There were more celebrations this week including a Baby Shower for Sarah and Eric Seitz at Mark and Linda's house in Indy. So Mark and Linda headed back up north from Florida to put on the big event. Allison and I would have loved to attend, but we felt we had it covered during our visit over Christmas break. I was able to give Sarah and Eric some small paintings for the nursery that matched their decor, and we went on line and ordered a baby monitor that we had sent to Mark and Linda's house while visiting so it would be there for the Baby Shower. We can't wait to meet Claire! She is due in February-same month as Eric's Birthday as well as Aunt Susan! Sounds like the shower was a hit!
We were back into full swing during the week. Scott was incredibly busy at school. He had an Honor Society meeting after school on Tuesday. The kids were asked to help out with an Easter project for the Howard County Parks and Rec program. They filled 50, 000 eggs with small gifts! Amazing! Then on Weds after school Scott helped out with the Concession stand during the Basketball games for volunteer hours. He is very close to be done with his required 32 hrs of volunteer work for NHS. Actually, he will probably go over the required hours, but it is all good! He has also been very busy with schoolwork. His physics class finally took the toothpick bridge weight limit challenge and Scott's bridge did very well! The kids gradually add weight on a rope with the bridge set up between two desks and see how much it can hold until it collapses. We won't have the final results for a few weeks as all the classes wrap up their testing as to who had the best design and could manage the most weight, but needless to say, Scott got an A on the project. On Tuesday night he had to present his updated Sr Engineering project to a panel of judges. All the kids in the County High School Sr. Engineering program have to come up with a product that helps solve a problem. Scott is using his handicapped planter design for his Sr project and doing it on his own. He made some small changes on his Eagle scout design and will be building one new planter in class. Parents were invited to attend the presentations-it took 3 hrs to get through all the presentations, but we only stayed for 1 hr and then went out to dinner. It was like watching Shark Tank. Interesting to see what ideas the kids all have, from heated bee hives to charging systems to alarms for someone having an asthma attack. I would have enjoyed listening to all the projects, but it was getting late and we were hungry! Scott has also been busy with tests and reading The Canterbury Tales in English. He did get a small break with a 3 day weekend looming on MLK, so he took a break on Saturday and enjoyed having his friend Matt over for some video gaming. Then on Sunday morning, he headed into school to work on the robot for the new Robotics High School Team challenge. The team will be busy designing and building their robot for the next few months up until the tournament. Afterwards, Tom and Scott headed up to Hershey for an afternoon hockey game. The Bears lost, but again, Tom and Scott had a really fun time. And stopped to pick up Duck Donuts on the way home (custom made donuts, like S'mores and PBJ).
Allison and I would have loved to have joined them, but we had other plans. On Sunday afternoon I was helping with a GS choir Songfest. We invite GS Troops to learn some traditional songs-for 2 hours! It was fun and good practice, especially since I missed the last session. Afterwards, Allison and I were invited out to dinner by Allison's previous GS mentor. Jeannette Partlow and her family own a Chemical company in downtown Baltimore and Allison completed her internship with them two summers ago. Jeannette wanted to get together to celebrate Allison's graduation and acceptance into the MBA program. She also gave her a generous monetary gift. She really is an incredible woman. I especially enjoyed chatting about Baltimore's history and the city's current status with her since she is so involved in the goings on downtown during dinner. We were secretly hoping she would offer Allison a job! But it really is a small scale family business, so no actual job openings(at this time!). She did give Allison some advice on people to contact, like BGE representatives(our local power company here in Baltimore) since their company works closely with them.
And since Allison has been home on break, she has been spending time sending out resumes and making phone calls. She missed one interview due to bad weather. She was supposed to drive down to Virginia that day, but we had a horrible ice and snow storm that blew up from the south along the coast. And so far, most of the companies want her to wait until she graduates in May to schedule her interviews. We just found out she will be done on May 23rd. How exciting!
She is also spending her time visiting with college and high school friends and taking Cookie on her daily walk! Spoiled puppy. Allison is trying to stay in shape for her upcoming Frisbee season. Thank goodness for our indoor treadmill. It has been bitter cold outside and difficult to get out and exercise. Even Cookie's walks are very short. It has been so cold, plastic and glass bottles of soda and water have been freezing and exploding in our garage! I also got Allison to join me for a water aerobics class last week. She actually got a flu shot to make sure she stays as well as she can! And she continues to need only 1 iron pill. But she will have another blood test before going back to school to make sure her iron levels remain high.
A lot of activities have been cancelled recently due to bad weather, so our schedule has been a bit off. We continue to have ice/snow storms. Scott had school off on Monday because of ice. It was hard to get home since the roads were a sheet of ice, including our driveway. However, on Friday it actually warmed up to about 60 degrees! I joined Allison and her friend at Star Wars. But it rained all day, so it was a good day to see a movie. And I really liked it even more the second time around! There is just so much to take in on the first go around at 2.5 hrs long. And I am glad it was rainy because we probably would have had about 2 feet of snow if it were colder!
And since we had a busy Sunday, we ended up having my mom over for a turkey dinner with all the traditional sides on Saturday night. It felt like Thanksgiving all over again! (I got a great price on a large turkey breast which turned out to be very easy to prepare in the cooking bags). Afterwards we watched the recent Jungle Book with the live actor and CGI animals. Allison and I saw it at the movie theater and really liked it, but it was on cable. I also took over all her Christmas gifts and put them away in her apartment. Lots of warm clothes! She continues to attend the weekly program at the Sr Center as well as participating in activities at the facility. At least they can come out of their rooms now!
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