This Crazy Life

Jasmine traveled to Orlando with her middle school band for competition at Universal Studios. It's not a competition against other bands, but each band is judged and receives a number--1=excellent, 2=superior, 3=good and so on. Her band got a 2.

4:45 a.m.

5:30 a.m. at the school

Cleft bear is going too!! 

6:16 a.m. The bus pulls out with the band members on the top and the choir members on the bottom, instruments and luggage in the back. This bus was huge!!

They competed on Friday afternoon shortly after they arrived. As you can see from the above pictures, the band members had on their band uniform pants and shoes so just had to pull on their white tux shirts, ties and cummerbunds.

They went to City Walk Friday evening and then spent most of  Saturday at Universal. They arrived home just before midnight. It's a 6-7 hour drive.

Jeff and the other guys have been in Korea since January and will be back stateside soon. 

 They are celebrating their last month in Korea.

Jessica comes over for breakfast and to work on our book once a week or so. She has a new job waitressing at a place right on the beach, but it's quite a drive out there. She's wearing her uniform. Surprised they can wear shorts, but it is summer in FL.

Adam will be going on his two weeks reserve duty to California this summer.

Tyler will be aging out of Job Corps in July. He has summer break, then goes back for just a couple of weeks. He is doing computer tech stuff but does not like it and doesn't want to get a job in that career field. He'd rather do manual labor. Computer skills aren't a bad thing to have though.

We have about four weeks of school left, and things are getting really crazy. Kaleb has just a few more baseball games, and his team is tied for first place. He is still scared of the ball and  has never gotten a hit. I hope he does. I think it'll do a lot for his confidence.

Kaleb has a paper bag book report due Friday. We've done them before, but not this detailed. Each side has several things that have to go on it--character descriptions which have to be justified by proof from the book, setting, conflict and resolution, book outline and so on. He has two sides done so far. At least this time I know about the project!

He is still level one in gymnastics. I think he only needs two or three more stars.

Kayla has field day Friday, which is also the twins' birthday. Saturday is the Armed Forces Family run, Kaleb's party and one of the schools is doing "Into the Woods."  It's the school Jasmine will be at next year. Some of the grades are going to see a special performance, but if she doesn't get to see it, we'll try to go. 

The week after that has dress rehearsals and the dance recital for Jasmine, plus her last concert of middle school and a reception and awards. Kaleb is coming up on his annual eye exam with a dr who is only in town one day every three months! Both twins have dental appointments and so does Jasmine. Kaleb and Jasmine have adhd follow ups and Jasmine has a physical!

School is out June 5, but then life gets even crazier!

Into a Routine

For some reason, it's been a lot harder to get back into the school routine this year. I wasn't ready for summer to be over. I wasn't ready to start getting up at 5:05 and having everyone out the door by 6:10 a.m. I am still functioning on auto pilot that early. I normally don't get to bed until about 11:30 so 5:05 feels like the middle of the night.

Yet, that's the way it is. Back to homework, teacher conferences, IEP meetings and science fair plans. Right now Jasmine is working to get 60 3x5 note cards filled out with information about friction from six different sources. Then she has to write a three page typed report, conduct her experiment--three trials minimum and design her board. We already have the scientific plan sheet turned in. It looks like this:

Experimental Plan/Proposal

(Must be approved by instructor)

All responses need to be typed

Student’s Name: _Jasmine Cassel  Teacher: Mrs. Dolittle

A.     Question/Problem

How does road surface effect car speed?

B.      What is your research topic?

Friction

C.     Hypothesis:

If the road is rougher then the car will go slower because there is more friction

D.    Materials

·        Board to build race track

·        Dividers for lanes

·        Nails

·        Sand paper Fine P 100

·        Sand paper  Medium P 60

·        Sand paper Coarse P 40

·        Sand paper Extra Coarse P20

·        Glue

·        Four different style of matchbox cars

·        Stop watch

·        Notebook

·        Pen

·        Assistant

E.     Procedures

·        Build a ramp three feet long and two feet wide, divided into four lanes.

·        Cover each lane with a different coarseness of sand paper.

·        Time car #1 on each lane using a stop watch.

·        Record the times for each lane.

·        Repeat steps 3 and 4 with car #2.

·        Repeat steps 3 and 4 with car #3.

·        Repeat steps 3 and 4 with car #4.

·        Repeat the experiment three times for consistent results.

F.      Experimental Design

·        Independent Variable: Type of car, the roughness of the sand paper

·        Dependent Variable: Car speed

·        How will your dependent variable be measured? With a stop watch

·        Control: The sand paper extra coarse p 20.

·        Constants: Length of ramp, incline of ramp, weight of the cars, surface condition of the ramp

How many trials will you conduct? Three times

I was planning to put Kaleb in the other branch of the charter school next year from the one where Kayla is, but realizing that in two years they will start science fair projects and history fair projects, I am now planning to have them at the same school so they can work together on them!!

It's been a tough pet week here. Tuesday the 9th we gave the dogs their monthly trifexus (@ $18 each!). Scrappy was having problems breathing and was walking with a limp. By Friday his back  legs were not working at all, and he was laboring to breathe at all. Rick took him to the vet, but there was nothing to be done. They said he would never be able to use his back legs again. His heart was giving out and not doing his job, and he could barely breathe. He was at least 15 years old, maybe older. So we lost our buddy that day. We got him when Jasmine was about 3-4 months old. So she and the twins have grown up with him, and Adam doesn't remember life before him.

Travis, 19 months old

 We have to crush up the trifexus and mix it with canned food. They have to be fed one at a time so they don't take each other's food/medicine.

Sasha, seven months old

Scrappy, 15 years old

Caspian, 3 years old

Our daily schedule is pretty workable. On Monday evenings Jasmine has county Christian Youth Choir. On Tuesday Kaleb has tumbling, but we are dropping it at the end of the month. On Wednesday Jasmine has hip hop. (Jazz was moved to Thursday so we decided against doing it). On Thursday Jasmine has marching band from 2:45-4 and the twins have gymnastics. Nothing on Friday or Saturdays because we don't have anyone in soccer or baseball. They are all out the door by 6:10 a.m. and everyone is back to the house by 4:00 (which is a little long, but they are trying to work out the bus situation.)

Adam is playing city soccer on a church team on Thursday evenings.

Jessica is working at Applebees and counting down to the wedding--just over five weeks now. She is trying to go to open tumbling for adults on Thursday evenings (same time as Adam's soccer games of course!)

So, everyone has at least one extracurricular activity. And it seems to be going well so far. And that's pretty much our routine for now.