both kids are attending camp this week. Ellie is attending a National Writing Project camp on the Grand Valley State University’s Holland Campus. she goes for 1/2 days this week and is working on writing her memoir along with some other creative writing. i plan to film her reading some of her writing at their performance so stay tuned for that.

JD is at Camp Manitou-Lin. he attended last year as well. every morning he jumps on a bus at 7:40 AM and returns home at 5:20 PM. in between, he rides horses, kayaks, and generally does camp things. fun stuff. we have a big parent night planned tonight and the campers will put on a performance so i’ll film that and post it soon as well.

Odyssey of the Mind was really fun this year! I was a team member, Mom was a coach, Dad was a judge, and JD missed his Lego camp to see me win!!! We tied 2nd place in the hard region. We got the highest points for our skit too. That  means on april 17 we will be at the state finals! We have a shot at going to the world finals.

A talent scout saw me perform at our church’s Christmas Pageant, he asked if I would like to tryout for a TV show. the TV show is called Our View. It is a twist on The View but for younger girls; it has girls ages 7-12. I won a part and will be on the show. The kids in my class are so happy for me, and I am very proud.

Wish me luck!

eventually it was time for the kids to go to bed (it was about 10:30 when our session together ended). JD stayed in with Paula and Ellie went back to her bed — i went out to watch boxing. anyway, Paula said that JD then cried. why? because he just didn’t want to grow up. he’s having such a fun time being a kid and he doesn’t ever want to grow older. Paula explained that there is much fun in being able to make your own decisions and choosing your own destiny. i think part of this came on because the kids saw “Where the Wild Things Are” at the movie theater earlier that day . . . and JD cried during much of that movie as well. i think a lot of stuff was just hitting him all at once today. quite the overwhelming day, but he came through very well and the first thing he did today was jump up next to me on the couch and put his little arm around me and sigh with a little chuckle, “dad, that was fun last night, wasn’t it?” yes it was.

Ellie has a wonderful teacher who is really pushing the kids to be much more cognizant of their roles in the learning process. Ellie’s writing is improving by leaps and bounds and i thought it was already great. she was also the first student in her class to take an Accelerated Reader (AR) test over an AR book, which means she read the book and was ready for the test before the other students. she just took the NCLB tests these past 2 weeks (called the MEAP in Michigan), so we’ll see how she compares to last year — when she took the test the day after we returned from Europe. Ellie was also selected to be a crossing guard when the 5th graders had a camp a few weeks ago. Ellie even patrolled the corner by our house so she got to help JD across the street. finally, Ellie also made the choir, so she practices for that early before school a few days a week.

the kids have their Halloween costumes. Paula was in San Fransisco so i took charge and helped the kids order costumes online. i’ll get the photos posted shortly after Halloween so stay tuned.