http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/howard/columbia/ph-ho-cf-nature-center-0822-20130819,0,1521880.story

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/howard/ellicott-city/bs-md-ho-scout-nature-trail-20130814,0,1592098.story

Here are two links to Allison's newspaper articles found in The Baltimore Sun this past weekend on her Bird Nature Trail for her Girl Scout Gold Award. 

This past week was backwards for me. I took off Monday instead of Friday. A fellow coworker needed to switch days off. It was nice having a 4 day weekend. Just wish I had gone somewhere! But I did use my time wisely. I got Allison a babysitting job for the week! Just a few hours each day with our neighbor's son. Allison was able to take him up to the community pool each day, although it was a bit chilly last week. They spent one afternoon playing tennis. I tried to make sure she did not use up all her time working though. She had to start packing and was putting the finishing touches on her GS Gold Award.
I did steal her away Monday afternoon to do some last minute school clothes shopping since Maryland had tax free week. That comes in handy. And we decided to go see the new Percy Jackson Movie which she really enjoyed since it followed the book so well.

This past Saturday morning she and I headed off to the Nature Center so Allison could present her Bird Nature Trail program to the staff and some kids. I was on camera duty. Her program is primarily geared for Kindergartners, but we had a mixed group for this first session. And she had a full room. After completing her power point presentation on local birds, we went out on the trail to look for the model birds. The kids really loved that. Afterwards they each made pine cone bird seed feeders to take home which they loved even more. We couldn't get them to leave! But we had to wrap it up so Allison could head off to her skate guard job. The nature center also arranged for Allison to have several interviews with our local paper and The Baltimore Sun with photo opps. Included in this blog are links to Allison's online newspaper articles with photos. We also have an article printed in the paper and two more printed articles coming out this week. So she already is in 2 news stories online and was in this weekend's Baltimore Sun newspaper. She had two reporters attend her presentation and do interviews and take photos.   All the neighbor's came up to me to tell me they saw her article in the paper when I was out walking Cookie this weekend. I didn't know they had already printed one! I had to run home and dig through my paper. So now Allison is finishing up her post project report to turn in for approval and she will be done! We hope. I also took a video tape for her to include and more photos. And she needs an evaluation formed filled out by the staff at the Nature Center. We found out that one of the advisors also went to Michigan State. So Allison can spend a few days wrapping up her report before heading off to school.

  Scott on the other hand spent last week at his new favorite camp-Amusement Park Camp with Teens on Tour. Each day the group headed off to a different Amusement Park, with one rain day. He visited Hershey Park, Kings Dominion, Six Flags and a new park to us that he just loved, Dorney Park in Pennsylvania. It looks like Dorney Park is owned by Cedar Point as SCott said the lay out was the same and it had the Camp Snoopy theme too. On the rainy day they went to see the movie Wolverine and went bowling. He had a great time and is completely worn out. A good way to end the summer.

On Sunday, after Scott served mass, I took him and Allison downtown to Little Italy to attend the St Gabriel festival. Scott needed to visit an ethnic festival to finish off his Citizenship in the World badge(Eagle badge). The Italian church puts on the festival with restaurants selling lots of food and wine. The kids were extremely hungry, so we opted to eat at a restaurant so we could sit down and enjoy our meal rather than finding a spot on the curb. I decided to take them to a bakery/deli that we ate at for Tom's birthday(the birthplace of the Tiramisu). On Sunday they serve a combination plate and you get to choose 3 different dishes. I had eggplant parmesan, spinach frittata and sausage and veggies. Allison had ravioli, sausage and veggies and a panini. Scott had lasagna. Then we all had gelato(but Allison and I thought the best gelato is still in Italy). And we took home freshly made cannolis. We were stuffed! The food is the best part of the festivals! 

Tom was busy all week with repairs. After cutting the lawn he and Scott replaced a few rotted fence posts in the backyard. He was also busy repairing bike tires since the kids have been riding quite a bit this past week. And he bought himself a new Keurig coffee maker since his last one went up in smoke. Literally. Apparently it caught fire while Allison and I were in Europe. Since I switched to decaf and Tom still drinks caf, we have had two coffee pots going at once. Now we are back to one, and everyone can make what they want. Including hot chocolate, iced tea or coffee and coffee for when the neighbors visit.He has also been busy replacing brakes and struts on his car. And trying to perfect cherry flavored whiskey just like Grand Traverse Distillery. Good Luck. He did take a break and set up a movie outside Saturday night so we could invite our neigbors over for drinks and dessert. We saw Admission with Tina Fey. We thought it was a good send off for Allison since it is about an Admissions counselor at Princeton Undersity. Very cute and funny. We hosted our friends Dan and Gloria. Gloria was in town from Oklahoma where she is working as a traveling nurse manager. We last saw her when we visited with our other neighbors in their Virginia mountain vacation home. Gloria will be finishing up this position in a few weeks and hopefully reassigned somewhere else. We asked her to put in for Hawaii this time!

OK, I have to go help Allison pack. Kathleen