the swimming pool. I couldn't believe we were already in the pool at the beginning of May! Although I mostly stayed in the hot tub!
Overall it was a very busy and fun week. More later! Kathleen and Family
I also looked at our summer vacation schedule. Looks like we will be heading to Michigan the week of July 19-23 so if anyone else has any plans for summer vacation in Michigan, we will be hanging out at the Bozyk's summer house in Charlevoix. We will probably leave Allison there again for a few weeks, and pick her up in August so she can be home for Field Hockey which starts August 14th.