Happy 4th Birthday Aidan

We celebrated Aidan's 4th birthday this year on the evening of Sunday, January 17th.

Much like last year (and Christmas, come to think of it), the event was very Cars-centric. Mom produced a fantastic Dinoco-blue Lightning McQueen cake and Aidan was showered with a wealth of Disney-licensed presents.

Unlike last year, there were no parting gifts for the attendees: No stomach bugs or colds. Everyone seems to have stayed healthy in the wake of the gathering.

Thanks, everyone, for attending. And, Happy Birthday, Aidan.

11 Birthdays

The following is a video produced for a book report for Abigail. Enjoy...

Christmas 2009

Our last day of school and work this year was December 19th: The day before the big snow. That diversion aside, most of our time leading up to the big day was spent just getting ready: Wrapping presents, cleaning, decorating the house...the gingerbread house.

Christmas eve and Christmas day followed their usual pattern for us: Dinner at Nana and Poppop's on Christmas Eve, stockings Christmas morning, followed by breakfast, then presents, family coming and going throughout the day, then dinner at Grammy and Granddad's.

After Christmas (and a few recovery days), Mom and I jumped headlong into this year's home remodeling project (you know us: Christmas just isn't Christmas without some form of home makeover). This year, it was Alex's bedroom. With Lego city relegated to the basement and Alex evicted to the couch in the Family room, all the molding and the entry door were quickly ushered to the curb. Mom then primed and painted the walls while I replace the door and got some practice in on the miter saw.

New Year's eve, we spent some time at a friend's house, then brought the kids home and let the big guys stay up to watch the ball drop: This being a first for them. They were very excited as the ball touched down, but then became a little freaked out by all the kissing on the TV that seemed to be welcoming in the New Year.

We wrapped up our time off by Abigail inviting a friend for a sleep over on New Year's day while Mom and I put the finishing touches on Alex's room. After much planning and practice, the girls treated us to a one of a kind concert.


And, this just in: This post is my 100th since starting the blog. Hooray.

OK. Back to work you...

Snow Daze

On Saturday the 19th, we were blessed with some significant snow fall. Like 12-14 inches of significant. So, over the next 3 days, Mom and I took the kids out several times to enjoy it.

The last of those 3 outings was our trip to Campbell Mountain for some real sledding (real as compared to the pseudo-sledding we do in our front yard). Like last season, we kidnapped Zach for some added zaniness.

Unlike last year, the deep powder required several runs to get it packed down, but once we got going (and abandoned the new defective sleds) we all had some great fun.

Check the video for a quick recap...

School Production Wrap-up

The last 2 weeks have seen 3 separate school productions that have involved all 4 children.

Starting out, on Monday, December 1st, the elementary school students at RLCA put on their 2009 Christmas production. The evening started out with a few selections from the After-School Choir, featuring both Amanda and Abigail. The video below is from Deck the Halls.

Following the After-School Choir was the main event; The Mystery of the Manger. As I stated at the beginning of the year, Abigail was seeking a larger role this year, and she achieved just that with the speaking part of 'Olivia'. Amanda lent her vocal talents in the ensemble. Below is roughly the first 8'ish minutes of the show.

This production was then succeeded by the 2009 RLCA Christmas Concert on December 14th. In similar form to last year, this involved Abigail on clarinet playing for the 5th grade band and Alex on percussion for the Middle School band.

The first song for the 5th Grade Band is Little Drummer Boy. For this song, due to the lack of a trumpeter, Abigail took lead on clarinet. And totally rocked it...if I do say so myself...

The 5th grade's second song was We Wish You a Merry Christmas.

Following closing behind was the Middle School band. Their first selection was the epically long Christmastime with Charlie Brown with Alex on cymbal. Take special note of Alex's expert use of a single drum stick. The reason: The other grew legs and wandered off. Still, its a fine performance...

The Middle School's 2nd selection is a piece called Rocky, Rocky Road. For this, Alex transitioned to bass drum...

Last, but certainly not least, we have Aidan's first ever school production. GCA presented their annual Preschool Christmas show on Tuesday, December 15th.

The kids actually performed Away in a Manger after this, but for some reason our little guy broke down and cried through the whole thing.

FIRST LEGO League 2009

As Red Lion Christian continues to grow, new opportunities arise each year for the students to get involved. This year saw the introduction of the school to the FIRST LEGO League (FLL).

FLL is an international competition for students 9-14 years of age that is designed to inspire them in the fields of technology and science. The center piece of the program is its robotics competition where the students build robots using Lego Mindstorm kits that must then compete in a 2.5 minute challenge.

As I'm sure you surmised by now, Alex took part in this program this year which culminated in a qualifying competition at the Conrad School of Science this past Saturday.

Beginning back in September, RLCA assembled 3 teams. Alex's team, the Bloxerz, worked for 3 months to not only design and program their 'bot, but also to research and prepare a presentation for a solution to the local problem of their choice.

The Bloxerz chose to tackle the problem of evacuating the Delaware shore in the event of a major hurricane. Their solution: A high speed maglev train that would be able to evacuate the beach goers and residents in 24 hours. To fund this ambitious project, they proposed tying into a similar project slated for the Baltimore/DC corridor that was being funded with Federal Stimulus money.

To make their pitch to the judges on Saturday, the Bloxerz staged a mock news cast from the Delaware shore.

After 2 other separate interview sessions, the boys moved onto the robot competition. The robot competition involves completing a series of tasks on a table top. The layout is determined by FLL at the beginning of the season and the boys worked furiously to prep their robot for the specific challenges. To complete all of the tasks available would result in a perfect score of 400 points. Being our boys first year, the team decided to focus in on a few tasks they felt they could do well...

The run highlighted above netted the Bloxerz a score of 130. Their other 2 attempts yielded scores of 120 and 125.

In the end, the Bloxerz didn't place and won't be progressing to the next level which will be held at the Bob Carpenter Center in January. But the boys had a lot of fun. And there's always next year.

On a brighter note, one of RLCA's teams, the Lego Knights, will be progressing. So congratulations to the Knights on that...

Impromptu Piercing

We popped over to the Christiana Mall this past Friday that I might do some Christmas shopping for the love of my life. Yes, she was there, but we split up once we got into the building: Alex and I on my mission while Mom, Amanda, Abby and Aidan headed off in a different direction.

When Alex and I finished up, we found that Mom and Amanda were discussing getting Amanda's ears pierced. This subject has been broached a few times in recent months but this was looking like it was really going to happen this time. And that it did.

Amanda admitted afterward that it wasn't nearly as bad as she had worked it up to be in her mind. Way to go girl!