Last Week April

The week started with a bunch of much needed rain; Sunday til Tuesday we had over 8 inches. Needless to say this cancelled the planned outdoor activities those days; which actually turned out to be a double blessing. The NC museum of art opened their two exhibits "Ansel Adams" and "Glory of Venice" for FREE Monday only. A friend and I had tried to book a group field trip to these exhibits earlier in the year but they were all booked up, so this was truly a treat.  

At the Ansel Adams" exhibit, Amber liked his portrait because he looked "funny", Titus liked his desert shots because it looked like eroding water, Jared liked the pictures of Yosemite Half Dome because he had "been there in his mind" while reading his Halburton book , Lance liked the ones that looked like paintings, Chris liked the above because it showed what it took to lug around a 40lb camera and I liked a photo in the rain that made the picture look like an impressionist painting.

In the "Glory of Venice" exhibit we had fun looking for rabbits hidden in the pictures.  Chris had read to the kids the history of the Easter Bunny; part of it was that they represent the virgin birth and therefore commonly appeared in early paintings of the Madonna.  We actually found quite a few.

Earlier in the day Jared had his last "Animation Course".  He has taken this course for the last four semester straight. I'm amazed at how far he's come.  I try to avoid comparisons but on the last day everyone presented their creations and I really thought Jared's was the best despite him being considerably younger.  By his teacher's enthusiasm when introducing his piece I think he thought the same (VIDEO on Blog).

It was also Lance's last week of Barbarian Diagramarian his second course from the Lukeion Project this year.  He has done well and learned a lot about time management and how to study; his professor takes no excuses.  All that would have been lost on Lance though, if his professor didn't have such a humorous manner in which he teaches.  Lance will actually be continuing on with him next year in his Greek 1 class because he enjoys his teaching so much.

Between all the academic pursuits this week we of course had a lot of baseball; practices, training and games.  On Thursday night Titus' team won their very first game of the season.  As Titus was responsible for getting two of the last three outs and assisting on the third at first base; he got the game ball!  If that wasn't enough excitement for one night one of the dads on the team had promised to buy the whole team ice cream when they won their first game.  It was really late but how could I say no to taking him to the ice cream shop.  Such a great evening. (The ball was still in my purse on Saturday).

Then Saturday came and life got crazy insane.  Jared and I took off early in the morning to drive 45 minutes north to attend the "Science Olympiad" tournament.  To be honest I wasn't real keen on going; in addition to the drive, Jared had been sick since Tuesday but he had worked all year to this goal and he really wanted to be there for his friend.  It turned out to be a much bigger deal than I expected, huge teams from many local schools.  His team was the "DaVinci Dragons" cool name and a really large group.  He and his buddy competed in three events and placed in two:  1st Place in Rock Stars and 2nd Place in Energy Transfer.  Pretty impressive considering the size of the competition.  In the end, we were all glad we had come.  It was a great experience and the boys were all planning what to compete in next year.

While Jared and I were at the Science Olympiad, Chris was watching Lance participate in his first travel ball tournament as guest player on a friends team.  Amber spent the day painting daddy's legs with chalk, much to everyone's amusement and Titus had a blast playing with the other kids.  Lance is definitely hooked on playing again with Coach Keith, he had more fun than he's had in a long time playing baseball; good to be behind the plate again.  We all came to watch the other games on Sunday.  It was so much fun we decided to go ahead and let him join the team as a full time member of the "Mustangs".

However, Saturday still wasn't over.  We had to rush home from our two locations converge on the house to clean up, get dressed and go to their piano recital (more on that in this post).  After performing their pieces we had to rush back across town so that Titus' team wouldn't have to forfeit their game due to lack of players.  I felt like the servants in "Ever After" changing clothes and rushing him out to the field but he made it in time.

All in all it was a wild week and just the beginning of our wild Month of May.  Good thing Chris keeps telling me how much he loves our busy lives.