Happy Birthday

Addis0n turned nine this weekend.  She celebrated with a few friends, tea party style.  The girls made 'fancy' hats, ate finger sandwiches and sipped hot cocoa from china tea cups.   We played a few party games, opened presents and finished off the afternoon with cake - just in time to spoil everyones' dinners.   The girls had a lovely time.  

Daddy Daughter Camp Out 2008

This weekend was the famed Daddy-Daughter camp out for the Pasadena Stake. As usual the event was held at the Arcadia wilderness park. The event was well attended and a lot of fun. What I always think is funny, is that the dads always groan about all the "girly" activities that are part of the Daddy-Daughter camp out such as:

Climbing Trees.











Hanging out with dads.












Playing football.












Building a fort.











"Fear Factor" eating contest.













Making pirate faces.















Packing in their gear.


















Setting up their tents.












Living in tent city.
















Making the scene.












Partying all night long.
















Waiting for the breakfast to be served. . . .











By these slackers.
 

Back to School

It is back to school time here in Pasadena and Addison has returned to Hamilton for another year of adventure in education.  She is a big fourth grader now and everything is different!  She now gets to play on the upperschool yard, her class has 35 students instead of 20, the fourth grade teachers rotate subjects so she has to move from class to class, and she has a planner!   To top it all off she also has two new skinned knees to get the ball rolling. (She fell off a friends scooter after school - there were water works.)

Her homeroom teacher this year is Ms. Wielgosz (pronounced WELL - gosh!)  Most of her friends are in her class again.  I sense several phone calls on the horizon concerning talking and note passing during class.  

We have signed up for an after school Spanish class that begins in a few weeks.  It is through Berlitz which emphasizes language immersion.  We'll see how she does.  Speaking of languages, we are still working on our Latin and can now construct sentences like:  poetae sunt sed tabulas numquam portant.  (Translation:  They are poets, but they never carry writing tablets.)  I tell you, this is all very helpful - or at least it will be when one day we meet tablet carrying poets who speak latin?

African American History Month

The Pasadena School District holds an annual African American History Bee.  Contestants come from each elementary school and compete in teams of two according to their grade level.  Addison and her classmate, Carola, represented the third grade for our school.  They had an eighteen page packet of facts to study.  Not only did they have to be familiar with national heros in politics, music, the arts, and sports, but they also had to know definitions, inventors and local history makers.  These girls studied very hard.  They were the first third-grade team from their school to ever make it past the third round.

Here are the three questions the judges posed to them:

Round 1:   I used a network of hiding places called the underground railroad to help over 300 slaves escape to the North and Canada. (click here for the answer.)

Round 2:  I was elected by my fellow Board members as Mayor of Pasadena in 1982, the first African American woman mayor of the city.  (by answering this questions, the girls eliminated 3 other teams who had been unable to answer.)

Round 3:  In 1965 she became the first African American woman admitted to the bar in the state of Mississippi and is the founder, president, and spokesperson for the Children's Defense Fund. (And this was the question that finally knocked them out.)

These two girls are very proud of themselves and are raring to win next year!