Storybook Character Day

Today I sent off 4 new kids to school:
Despereaux, Fancy Nancy, Ruby the Red Fairy and Roger the Jolly Pirate

It was storybook character day at school!  The staff dressed up like the character's of Charlotte's Web.  I guess Despereaux and Roger didn't make it much past a few minutes as not very many people in their classes participated, but they sure had fun coming up with ideas and creating the costumes.

Brandon had Cadet-O-Rama last weekend.  His car did not do as well as he had hoped.  The last night of working on them in Cadets, the axle of his car was cracked trying to put in the lead.  So, with 10 days to go before race day, Brandon had a plain block of wood to start over with.  He and Matt quickly recreated the same car, different color but the paint didn't have long enough to dry so that caused some problems. Then, I guess its taboo to melt lead into a car like the good old days so Matt bought some lead at the Hobby shop and attached it to the bottom of Brandon's car.  This turned out to not work so well as the screw that attached it got caught on the track and made jumping off the starting line a slow if non existent process for Brandon's car.  Next Wednesday is the race just within his cadre, so hopefully they will be able to drill out some of the car and put the lead further into the base.

Day light saving times - curses.  We still hadn't gotten used to MI time and now they go and change the clocks on us again.  We were liking the late sunset previously, but this is crazy.  Living on this side of the time zone, the sun is barely up at 8 am - makes getting out of bed VERY difficult and going to sleep at night not so much fun either- at least for the kids - its still light out!  I used to laugh at all the postcards and notifications that were sent out about 'Remember to turn your clocks ahead (or back)'.  This year however, it was one such postcard from our realtor that alerted us to the fact that we had to Spring ahead.  I think one of us would have caught it on Saturday, but it would have been pretty funny if the pastor didn't show up on time for church.

Brandon won the ticket draw in his classroom last week.  At MCS, each teacher uses the same rewards/discipline system.  You receive tickets for a variety of things varying from extra credit, homework on time, not flipping (discipline) etc.  (every child starts out the day on green, and flips to different colors through the day if things are less than grand in their world - like getting your name on the board with checks, or similar to Mrs. KP's system at CCS). Some teachers have you start with the tickets and take them away as needed, others have you earn them as the week goes along.  Each teacher uses the rewards differently. Brandon has a draw for something at the end of every week and you can put in as many tickets as you want, based on how many you have and how much you like the prize.  Brandon's teacher used to be a clown so he can make cool things out of balloons. Last week was a hat, so Brandon only put 4 tickets in - he wasn't super interested - but he won!

I trust everyone had a happy pi day.  We did not have pi or pie.  Maybe next year.
We are gearing up for celebrating St Patrick's Day.  Shamrock Shakes and mint brownies!

I got another long run on the beach today.  It was incredibly foggy all day, but the further from the water, the clearer the air.  We live close, so it was foggy!  Some day I'll take my camera with and take a picture of what I get to see when I run.  Today was literally on the beach so I had to choose between running on the hard sand and risk getting wet feet or running - ok I stopped to walk twice - on the soft sand and working really hard to not get very far.

Tomorrow, I'm going to clean the house.... maybe.