Lock-In Survivors

This past Saturday night, the Girl Scout Council held an event at the mall in Sioux City. This event was an overnight lock-in!! Girl Scouts from all over Sioux City showed up at the mall right after it closed to the public (9:30pm) and spent the night locked in until their parents came to pick them up at 6:00am the next morning!

Since I am one of the registered troop volunteers, I also got to spend the night with all these girls! There is one catch... there would be no sleeping!! I was a little nervous about how the evening would go, since I had to work early Saturday morning, then Brianna had the dance clinic and the dance show that evening, then we would head out to the mall. I thought for sure we would not be able to stay awake for the entire event! We did manage to squeeze in a two hour nap in the afternoon between activities, though, and I think this really helped!

Upon arriving at the mall, girls were to gather as a troop and check in. After checking in and getting the schedule for the night, we had to find a spot in the mall where all our girls could "congregate" between activities. This was not easy, since there were over 500 girls in attendance! The evening went really fast! The Council had events scheduled all throughout the evening to keep the girls busy... they didn't even have time to think about being tired!! We had dance performances from the Morningside College dance squad, a baton twirling event from a South Dakota pageant queen (she is also a registered Girl Scout!), pizza, movie, karaoke, Wii, drawing for prizes, etc. Before we knew it, it was 5:00am and time for breakfast and clean up before the parents arrived! Everyone had so much fun! I'm sure I won't hesitate to sign up again next year!! Check out the photo below-- notice the time on the clock! 3:30AM!!!

EHS Spring Dance Show

Every spring, the East High School Dance Team puts on a Spring Show to showcase their talents and it's also kind of like a farewell ceremony for the seniors on the team. They also have a clinic every year, inviting children ranging from Kindergarten to eigth grade to participate in the Spring Show. This year's theme was "Don't Change That Channel", so all the songs the clinic participants danced to were from TV shows!! For example, "Go, Diego, Go!" (Dora the Explorer), "Hannah Montana", and "Camp Rock/We Rock", just to name a few! These songs are choreographed by the high school dance squad, then the moves are taught to the clinic participants! There were 32 different dance routines performed throughout the night, including one with "Raidermen" and the "Mom Squad"! The Raidermen are high school boys that are partnered up with dance squad members and perform a dance routine with them! The Mom squad was made up of the moms of the girls on the dance squad! Both of these groups did an excellent job on their routines! As it is every year, the show was a blast to watch!! These girls do an amazing job -- its no wonder they have a lot of 1st and 2nd place trophies from performing at various state and national dance competitions!! Brianna danced with the group that performed to "Camp Rock/We Rock" -- a video is posted below! (I apologize for the fuzzy/blurry quality of the video -- we were seated near the back of the auditorium. But those of you who know Brianna will definitely recognize her anyway!!)

Wonders of Art & Science Fair

Last night, Brianna's elementary school held a "Wonders of Art & Science" Fair. Students ranging from Kindergarten to 5th Grade participated by entering a project. Their project had to fall in one of five categories: Art, Writing, History, Science, or Group Project.

Brianna decided to write a poem and enter it into the Writing catagory. She made up a poem about a dolphin, then typed it on the computer. She also found a picture of a dolphin and put it on the paper with her poem and colored it in! A picture of her poem follows:

The school principal and members of the PTA were the judges for the evening. After walking around viewing everyone's projects, they had to decide who the winners were for each catagory. Some judges even had to go back and get second looks to try to decide -- there were so many good projects!! We gathered in the library to hear the final results... imagine Brianna surprise and excitement when she found out that she won 3rd place in the Writing catagory for her poem! She was ecstatic!! We had to post pictures on here! She is very proud and we are very proud of her! Great job, Brianna!!

Our First "Free" Weekend

Last weekend was our first "free" weekend in who knows how long! By "free", I mean that we did not have any sports functions going on... no birthday parties to run to... and no work!! Of course, we still managed to fill it and make it a busy one by planning a trip to take Mom to Ames to see Derek!!

We left Sioux City on Friday night after Zach got done with track practice and went to Mom's house in Laurens. Spent the night and then we all got up Saturday morning and drove to Ames to Derek's house. We hung out with Derek and his roommate, Carlos, for the morning then decided to go out to lunch. Derek took us to this restaurant called Hickory Park. Awesome BBQ place! The place was huge and I thought it was going to take a long time but we were seated at a table within 15-20 minutes and our drinks and food came right away! The prices are very reasonable also!! If anyone is ever in Ames, you got to be sure to check this place out! Just go down to the south end of Duff Ave. not too far from Highway 30!! Anyway, after our lunch, we went and did a little shopping at Wal-Mart and then went on a sight-seeing tour. Derek is currently taking business classes at Iowa State (yeah, I know what you're thinking... Dad is probably not happy about it!!) and so he took us around campus and showed us the buildings where his classes are. We also drove around Ames seeing the mall and where they are building a new water park. Then we went back and watched basketball and visited until Derek and Carlos had to go to work. Once we saw them off to work, we headed back to Laurens. We ordered pizza and watched the Iowa High School Boys State Basketball Tournament on TV. Sioux City had a high school team that was playing for the 3A Championship -- Bishop Heelan. We watched them win and then everyone called it an early evening! It had been a long day!!

Sunday was such a nice day that we didn't want to go home right away. We decided to drive up to Ruthven and visit other relatives. First, we went to Roger and Shirley's house (my aunt and uncle) and visited with them and some of my cousins were also there with their kids, so it was really nice to see them. Zach and Brianna got to see some cousins that they really don't see that often! I am really looking forward to our "reunion" this summer up at the Lakes!! I wish we could see everyone more often! We also went to Rich and Barb's farm to visit (another aunt and uncle!) My cousin, Lance, has enlisted in the Air Force and will be leaving within the month, so we wanted to be sure to see him before he left! Brianna loves going out to their place because their two girls have so many Barbie dolls to play with!! Needless to say, this visit ran a little longer than we intended it to, so we got back to Sioux City a little late that night! But is was so worth it!! Thanks for all the great visits, everyone!! Love ya!!

Happy St. Patricks Day!!

"May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, and the rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of his hand."

Just a small Irish Blessing to all! Hope all our friends and family have a wonderful day!! Especially our own special leprechaun, Uncle Bill!!! I am sure he did a wonderful job in the parade! If anyone got any pictures of him, let me know!! Thanks!!

Dealing With Sicknesses...

For the past three weekends, we have been dealing with some "sickness" of some form or other!! Three weekends ago, Brianna woke up on a Sunday morning with a stomach ache and ended up having the flu! It had been going around the school and daycare, so it was probably inevitable that she was going to get it. Thankfully, it only lasted one day and not the three to four days that a lot of other kids were having it! I was pretty "trigger-happy" with the Lysol can, too! I wanted to be sure that no one else got it!! At one point, Brianna asked me if the flu would go away if I would spray her down with the Lysol!! Wish it was that easy!!

The next Sunday morning, I woke up with a nasty head cold. I couldn't breathe, my head felt like it was five times larger than the rest of my body. This thing lasted a whole week... nothing I took worked. The only way I got through it was with nasal spray and those Breathe Right strips that you put across your nose!! I've never used them before, but my "undying gratitude" goes to to whomever invented that thing!! Wow!!

Then the Sunday after that, it was back to Brianna being sick! This time it was strep throat -- which was the other sickness that was spreading through the school like wildfire! Leave it to Brianna to get both of them... but I am sure that a lot of other kids did, too. This was easier to deal with than that flu... just kept the fever and pain under control with ibuprofen until the antibiotics kicked in and did the job... hopefully this is the end of the sicknesses in this house for a while! Knock, knock, knock!! (That is the sound of me knocking on wood!...)

A Little Free Time...

Not much going on right now, since we are kind of in between sports with the kids! (and enjoying being home at night!!) Zach is out for track now, but they are just doing practice after school every day for now...

Conferences were held last week at the high school... Zach is doing very well! We were happy to see that he had mostly A's on his progress report and all of his teachers really enjoy him and had good things to say about him!! Keep up the good work, Zach! Brianna hasn't had conferences yet, but we are not too worried about her either!!

We have been trying to go to Laurens and see Mom on a free weekend while we still have them, but it hasn't been working out well for us. Last weekend, Brianna had the flu and this weekend I am the one sick -- not the flu, but a very nasty head cold! My head feels like it is 5 times bigger and heavier than the rest of my body!! Hopefully it goes away soon and we can get away for a weekend soon!! Maybe this weekend, after we pick up our girl scout cookies!!!

The End of Basketball Season...

Basketball season for Zach ended on Thursday, February 19... this was the night his team played in the Championship Game for the City Tournament. East High played against another local high school team, North High, and ended up losing... bummer! So they didn't get crowned as city champs but they did earn second place!!! Good Job, Black Raiders!! It will be really exciting to watch these kids play when they end up on the varsity team!! I am sure they will be state-bound then!!!