Trying to catch up with the month of March.  I was trying to adapt to the new time change, just like the rest of us that still change our clocks! I really like that it is light out now when I leave work in the evening, but I am not fond of getting up in the dark.

 I needed some restful sleep-I had a very busy weekend scheduled!  Allison was finishing up two finals and a midterm  before heading home for her Spring Break mid March. She was very nervous about two of her finals, Finance and Information Systems. At least she was starting to feel better after recuperating from a cold. She made it through her Monday Info final and felt confident in at least a B for the class. On Tuesday she participated in a group presentation for a Midterm grade. Her Team is researching an off brand of Perdue chicken-organic, gluten free meats. They have struggled with the project from day one-not a very good group mix. They have not been able to contact the Perdue rep all semester, and she showed up for the presentation 10 mins before going on!  Looks like the group was doing well, until they discussed some of the issues they felt the company had going for it. Turns out their prof did not want them to discuss possible product problems, but issues the team had working together. On Weds Allison called in a panic. The prof was afraid they had offended the Perdue rep and wanted to kick Allison and her team out of the MBA program!Allison was devastated. After multiple phone calls to me and some of her friends, she was calm enough to get through her Finance exam that evening and then meet with the Prof and the Dean of the Business school along with her classmates. They had also contacted the Perdue Rep who reported she was not offended by the presentation, and it was decided that the students would be given a second chance in the Spring semester. Fortunately this class extends into the next semester as this was considered the midterm. Next semester however the Prof will be working very closely with the team to make sure they are on track. Allison is grateful for the assistance-she has worked too hard and has too much to look forward to without worrying about failing! The crazy thing is her Prof said if they had just left that piece out of their presentation he would have given them 100%. Allison feels confident that she and her teammates can only succeed from this point on. And she was ecstatic to learn that she got A's in both of the other classes!(and those were the hardest that she worried most about!). So she only has two new classes left to complete her MBA and finish up this Marketing class. She will be so happy and relieved to be done!

Scotty is also counting the days until graduation!  He stopped into his NHS meeting for the month of March even though he is done with his required hours. He is still quite busy with his Physics and English classes as the teachers are trying to still catch up from this winter's snow days. He finished reading Hamlet in English class and now they are on a tragic story called The Kite Runner(story line sounds horrible). No wonder these poor kids are so depressed in high school-they are always reading sad, tragic stories in English class about someone dying or being assaulted. I think they have enough drama in their own lives!  Scott is however looking forward to his upcoming trip to Kalamazoo and a day long orientation at Western Michigan with Tom towards the end of March. He will actually have to take off 2 days of school, but we had no other choice in dates as there were no scheduled events at Western during his Spring Break. This was the closest date he could get.

 I had an extremely busy weekend planned with Allison.  She came home on Thursday. We decided to kick off her Spring Break with a trip to DC along with her old roommate, Jen. Jen is studying to become a librarian and I have always wanted to visit The National Library of Congress. Jen has never visited the National Library and I just never seem to get the chance to visit with our family, so it seemed our duty to go on the field trip. Our Parks and Rec Dept for Howard County had a trip planned that day with a bus ride down to DC. Unfortunately the trip sold out very quickly. I was put on a waiting list and inquired about them getting a second bus. Which they did so we could go! And it was so much easier taking the chartered bus than trying to drive down and look for parking or catch the train and walk from Union Station.  And I am glad we saved our walking for the Library! The building is gorgeous inside, but full of 4 flights of marble steps, very steep. We were exhausted at the end of our visit from running up and down and all around. Plus it was very cold and windy that day outside which would have made it even more stressful for walking around town.  The Library sits behind the Capital building. It was built when the government was just getting set up in DC. They used to store library books in the basement of the Capital building and heat the buildings with fireplaces. But after several fires sparked by ashes burned up all the books collected for government research,Thomas Jefferson  sold his private collection of books to the Library to restock the shelves. Unfortunately his books were not safe either. Another fire took most of his collection, but many still remain onsite in the Jefferson room. And they are trying to replace copies of some of the books he owned and had sold to the Library. The inside of the foyer/grand hall of the Library was hand decorated(carvings and paintings) by Italian immigrants. They were only given room and board for their work, and the art supplies were included. It is like visiting one of the many cathedrals or palaces in Europe. You can get a Library card, but you cannot check out any books unless you are the President or a member of Congress. However, you can read any books you want there. Also,

the Library is busy digitizing all their collections so you can access anything they have from your own computer(think modern microfiche). And they don't just house books, but movies and music. They had a small display room with info on Bob Hope(Allison and Jen had not heard of him). I think they liked his political humor. Also a Gershwin display and a privately donated collection of Political comics and drawings done by women as well as a room full of historical maps primarily of North and South America during Columbus days with Mayan artifacts. We took one of the private tours of the Main Library but pooped out after all the walking and  went in search of lunch. The Library is a bit like the Smithsonian with two other buildings full of resources all connected underground by tunnels. We followed one tunnel until we got to a Subway sandwich shop  for lunch and then it was off to the gift shop before heading home on the bus. A wonderful, busy day and I did not have to drive in DC traffic! Plus we got a little taste of the Cherry blossoms as they were starting to bloom in DC on schedule for the Cherry Blossom festival starting March 30th. Too bad the Kite festival wasn't scheduled for that day-they would have had no problem getting the kites up in that wind!

My busy weekend was not over. I was up early on Saturday morning to celebrate St Patricks Day!  Our Girl Scout choir was participating in a St Patrick's Day parade. We had a small group, but big enough to make a difference. We have marched in this parade in the past with all the bag pipers, Irish dancers and dogs dressed in their finest green outfits! But this year the Parade leaders seemed in a big hurry to finish and we felt like we ran for 1 hr, while singing and doing hand gestures to our songs! There were no rest periods! Our poor choir director, Dr Pat was exhausted. She has to walk and sing and carry and play the accordion! We really do need a float! It was also a bit chilly that day, and windy. And we ended our event with a medical issue-one of our mom's slipped off a curb and sprained/strained or broke her ankle at the end of our parade. It swelled horribly in just a few minutes. Fortunately there were lots of police and emergency people around for the event, so she got immediate help. But she was also a ride home for some of  us! We regrouped and car pooled with other family members and I hope she is on the mend.

I did not have much time to spare after the parade. I did a bit of errand running, but then Allison and I were off for dinner and a concert Saturday night at a local church. My co worker Anne heard of a Steven Curtis Chapman concert scheduled near our house at a local Lutheran church in their auditorium. This is one of Allison's favorite christian singers. He plays guitar and sings about Love and Family and God. He is married with 3 kids of his own and several chinese adopted children. All are grown now. Sadly they lost one of their adopted children to a tragic car accident. But he and his wife also raise money to help adopt out children from China and to support their orphanages in China, especially for special needs children. Steven's father was also a musician and still teaches guitar lessons back in Kentucky in his 80s. Steven's first song he learned to play on guitar from his Dad was Fulsom Prison by Johnny Cash(he shared a bit of it with us!). And it was a wonderful concert as he played and sang all by himself for 3 hrs(he also mentioned that he is a bit ADHD). It also gave him a chance to talk about his life and his family and their work in China. And we learned that he attended Anderson,  the same college that our nephew Eric's wife, Sarah graduated from in Indiana! Such an enjoyable concert.

So it made for a very long weekend. But I was not done yet. On Sunday, Allison and I joined Jen and her family to see the high school musical, Andrew Lloyd Weber's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. We had not seen this play before and were pleasantly pleased with the music and performance. Although it was quite different than I expected. This is the story from the bible of Joseph, one of Jacob's 12 sons who is a favorite of his dad, and able to interpret dreams. His brothers become jealous and sell him into slavery in Egypt. He is thrown in prison and while there interprets a few dreams. The pharaoh finds out and has him interpret some of his own dreams and makes Joseph his right hand man. Meanwhile, Joseph's family is struggling to survive with drought and limited food sources. They go to Egypt to beg pharaoh for food and do not realize it is Joseph they are asking for the help they need. Joseph plays a trick on them and accuses them of stealing a gold cup. They beg for mercy and he doesn't have the heart to torture them more and reveals himself. And goes home a hero. The entire play is sung, and each song has a different theme(like country, rock n roll Elvis as the Pharaoh, roaring twenties) with a full choir of elementary school kids in the background. Very fun. I plan to take my Mom next weekend.

We got home too late to catch my mom for dinner from the play. I had stopped in after church while she was eating lunch on Sunday, and I picked up a few more items from her apartment to drop off to storage. We have an appointment for mom for her medical assessment in the upcoming week to look into moving into another facility, Harmony Hall.