A Decision Has Been Made

We missed the boat for Christmas. I had seen Pillow Pets at Walmart and thought it was silly. Little did I know that was a hit with the kids and the girls really liked them. When we went to the state dance competition, many of the girls brought their Pillow Pets. Rozzie was envious!! When we brought these home for Valentine's Day, Rozzie jumped up and down and screamed. She was on the verge of tears. Needless to say, they were all pleased.

It's a Pillow.

It's a Pet.

It's a Pillow Pet.

Today was our first beach trip for 2011. We went to Anastasia State Park with two of Rozzie's dance friends, Lauren and Sabrina. At the park entrance, the water temperature was posted as 58 degrees. That didn't stop these girls!! It was a beautiful day. I look forward to many more like it!! Maddie came along and split her time between me and Rozzie.

While we were at the beach, Morgan made a decision. She had hung the flag in the morning. By the afternoon, it was official and she accepted the admittance to BYU. It is a great feeling. I'm so proud of her. She had two great options; BYU and FSU. She will be going out for summer term two weeks after graduation from high school. Rise and Shout!!!

Are You Having A Bad Hair Day?

Today was the Clay County Science Fair, way down yonder in Green Cove Springs. I took the day off to accompany Maddie and her award winning project. She created a hair hygrometer to measure humidity. She compared it to the Weather Channel's humidity readings and found hair to be an accurate indicator of humidity. She answered many questions and seemed to know what she was talking about. She knew how she would change the project if she were to do it again. She knew what happened to hair on more humid days. She was interviewed by a former meteorologist who told her that hygrometers are made using 18 strands of blond hair from Norwegian or Swedish women as that is the least elastic hair. Who knew she'd run into someone with that kind of knowledge. I was proud of her. It is a long, boring day. She brought a book to read; I brought my knitting.
Maddie's good friend, Justine, was there, too. They would check on each other once in a while.

Maddie and I went into Green Cove Springs for lunch. That was the most exciting part of the day!! It was a nice day together. In the afternoon, the school superintendent came by for pictures. Then in was finals interviews. We sat and sat and sat. Then we sat some more. Finally, about 4 people came by and interviewed Maddie. I thought, "Hmmmm." Then we packed up and went home.

Tonight was awards. Maddie placed 3rd in the Junior Earth/Space category. She was pretty happy. She was not nominated to go to state, which is a huge relief. This is good and not too much fuss.

Congrats to Maddie!! Oh, yes, she did wear her hair curly on purpose!!

Ear Care

I have horrid dreams. Last night, in my dream, I scratched my ear and pulled out half an insect. Then I felt the creepy-crawly feeling in my other ear. It was alive and moving in there. I asked my sister, the shoe-box princess, to help me by tweezing out the bug. I was afraid to lay with that ear up for fear that the insect would fall deeper into my ear. Yes, I was in a complete panic. She was having trouble getting at it as the critter kept receding into the recesses of my ear canal. I finally just had to wake up and end the horror. Much to my relief, my ear felt fine. However, all day, I have felt and heard the echos of the imaginary bug in my ear. It was horrible, horrible, most horrible.

Superior

This was a busy band week for Morgan. She had Jazz Music Performance Assessment (MPA) on Thursday night. She didn't get home until 10:30, but was happy to have received "superiors" for the band.

Last night (Friday) was solo MPA. She prepared a tenor sax piece. Our friend from church, Laura, accompanied her. Laura has accompanied Morgan on the violin the whole time we have lived here in Florida. Morgan didn't play until 9:10pm. It was late. It was across town. She had had Jazz the night before. She has Seminary every day. etc. etc. etc. BUT, Morgan did well. We waited around for about 30 minutes to see her score posted.

She received a superior rating!! We were all so pleased!! Here are Morgan and Laura, smiling after their award winning performance. Thanks so much to Laura for all her had work the last eleven years. She is always so willing to play the piano for all our various school and church endeavors. She also convinced Travis that having a busy schedule with teenagers is normal!! Thank you!!
Morgan goes back to night for ensemble MPA. She is in a tuba quartet.

UPDATE: Tuba quartet received SUPERIOR ratings!!

The Main Events

Well, let's go through this backwards, I guess. Last night was a dance team competition for Rozzie. This was a small one in Jacksonville and we were the only high school dance team there. There were a few cheer teams. All the other teams came from studios. This time, the freshmen danced and it made a really nice difference. They were all excited and they won!! It was a great feeling. We had lots of people come and tell us they had seen us in Daytona and were excited we were at this competition so they could see us again. We even had some tell us they had searched all over youtube for us. The coach went home last night and made them a youtube page, if you want to check them out!! First place felt really nice. Rozzie has been dancing around all day. The nice thing about this event is that it was close to home and FREE ADMITTANCE!! Travis, Morgan, and Maddie came to watch and enjoyed themselves.
For me, another dance competition meant "HAIR" and I did a lot of hair. This is how Rozzie looked!! That is quite a planetoid she is sporting!!

Friday night was Maddie's violin recital. She played "The Ludlows" from "Legends of the Fall". She was rather nervous but did a fantastic job. She has grown into a fine violinist and her musicality is really picking up with her additional music teaching in band. She has been a student of Kyle's for ten years!! We figured that Morgan has only 13 lessons left with Kyle. Wow...

The beginning of the week was spent at The Cloister at Sea Island, Georgia. It is about 1 1/2 hours away. Travis has the Georgia Foreign Trade Conference there each year and it is my privilege to go along. One night, they took formal pictures in The Summit Room which is the room where they held the G8 Summit meetings in 2004. It is an impressive room with a very large table.

Travis and I enjoyed our 3 nights away (Sunday-Wednesday). Then it was time to go back to school and face the music. Morgan had her All-County Band concert while we were away. Next week she has solo and ensemble performance assessment and Jazz assessment. Keeping them busy.

Think Pink

We had a busy basketball week here in Fleming Island. The team is doing very well right now. Last night was the big "Pink Out" game. Both the boy's varsity and girl's varsity played games, had senior night, and thinked pink. (A few games around town did the same thing.) The teams sold "Think Pink" tshirts with the "i"s dotted with basketballs. The money raised is going to breast cancer research. Nearly everyone wore pink. Even some of the basketball players wore pink laces and socks. The picture below is of one of my students, Darrick, as he shoots a free-throw. You can see all the kids in the background in their pink. The ref didn't represent. It made for a fun night, though. Here is Rozzie and McCall. They have enjoyed being on the dance team this year. The kids in the background are "creeping". For those who are not familiar with this term, it is where someone else is getting a picture taken and you position yourself and smile for the picture, thus "creeping" on someone else's picture. At the last competition, some girls were taking a picture and later on realized that the waitress creeped on them!!

Travis was pretty excited that he got to see someone famous at the game. This is Nolan Carroll of the Miami Dolphins.

Here is the situation: Nolan's brother, Nico plays basketball for Fleming Island and with it being senior night, Nolan came to support his brother and walk him in as he (Nico) was announced. Back in his days of reporting high school football, Travis remembered covering games with Nolan who attended Clay High, just to our south. Now, Nolan plays for the Miami Dolphins. I had never heard of him, but then Travis explained who he was and I remember the story very well. You might, too. In a game in December 2010 between the Jets and the Dolphins, a coach tripped a player running down the sidelines. The coach was fired and it was all over the news. that player was Nolan Carroll. You can look it up on youtube - I wasn't able to get it on here, but it is easy to find. So that was Travis' fun moment.

This past week, I was petitionned by a group of students to start a knitting group NOW!!! So the wheels are in motion for that. All is well in the Smith house!

The Satisfaction of a Finished Project

Morgan and I both had the satisfaction of finishing a knitting project this weekend. Morgan is starting to challenge herself with new and interesting patterns. I made her knit the legs on this pair a little longer, just in case she gets in at BYU - she'll want those longer socks!! We both really like the greens here.
Here is a detail of the pattern. It is a little hard to see, but there is an additional pattern beyond the self striping yarn. She did a great job and is becoming an accomplished knitter. She likes to come to the knitting group at school and help out.

As for me, I finally got around to finishing this sweater!! I got a lot done, then got stalled out over the summer. I kept putting off getting back to it because it takes time to figure out what was going on when I put it down! But I overcame that fear over the Christmas break. I wore the sweater to church today and got a lot of compliments on the nice colors. It is very comfortable, almost like a jacket.

I was nervous about the I-cord finishing, but I persevered and figured it out (not that hard, actually) and am really pleased with the outcome. It gives it a nice, finished look.

Now, on to a new week. I get to tease a student for skipping my class last Friday and going to get a squid tattooed on her forearm. I love facebook.