3/24/09 Nadine's school fitness program

The JGE Cheerleaders led the student bodies from all Perry Township schools. Each school did a routine. The Cheerleaders did a variety of aerobics. The kids did some really neat stuff, but Nadine's squad was not very visable from where we sat =(

3/21/09 Sleeping Beauty's ball

Krista and I took Gabby, Nadine and Jasmin to the Children's Museum to see Sleeping Beauty. We had dinner at the ball, and enjoyed a bit of the museum before the play. Nadine got to go on stage and teach the audiance how to curstey. She did a great job! I loved the play, and we all had a great time!

Giovanni Schiaparelli's Birthday

Today's Google Logo is representing the Birthday of Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli (March 14, 1835 – July 4, 1910). schiaprelli was an Italian astronomer and science historian.

He was also a senator of the Kingdom of Italy, a member of the Accademia dei Lincei, the Accademia delle Scienze di Torino and the Regio Istituto Lombardo, and is particularly known for his studies of Mars.

Among Schiaparelli's contributions are his telescopic observations of Mars. In his initial observations, he named the "seas" and "continents" of Mars. During Italy's "Great Opposition" of 1877, he observed a dense network of linear structures on the surface of Mars which he called "canali" in Italian, meaning "channels" but mistranslated as "canals". While the latter term indicates an artificial construction, the former indicates the connotation that it can also be a natural configuration of the land. From this incorrect translation, various assumptions about life on Mars derived, as the "canals" of Mars soon became famous, giving rise to waves of hypotheses, speculation and folklore about the possibility of life on Mars.

In his book Life on Mars, Schiaparelli writes: "Rather than true channels in a form familiar to us, we must imagine depressions in the soil that are not very deep, extended in a straight direction for thousands of miles, over a width of 100, 200 kilometers and maybe more. I have already pointed out that, in the absence of rain on Mars, these channels are probably the main mechanism by which the water (and with it organic life) can spread on the dry surface of the planet

3/1/09 Spring time is near!

Spring is less than 3 weeks away! The kids helped me start some veggie seedlings today. We didn't have much going on this weekend so we decided to take advantage of the free time!

Andrew requested Rhubarb this year, and Nadine agreed so we picked up some seeds to plant whe the time comes. Nadine did 12 cherry tomato starts, Andrew did 12 eggplant starts, and Dane did 12 tomato plant starts while Aiden tooka nap!

02/28/09 Nadine's last Basketball game

It's the end of the 2008-2009 PTYB Basketball season. I could not be more proud of our 4th grade girls. They put forth great efforts and showed a lot of improvement!

Go Bulldogs!

02/22/09 Earth Scouts-Primates

Today was my favorite Earth Scouts lesson to date. Roy, the retired Zoo Keeper came to teach the kids about Primates. He was quite impressed with the kids, and was suprised at how much Andrew, Nadine, and Dane knew about Primates.

The kids got to learn about all the different primates in the world, Roy read them a story from one of his books, the kids bought one of Roys books to autograph and Roy asked to give a special book of poems to Andrew & Nadine becasue he really enjoyed learning that Andrew is a writer and that Nadine is an Avid reader.

The kids had a great time, and I enjoyed seeing them explore Evoloution!

This is Roy letting Aiden hang from a branch like a Monkey.

This is Andrew talking to Roy about his books,

and how Andrew likes to write stories too!

This is Dane trying on a plaster mold of a large primates hand

(Maybe a Gorilla?)


This is Nadine holding a cast of a Baboon's face.

This is Roy, The Zoo keeper, reading one of his stories to the kids.

02/21/09 JG-E vs Southport BBall

Southport played pretty dirty today. Lots of fowling and double teaming. The score was 32-0. Nadine wasn't very pleased, but the Bulldog girls did play well so I was proud of their efforts. They didn't give up all the way to the very end!