The Art Show and Eli's Drawing...

My fall and early winter were spent volunteering at my son's highschool for the performing arts. In that time, I became friends with the three art teachers, two whom graduated from the same art school as me. I also designed a calendar for the school from the student's artwork. While taking up more time than I thought it would, my volunteer position has brought a different dimension to my life... outside positive affirmation of my design and art skills, utilization of my ceramics knowledge and the potential of eventually applying for job teaching part time.

With that said, here are a couple photos from the art show that I helped the teachers to put together.


Eli's still life:


Other student artwork from grade 5th-12th:

First Reading Award

Our school gives awards for each 100 books (or for older grades 15 mins/per "line) read. Eve received her first award a couple weeks ago. She's so cute!

Sun

Inspiration...

I didn't really get any good shots of the astronauts because it was so dark but I wanted to included one especially because of the astronaut on the right. He gave a speech at the beginning of the program that was quite inspiring. He applied to the space program the first year NASA took applications for the first space shuttle back in 1978 and was rejected. He applied again in 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, in 1992 he called before he sent in his application to ask if he was getting too old for the program to which they replied, "No, you're not old enough", and he applied again in 1993 and was finally accepted in 1994 when he was 38 years old. Two years after acceptance and training, he went into space.
Most people would've given up. He spoke of how it became a joke before he was accepted. It's too late for me to be an astronaut but perhaps there's something else for me to be.

Interesting Sites in Washington...

Josiah and Me!

A rare moment where I actually got to spend time with Josiah during the trip. He was assigned a different hotel room and chaperone since we are of the opposite sex. And, what teenager wants to spend time with his Mom while on a cool four day long field trip? This is the best shot I could get in the couple seconds before the IMAX movie started.

National Air and Space Museum Presentation!

Josiah and Lindsay manning thier station. There were teams set up throughout the museum along with displays by NASA representatives and autograph opportunities with a couple astronauts. We were able to get their autographs the night before at an autograph signing party especially held for the winning teams and their families at the hotel. The astronauts also mingled with the families after the banquet but my photos from the banquet and the mingling didn't turn out because I didn't have a flash and the rooms were extremely dark. I am more than a little bummed out about it.

Space Day Winners!

One of the few photos of Josiah smiling during this trip. I had to catch him off guard otherwise I would get the "teen scowl". I didn't get any photos of him being presented with his award and shaking hands with the photos because we sat on the wrong side of the stage and I was videotaping while I loaned another parent my camera. Hopefully, the video turned out! I am a bit bummed about the lack of photos but there was a professional photographer there doing group photos so we should get a copy of one of those.

American Indian Museum

By the time we were finished in this museum, my ankle and feet hurt so bad that I broke off from the group and then realized I might not have enough cash on me (and no mac card) for a cab back to the hotel. I asked a security guard how much a cab would cost and couldn't even get the words out without crying... he told me the amount, which I had, but said he would've given me the money if I hadn't had it. (Thank God!)

Great Hallway!

This hallway in the capitol building was lined with paintings with matching quotations on liberty, the formation of a country, etc.

Washington Trip!: My Girls!

I chaperoned the two girls on the right. They were absolute dolls!

Project Night!

Chaya's class has been studying climates for the past few weeks. This is the culmination of her group's efforts. She sculpted the horse drinking from the water and she is reading her part of the report to me. She wrote about Mustangs. Jonah had a project on display, too, but Jeff took pictures of it. He also took close up photos of Chaya's sculpted horses. I was impressed by her sculptures. Her teacher told me that she went around and helped other students with their sculptures when they were feeling flustered. That's my girl!

A Half Day in My Life...

Arriving at the library for a preschool field trip... I caught Eve offguard.



This is my absolute favorite house in town. It went on the market finally last summer with an asking price of I think $699,000. I believe it sold for over a million. I would've liked to have gotten a better photo of it but I felt very uncomfortable shooting photos of someone else's house without permission. I stayed close to the car in case I needed to make a quick getaway. I probably would've explained myself if someone came out, though. This house is much bigger than it looks and has a carriage house behind it in the same style. I pass by this house at least once a week, sometimes more.



Eve and I stopped for lunch at Friendly's. She shared her hot fudge sundae with me... whatta girl!



Lest Julie or anyone else think I live in a grand area with no ugly developments or 5 line highways... here's my least favorite intersection if you drive the opposite direction from my favorite town. This intersection is about 12 minutes from my house when it is not rush hour. During rush hour, it could take a half hour to reach it if you didn't use any back roads. And, if you did use back roads, you'd never use this intersection. It's called 5 points. One idiot actually proposed and almost passed getting a traffic circle installed here to replace the light which regulates traffic from 5 roads. Can you imagine trying to merge into a traffic circle that contains 16 wheelers?



Jonah is king of his class for the duration of the Medieval project. Today was the Medieval feast, which you can also view on Jessica's 365 blog. Here he is sitting at the table for the royalty from his class and the other 3.4 class including Jessica's daughter next to him. The serfs had to serve the royalty first.



This is the castle Jonah's class built out of refrigerator boxes. I chose this specific photo because I thought having Eve in it would give you an idea of it's size. This is why I love the charter school. I realize projects like this could be done in a co-op setting but the fact is that we never did projects like this with any of the co-ops we ever were a part of.



My card was full after shooting the Medieval Feast... can you blame me? So, my photo log day ended around 2 pm.

I don't have another photo blog, so I hope you don't mind me overposting here.