Straight A

Eric only had one graded class at his school this year.  I got his final grade today, and he ended the semester with 100%.  Very proud of this kiddo.  He did great as a 5th grader in this 5th-8th grade class, coming in mid-year.

Last day of class

Today was Eric's last day of class.  He has loved going there this semester, and we are signing him up again tomorrow.  Hope we get all the classes we want.  Since the kids have been so good about wearing their uniforms all year, today was a wear what you want day.  Eric chose a new outfit I had gotten him at Target.  Had to buy the boy a new wardrobe.  He won't stop growing!

How adorable does he look in that!  

He had a play this morning where he was Louis the yard teacher from Wayside School.  

I took a picture of his buddies from lunch. He calls them his group and really enjoys these three children.  

We ended with some play time after school with several of his friends.  

Egg drop

In STEM class this semester, the children were studying parachutes and airplanes.  Their end of the year assignment was to make a parachute that could drop an egg from the second floor with no additional padding - without cracking the egg.

The boys worked on it.  Made a great first attempt.  Made some modifications.  Then went back to the original design.  

Eric's was the only one that did not crack.  The others all cracked on the first attempt.  Eric's did not crack after two attempts.  He was very proud and excited!  He was declared the winner.  

Swim meet SUPER SUCCESS!

This boy.  This boy rocked his swim meet today.  I mean blew it clear out of the water!

He got his personal best times in all 5 events that he swam.  Wowzers!!!!

Placements aren't nearly as important as that.  However he did place well also.  At this meet they give a ribbon for your placement in your heat.  E got 5 first place ribbons.  

I've never been anywhere where they focus on  your place in that heat.  We all know that really doesn't matter as the people in your heat can vary.  But, that is what they did, so that is what he earned.  He was happy to get first in all 5.  

He swam the 25 backstroke.  He has not competed in that one since he was 7, but it was fun to watch him sprint.  He came in 1st place overall with a time of 18.38 seconds.  

Here is the video of that swim.  I did cheer a little in this one.  I tried not to in the others.  He is on the far right lane.  

He then did a 50 yard backstroke.  His previous best time in that was from last summer on the sharks.  His time was 42.85.  Today he got a 39.09 and came in first place overall.  

Next was a 50 breaststroke.  His previous best was from last year at the sharks.  He got 53.77.  Today he got a 50.25 and came in 3rd overall.  

Then he did 50 freestyle.  His previous best time in this was 38.52 at the meet in March.  Today he got 37.10 and came in 7th place overall.  

Last was the 200 IM.  His previous best time was on the sharks last summer of 1:41.58.  Well he smashed that today and got a 1:34.97 and 3rd place overall.  

So proud of him and all his hard work!  It's fun to see it all paying off.  

I made a video of all 5 of his swims.  However the quality and length make them too long to put on here.  Sorry.  I guess you will just have to come watch him swim in person.  

Amazing Amazon trip

Eric and I went to Chattanooga today for a field trip at the Amazon Fulfillment Center.  We order so much from them, I thought it was about the coolest thing ever.  Unfortunately, I have no pictures.  They would not allow any pictures inside the center.

We felt like we were in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.  Have to keep it a secret.  

That place was awesome.  And ginormous.  There were conveyor belts everywhere just constantly moving with packages and yellow tubs of items to be shipped.  Our tour guide wore a microphone, and we each had headphones so that we could hear her.  That was neat.  I also thought it was interesting that they have random stow.  The items are scanned when they come in and then placed in the next available place.  There were rows and rows of shelves filled with rows and rows of cubby type things.  Each cubby had a bar code and a letter and number assigned to it.  In the cubbies would just be random items - a board game, hair gel, a soccer ball, and toilet bowl cleaner.  It was so completely random.  But, the pickers would have a list of what to pull from each cubby.  They would put those in tubs and onto the conveyor belts where they would be sorted by order.  It was so fun to watch.  They let the kids practice packing with an empty box and then let them keep it.  Packing was interesting.  You fold the box, then push a button and out pops a piece of tape (which is wet.  it is water based, so it is not sticky.  That was fascinating to me too).  You then fold the top, push the button again, and out pops your next piece of tape.  Then you put a label on the box, and you are done.  Very cool!!!!

Here is Eric outside the Fulfillment Center holding his box. 

This was one of my favorite field trips ever!!!!  Eric and I both want to work here.  Such a cool place.  And we love us some Amazon!  (even if we do have to pay taxes on it now)

There were a couple of geocaches nearby, so we decided to do those as well.  Here was an old bunker from WWII.  I had to get a couple of silly pictures first.  This boy loves to be silly.  

The bunker was especially fascinating to Eric because we just watched The Book Thief this week.  Very good movie, although the ending was a bit :( 

He was very interested to see a real bunker after seeing the movie.  Just wish we could have gone inside.  There was one geocache here and one a quarter of a mile up the road.  Eric is becoming quite the super spotter and found both of them.  

Another fish gone

Otto died.  :(

We are unhappy.

Fish are hard.

Shaggy no more

I'm not sure if you have noticed, but we had some seriously shaggy boys in this house.  Eric and the dogs were all very overdue for haircuts.  So, we got all that done this weekend.

New fish

Eric and I have been looking at new fish.  He finally picked two he wanted and had already named them.  We went to the store to get them last weekend.  It did not go well.  The two fish were placed in a bag together.  One was a marbled molly and one was a guppy.  The guppy appeared to have something on it.  I asked the man about it.  He pretended to inspect it very closely and then said it was just the color of the guppy.  I tried pointing it out to Robert, but he was trying to check out a big bag of dog food.  We get in the car, and it is apparent to me that some type of fungus is on the guppy.  Robert said we would check when  we got home.  Well, the molly should never have been put in the same bag, because it became stressed and started nipping at the guppy.  Eric and I were both distraught.  Feeling bad for the poor little guppy.  We ended up not putting either into our tank.  We were afraid the guppy would spread something throughout the tank.  And at this point, Eric was so distraught over the molly, that we didn't want him in there either.  It was a very sad day.  E and I looked at fish all week, but he cannot find one he wants.  He is still very attached to the guppy we did not keep.  :(

This weekend we went to a new fish store that only sells fish.  Not a pet store.  Eric did not see a fish he wanted (at least not one that would work in his tank), but we did go ahead and get a small algae eater.  Our tank does not really have visible algae yet, but it starts before you can really see it.

Introducing Otto - the algae eater.

The Tetras were so funny.  When he was placed in the tank, all 4 of them rushed over to meet him.  They circled him and followed him around the tank for at least 30 minutes.  It was cute.  They were very curious about their new friend.  Dusk, on the other hand, continued to sleep through it all tucked away safely in his plant.  

Anne Frank and beyond

We went to the Holocaust Museum for a homeschool day today.  They do such an amazing job!  Today our rotation included:

The Brave Butterflies.  The project is based on this poem

The Butterfly by Pavel Friedman 

“The last, the very last, So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow. Perhaps if the sun’s tears would sing against a white stone. . . . Such, such a yellow Is carried lightly ‘way up high. It went away I’m sure because it wished to kiss the world good-bye. For seven weeks I’ve lived in here, Penned up inside this ghetto. But I have found what I love here. The dandelions call to me And the white chestnut branches in the court. Only I never saw another butterfly. That butterfly was the last one. Butterflies don’t live in here, in the ghetto.

The goal of the project was to collect 1.5 million handcrafted butterflies - one for each child that died in the Holocaust.  We were each given a diary page or story or poem of a different child that had died.  Then we were asked to write questions on the back.  Then we colored our butterflies.  I cried.  Here was Eric's child, his questions, and butterfly.

Then we watched a movie on the short life of Anne Frank.  I cried.  

Then we walked through a room with different people from the Holocaust.  Each panel had a different person, and his perspective on the situation.  We went over perpetrator, victim, bystander, and rescuer.  Then each child was given a passport with a person.  He was to go look at that person and answer some questions.  Then he was to determine which category his person fell into.  Eric's was a rescuer.  

Then we heard from a guest speaker named Edward Francell.  His family left France shortly before the Germans invaded.  They were able to get out because his grandfather was an American, therefore his mother had dual citizenship.  Several members of his family were killed or taken to labor camps.  

Here he was telling Eric that he is an only child also.  Eric thought that was pretty neat.  ;) 

Our weekend

E had a soccer game on Saturday, and he ROCKED it!  He was very aggressive.  Another boy shot a pass right in front of the goal.  E was in the perfect position, and scored!!!!  E is great at being in the right position.  Does that surprise anyone?

It was a sunny, beautiful morning.  Eric and I wore sunscreen.  Robert did not.  Guess who is a little burnt now.  Sigh.  Will he ever learn?  

We celebrated our Easter on Sunday.  There were baskets:

Empty tomb biscuits;

Some Apples to Apples time:

Then church.  

Then a birthday lunch for Robert at Papa P's.  

Then home for an indoor Lego egg hunt.  

I filled 15 eggs with pieces I had ordered from Brick Forge.  Then Robert and I hid them upstairs.  E had quite a time trying to find them all.  We were definitely not easy on him!  He loved it!

Then off to the library for another Lego day.  This month was a free build (build whatever you want), and it was the coolest one E has made there yet.  

Then Eric and Robert went to practice some soccer while I worked on getting our school stuff back out.  We are starting full days back after a lengthy break.  

Then some dinner at home and a new educational game to work on multiplication speed.  

Finished the day with two different sets of Resurrection Eggs and some reading time.  Whew!  I'm worn out from the last 6 weeks.  It's been so busy, but it's been fun also.  Glad to get back to our normal routine though.  

11

He's 11.  The cutest, sweetest boy on the planet is 11.  

How I got to start my day.  With a fella who is in his last day of the 30s and another who is in his first day of being 11.  Love these two!

We had some new friends come over.  They played here for a while and ate lunch.  Then we went to a park.  

They have a younger sister too.  She was not in the picture.  

Then E and I went for a Frosted Lemonade at Chick-fil-a.  Each (we usually share).  If you have not tried one, you should.  They are delicious!

Church services were cancelled because it was spring break in that county.  So, we went to soccer practice.  

Egg hunt

The Zoo was hiding eggs around the Atlanta metro area to promote their new Scaly, Slimy, Spectacular building.  Each egg contained a stuffed animal and a pass to turn in for 4 adult tickets to the zoo.  They started hiding them near the end of March, but most of them were too far away to make it worth driving to look.  On the day we arrived in AR, they hid one in our town, just feet away from where Eric swims.  Bummer, right?  I assumed it was long gone.

Well today the zoo posted that a few had never been reported as found.  The one near us was one of them.  E and I loaded into the car and headed for the park.  We parked at swim (it would start in 30 minutes) and walked up to take a look.  Eric found it in less than 5 minutes.  We were pumped!

Legoland

Hello.  It's been a while.  Our lives have been a little crazy lately.  Taking this first day home to go back and blog some.   We had the Cowleys here for their Spring Break.  What a blessing that was.  I love those kiddos and miss them terribly.  I got plenty of hugs throughout the visit.  (Helped make up for all the ones I've missed)  We took them to Legoland Discovery Center on their second day here.  What a cool place!  I think we will be visiting there again before too long.  

Waiting for our time slot to go into Legoland.  

E and E.  So cute!

Eric would weigh 31,500 bricks.  Is that all?

Two excited boys waiting to take a class from the Master Builder.  Unfortunately, he did not teach the class - the manager did.  But, it was still fun.  

Oh how I love these two boys!  So sweet!  Can you believe they are only 6 weeks apart by looking at this picture?  Caleb is a tall boy!