March Misc

The 23rd-27th the kids only had half days of school for parent teacher conferences.  Both Tamsyn's and Thurston's teachers had nothing but positive things to say about them.  Thurston's teacher even got a bit teary eyed talking about him.  She really loves her class this year and can't believe the year is so close to being over already.  Thurston excells at math and reading and is a great little leader in the class, keeping everyone excited about learning.  He is a "thinker" and asks really good questions.  Tamsyn is an amazing reader and writer.  Her teacher used her hands to say -- this is where my high achievers are and then raised her hand even higher and said this is where Tamsyn is.  Her writing is quite impressive. I'll have to post some of her stories sometime soon.  Both kids were students of the month recently.

Tamsyn begged me to follow her into "Terrabinthia" (the trees between our property and the Robison's) so she could show me this cool bogy she made a path too.  Of course she wanted a photo taken too.

3/18

Thurston's class is trying to collect post cards from all 50 states.  He made this postcard and I posted it on FB 3/11.  A few weeks later he had collected quite a few!  3/22

My toenails are turning black!!!  Marathon training side effect - yuck

Baseball season underway!  This game was on 3/28

Dantley posing being silly while waiting for preschool to start - 3/31/15

3/27

Tasha had a broken wire in her braces so she had to go in to Smiles to have it fixed, which also meant she had to wait with Jake to finish at work before they came home.  She drew him on his whiteboard.

Dog pics 3/5/15

Stop to Smell the Tulips...

...after your run is finished.

Natasha ran my tempo run with me on Monday 3/30.  I had to do 2 warm up miles then 3 miles at a 7:30 pace and then a cool down mile.  She ran the fast 3 with me and acted as if it was nothing.  She did say she must be out of shape because it was harder than she thought it should be, and here  I was completely spent.  We ran in Woodland along the river and had some gorgeous views of the tulip fields during our run.  On our drive home we stopped to take these pictures.

Book Mark Contest

3/30/15 - Tasha and Tamsyn both wanted to enter the Fort Vancouver Regional Library bookmark contest this year.  The theme for elementary school age kids is - Every Hero Has A Story.  Tamsyn drew all sorts of animals with capes and of course a cat reading about them.  

The theme for the MS and HS age kids is - UNMASK!    Natasha drew a small mask near a book with all sorts of fairytale and storybook creatures coming out of the book and made hers say "Unmask the possibilities"

I know I am a biased mom, but I think they both turned out super cool.

Jason's Visit

3/29/15 - I was very excited to see this County 4 Wyoming license plate. It reminds me of what was once home.

My friend from high school - Jason Grubb and his 15 year old daughter Abigaile were spending spring break in Portland and along the Oregon coast so they dropped in to stay one night with us.  We took them to see the Grist Mill (our standard visitor spot) and stayed up visiting  with Jason.  The next morning we recommended that they stop at the Tulip festival in Woodland before heading on to Portland.  It was so fun to catch up with Jason and his amazing daughter.  She is just a freshman in highschool and this year qualified to compete at nationals on the GRHS debate team.

  

4th Grade Learning Fair

3/27/13 - Tamsy decided to do a project about wind power.  Jake helped her build a windmill attatched to a lightbulb demonstrating how the turning windmill generates power and lights the light bulb.  Unfortunately the propeller didn't turn fast enough with a fan, so she had to hit it to spin it in order to get it moving enough to light the bulb.  That is why she is wearing a glove -- it hurt her hand to whack the propeller so hard so many times.

She did a great job explaining it to people at the fair.  Here are a few things she typed up to put on her poster board along with the diagram she drew and photos she found online of offshore and onshore windmills:

How to Build a Windmill

To build a windmill first make a stand out of PVC  pipes.  Then put a long skinny pipe into the stand. Make sure it is pointing upward.  Next drill a hole at the base of the pipe.  When you have done that you must place an angled piece of pipe on the long skinny one.  Make sure they fit together tightly.  After that put the wires through the hole and up the pipe to the top where it will be connected to a motor.  Connect a propeller to  the motor.  If the propeller doesn’t fit then you can use glue to adhere them together.

How a Windmill Works

If you think that windmills get power from wind, your wrong.Windmills actually get power from movement. Its true, you need wind to create that movement, but the movement is what really generates the power. The wind spins the propellor which is attached to a motor.When the propellor spins the motor does to, and when the motor spins, the movement generates the power, which travels down a wire, and toward some electrical source; example: A light bulb

It takes more than just one windmill to create enough electricity to power all of the many electronic things that we use, including lightbulbs.  Windmills can power our houses, schools,and even businesses.

Windmills are placed in places where there is a lot of wind.

Windmills that work together are called farms. One very famous farm (also one of the biggest farms) is located in Ireland. There are about 200 windmills there.That farm cost about 600 million dollars.  Some wind farms are onshore which means they are on land.  Other wind farms are offshore which means that they are in water.

If your house was powered only by windmills you would probably have a lot of power outages. The only way that you wouldn’t is if the windmills had enough energy stored for the times when your lights are failing.

There are some downsides to windmills. One is that you can never really predict the wind.  Another one is that windmills can be a threat to birds and other wildlife.  Sometimes birds are killed by the spinning blades.  Also when you dig the holes so you can place the windmills it can destroy the underground animal habitats. Windmills are also very loud. That is why they are built in locations where there are no people close by.

Activity Days - Decorating Cupcakes

3/26/15 - For Activity Days this week we watched a couple short videos about developing talents and then I did a demonstration on a few cake decorating techniques with butter cream frosting.  Each of the girls took turns practicing and then they decorated their own cupcake.  

My kids were excited that there were a few leftover cupcakes and they asked me to show them how to make roses.

I think they all did pretty well for their first attempt, especially since the icing was really soft.

March Madness

To celebrate our 15 wedding anniversary Jake and I got tickets to round 2 and 3 of March Madness in Portland.   Thursday March 19th, I dropped the older kids off at school, did my tempo run at the park and then took Dantley to preschool.  After that Jake and I headed to Portland for the four Thursday games.  We watched Arizona vs. TX Southern (Arizona won by a long ways),  Ohio St vs VCU(Ohio St. won in overtime), Utah vs. Stephen F. Austin (Utah won) and Georgetown vs. Eastern WA.

My friend Meagan went and picked Dantley up from preschool and then they brought him home after the kids got off the bus.  Tasha babysat until we got home.

Tne next morning after dropping the kids off at school and Dantley off with Meagan, Jake and I went shopping for new work clothes for him.  We also went to a running store and had our stride analized to see if we were training in the right types of shoes.  That night we went to eat at Jake's Famous Crawfish in Portland.

Saturday we slept in a bit and then went to the gym -- I had to do a speed workout and Jake ran 3 miles.  We checked out around noon and got lunch then went to a grocery store to get snacks for the nights basketball games.  AZ vs Ohio State was a really fun game to watch with some amazing passing, then Utah vs. Georgetown which was also a great game -- Utah won.

Tamsyn rode the bus home with Savannah Mendenhall and went to their friend Brooklyn's birthday party and then stayed the night and following day with Savannah.

Thurston and Tasha rode the bus home with the Allen kids and joined Dantley who was already at Harris' house playing.  They all stayed the night and next day there.   Thurston had baseball games on Saturday.  We were planning on just having him miss, but his coach wanted him there and his wife drove out to the Allen's to pick him up.  Saturday night we picked Tamsyn up and Tasha texted us saying they were at the house.  Cory wasn't sure if he was supposed to drop them off or wait for us to come get them, so he drove them over.  Luckily we were there a few minutes later so they didn't have to wait long, because I hadn't left keys or any doors unlocked.  They had a great time and we are so thankful that so many people helped out with the kids so Jake and I could have our close proximity get away.