March Duet by Beethoven

Glowing Graduate

On Tuesday, Amanda graduated from the 8th grade with her friends and peers from Hickman Charter School. It was a wonderful evening full of speeches and musical numbers performed by the graduates. Amanda played a duet called March by Beethoven with her friend, Sarah. She did an amazing job!

It is so hard to believe that our baby girl is now in high school. We are so proud of all of Amanda's accomplishments and look forward to many wonderful high school accomplishments. Way to go, Manders! We love you!

La Jolla Cove and Beach

Celebrating my kiddos!!!

As parents, we have all earned the opportunity to celebrate or brag on our kids every once in a while. I am going to take this chance to celebrate a wonderful accomplishment for Amanda and Daniel.
This year, they both participated in a yearlong international math competition called Math Olympiad. Math Olympiad has timed math tests that are all critical thinking, problem solving questions. The participants spend the year with practice problems and meet several times as a team to take the timed tests.
The tests and scores are submitted to the international competition (includes 17 countries).

We attended a special ceremony at Hickman for all of the Math Olympiad participants. We were very excited to find out that Daniel received the second highest score for the sixth graders at Hickman (keep in mind that he is a fifth grader). He also missed being in the top 5 percent internationally by only two points. Way to go, Daniel!

We were super excited that Amanda was the top scorer for all of the 7th and 8th graders at Hickman, and she did win an award for being in the top 5 percent of all students internationally. She worked very hard this year, and she earned and deserved this high honor. Way to go, Amanda!


Some of the Math Olympiad participants from Hickman School.

On the road again!

We are enjoying a fun and beautiful week in San Diego as a family. Doug has a Nestle conference here at the Grand Del Mar, so we decided to keep him company and enjoy the perks of this fancy resort.

You might be saying to yourself, "Gosh, didn't they just return from a ten day trip to DC just last week?" Yes, you would be right. I think that I am traveled-out now. I plan on staying home the whole month of June.

While here, we have enjoyed the mountain bike trails, tennis, swimming, and hanging out in the room. I hope to get to the beach, but the kids are having fun playing in the resort.

Washington DC pictures

Amanda and I just returned from our big trip to Washington DC and beyond. We were gone 10 days. Every day was so different from the others. We went to DC, Richmond, Jamestown, Yorktown, Monticello, Mt. Vernon, Gettysburg, and Harper's Ferry.

People ask me what my favorite part of the trip was. I would have to say that I have a new-found love for history and patriotism. I realized that I didn't learn or had forgotten so much of my American History. It was a great way to see history come alive. I will be teaching history very differently in the future.

My favorite stops were the Gettysburg museum and the Holocaust museum. I learned so much at both of these places.

I am grateful to be home and finally rested. It was a quick-paced trip! I am so thankful for the opportunity to have gone with Amanda. It is something that we will always share.

I only put an abbreviated amount of pictures on my blog. I have 152 great pictures to scrapbook, but I just wanted to upload a sampling.