Grant's Plants, Season 3

We have the best stetup YET! This is year three and we learned last year not to mess around and to just get new, guaranteed bug-free dirt. We also found little peat cups and the trays they fit in. And an old Lego League wooden platform and a yard sale table made for the perfect holder.

Spencer at Quartet Practice + a Snowstorm!

Spencer and three other Virginia Tech String Project students were chosen to play in a quartet. Here they are shown practicing with Alan Weinstein of the Kandinsky Trio. He has been helping them quite a lot and it's a real treat to hear him describe music and how he plays! The kids sound amazing!

Then two days later, on April 4, we got an unexpected snowstorm that left 5" of snow. It all melted by the next day.

Spencer represents BMS at Math Counts!

Spencer's math team was featured in our local paper! He earned a spot at the competition through a preliminary math exam. While he competed as an individual, the team earned first place.

Spencer is a math wiz. He's currently in Geometry as a 7th grader, having completed Algebra 1. He's fortunate to go to a school that offers such accelerated math options!!

Weekend!

Just a few pics from the weekend --

Like mother, like son. Bright new shoes. Despite my pleas to "try on your soccer shoes" Grant waited until 45 minutes before the first soccer practice of the season. They were way too small. A trip to the only local sports store resulted in new soccer shoes, size 11, YES 11, in the only shoe they had. So Grant ended up with orange and yellow shoes!! 

 Friday night we went and hung out at Lucy Monroe's coffee shop. We are thinking this may be our nerdy family Friday night tradition. It's on the way home from work for Robert and they have something for everyone - Mexican coke (with real sugar), Kombucha tea (for me), coffee, beer, smoothies, etc. They have nice food too, and affordable! So we set up camp, eat, drink, and co-computer. The kids program and I work on my weekly Saturday morning "Tri Coffee Reads" that I publish on my Cort the Sport blog every Saturday. Fun!

Visit from Hans / Opa

Opa (Robert's dad..Hans) was here for a visit this past week. He went to Chicago and spent time with Elisabeth then had a few days with us. As luck would have it, both kids ended up about as sick as I have seen them in a long time. They both missed an entire week of school and spent most of the week sleeping, coughing, and blowing their noses. It was still nice to see Hans and for he and Robert to have time. Fortunately, our area dodged the "epic" storm that was due to arrive while he was here. What started as a predicted foot of snow ended up as just a dusting. Here are some pics from the visit, just a few, and multiple versions when I couldn't pick one or the other!

More birthdays!

Spencer turned 13 last weekend and had an "informal gathering" overnight here and somehow I managed not to get any photos. I'm not sure how that happened!

Robert had his birthday Monday and celebrated with his father coming to visit...and two sick kids. They've been down with bad colds for days.

The Wilsons, our neighbors, had a nice surprise for Robert on his day:

Those are cans of Budweiser beer...50 of them!!

Grant turns 11!

Grant turned 11 on February 8 and we had his sleepover birthday party on February 16 with seven boys plus Spencer and Grant! It was a night of pizza, ice cream cake, Minecraft, Capture the Flag, scooters, Band Hero, hide-and-seek, movie watching, and very little sleep. After a breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes, it all started back up again!

I did not get many photos and the ones I got are kind of bad. I did get a short video of the impromptu quartet that played video game music. It's pretty impressive!!! Enjoy!