February 2015

Back to some more recent stuff!

In February, Margie was super busy with her new clients, working almost full time.  She wondered how other people do it!

Much progress was made on the master bath, but it still didn't get finished.  I PROMISE I will post before and after pictures when it's all done!  We also had a sit-down meeting with the contractor about the kids' bath (which Dan is having fun designing) and had the people come out to measure the windows.  So things are moving along!

We attended the Edison High School One Act Festival, which was a series of 8 one-act plays (all student-directed, some student-written) shown over two nights.  Lyn had auditioned, and was even called back, but unfortunately didn't get in.  There were some good and some not so good plays.  Our favorite was called Check, Please!, which showed two people on a series of hilariously bad blind dates.

On February 8, Lyn started a weekly class in West Coast Swing Dancing.  She had a great time and is looking forward to continuing.

That same day, John started meeting with his Odyssey of the Mind (OOTM) team.  OOTM is an annual, nationwide problem-solving competition.  There are two aspects to the competition.  The first is a long term problem that they work on as a team for a couple of months.  They selected one titled "Experiencing Technical Difficulties".  Here is the description:  The problem is to design, build, and demonstrate various devices that complete specific tasks. The team will create a theme where technical failures must be resolved through completing the tasks. There will be a list of tasks to choose from including ring a bell, change the wording on something, sound an alarm, move an object, etc. There will also be a mysterious engineer character. Of course, there’s a twist — all of the devices must be powered by rubber bands!  They will present their solution on March 21.  It should be fun!

The second aspect is the spontaneous problem.  It requires you to think creatively on your feet, which John really excels at.  They'll participate in that on the same day they present their long term solution.

Finally, in the evening, Lyn had a babysitting job, while Dan, Margie, and John went to see LTA's latest comedy, The Games Afoot.  It was very fun and starred the grandmother of one of Lyn's good friends.

On February 9, we got our annual caricature done!  It turned out really well, and we'll be sending everyone copies very soon.  (Remember how we canceled Christmas?)

This year's musical at the high school is Annie Get Your Gun.  Lyn was excited to be cast as a townsperson!  It runs May 1 - May 9, so if you're local, mark your calendar.

On February 11, both kids participated in an improv night sponsored by the church Youth Group.  Dan and Margie weren't invited, but it sounds like a great time was had by all.  We hear that John even got on stage and participated!  We hope this is just the beginning of many more opportunities to showcase his quick wit.

The next day, Dan took off work due to some military operations that were going on on base.  It happened to be Thomas Edison's birthday, so he volunteered to pass out cupcakes during the lunches at school and surprise Lyn.  Unfortunately, he learned the sad truth that Margie had figured out at the beginning of the year--at this age, they aren't all that excited to see you!

On February 13, the kids joined the Youth again to attend the temple.  It required some carpooling orchestration due to a bit of a conflict with Lyn's Swing Dance rehearsal, but we're grateful it all worked out.

Dan and Margie celebrated Valentine's Day by attending a surprise 90th birthday party for a dear friend from LTA.  He has been at the theatre longer than anyone alive, having joined when he was in high school--before we even had a building!  We had a great time, though one wonders about the wisdom of surprising a 90 year old man!

When we got home, we were talking on the phone with Dan's mom, when we heard a large CRACK.  The next morning we found this:

Our tree had fallen directly in front of the neighbor's front door!  Six inches closer, and it would have take off the front of their house.  Yikes!  We called the insurance company, and they assured us that it was the neighbor's responsibility, though that didn't do much to assuage the guilt from it being OUR tree.  The rest of the trees in that area are also unstable, so it is likely that we will have to have them removed.  Margie is sad to lose them, but luckily landscaping is part of the grand remodeling plan anyway.

On February 15, John learned to iron!  Margie wanted to capture the moment.

This month, there were LOTS of snow days.  The school calendar was changed last year to allow for more missed school before having to make it up at the end of the year, but even so, we're getting awfully close!

Most of the family prefers to stay indoors in the cold and snow, but Lyn likes to be outside.  She enjoyed sledding with some friends from church on February 17.

School was canceled every day of that week except for Thursday, February 19, which happened to be the band's Pre-Assessment concert (Lyn plays percussion). Whew!  We were lucky we got to hear them--and they were lucky to have to practice before heading into the judging, which is how music programs are tested in the county.

The kids were also lucky that the weather held long enough for them to participate the Mini-MTC (Missionary Training Center) day, which is held annually for all area youth to help prepare them for what it would be like to serve a mission.

John is about a third in from the left, second row, wearing a dark suit jacket.  Lyn is about a third in from the right, second to last row, wearing a bright pink coat.

That same day, Dan and Margie attended the funeral mass for Dan's Great Aunt Edie (his mother's father's youngest sister), who had served in the Marine's during World War II.  Afterwards, we joined with family and friends for a nice luncheon.  For Margie, it was nice to meet so much of Dan's family whom she hadn't before, though it's always sad to do so under such difficult circumstances.

On Monday, Aunt Edie's ashes were buried at Arlington National Cemetery.  Although they never met her, we pulled the kids out of school, because we wanted them to see the pageantry that accompanies a military funeral, especially at Arlington.  Luckily, there happened to be a two-hour school delay due to the weather, so they did not miss much.

One of the casualties of all the snow days were missed honor roll assemblies for both John's and Lyn's schools.  In John's case, he had worked SO HARD to make the honor roll, and Margie is always in charge of the congratulatory donut reception.  In Lyn's case, Margie had just volunteered to pass out certificates during the lunch period.  When school finally reopened, both assemblies were scheduled for the same day!  Luckily, they were staggered, so Margie was able to attend both, and both kids received their rewards.

That afternoon, John attended a tech meeting for Alice in Wonderland, this year's drama production at his school.  He is excited to be working sound crew.  If you would like to see that show, mark your calendars for April 24 & 25.

In the evening, we all headed back to the high school to attend the Academy Open House.  The Academy is an amazing effort by the Fairfax County School System to provide technical training to students still in high school.  Dan and Margie are huge fans of the program and talk it up every chance they get.  They also like to support all their activities, including the Open House, which includes a free dinner provided by the Culinary Arts students.  It was delicious as always!

On February 26, Margie celebrated her last day with one of her clients, who is headed back to work after being on maternity leave.  It is so nice to have some free time back to focus on other things, but she will miss the paycheck!

Finally, on February 28, Margie auditioned for a Sondheim audition review at the The Workhouse--which you may recognize as the Arts Center where Dan's sister, Debbie, is an artist in residence.  It is the first time in a couple years that Margie has auditioned for anything, and frankly the only reason she did so was because it was a paying gig, and we thought it might help contribute to the house.  The audition went well except that she completely forgot the words to her first song!  She pulled it off like a professional, however, and when the directors chuckled, she wondered whether they may have thought she planned it and was just being funny.  Maybe not, though, since she did not get a callback.  Boo!

Well, I hate to leave things on a down note, but that was our February!  We are looking forward to finally seeing some sunshine and more progress on the house!

November 2014

Still working on finishing up 2014--here's what we did in November!

Early in November, John joined his scout troop in "Scouting for Food."  In this activity, the boys distribute shopping bags throughout the neighborhood (the easy part), and then come back a week later to pick up the groceries that people have donated (the tough part, because the bags are so heavy!), and deliver them to a local food bank.  We are grateful that John is developing such a great habit of service in his community.

Margie attended a couple interesting seminars this month.  The first was a presentation and luncheon at Fox Hill Luxury Retirement Center.  She was by far the youngest in attendance, but it was good to start getting a grasp on options for our aging parents, as well as ourselves in the not too distant future.  The second was a presentation on wealth planning.  I guess this means that Margie is actually an adult now, which she still sometimes finds hard to believe!

On November 5, Lyn took part in Young Women in Excellence, which is a formal evening celebrating the achievements of our young ladies at church.  Lyn's entry for the "Faith" value (one of eight values that they work on throughout the year) was a short story titled, The 10 Minutes in the Cabin.

The next day, Margie signed the contract for the new front walkway.  Woo hoo!  They were supposed to start before Thanksgiving, but didn't do so until the beginning of December.  More on that, as well as pictures, next month.  That night there was an AVID family night.  This is the organization and student success program that John participates in at school.  Parents had a chance to get a taste of what their school day is like, including taking notes in a specific way, asking questions, thinking about a problem, and presenting findings.  Unfortunately, John was sick, so Dan and Margie had to go without him.  Still, it was fun and we learned a lot!

On November 7, Lyn attended the 16th birthday party for a boy from church.  They had dancing and a live band at their house.  Wow.  I guess Lyn is officially a teenager now! 

The next day, Dan and Margie hosted the "Tech Saturday" luncheon for the cast and crew of Anne of Green Gables.  When Margie signed up, she thought it would be similar to LTA and that she would be buying and cooking all the food.  Instead, she just planned the menu and they received parent donations.  Easy peasy.  That night we all attended a friend's Pie Party.  This is similar to the party we host in March, where everyone brings a pie to share (Margie brought a pumpkin-brownie pie), but it doesn't have the math component (you know, "pi") like ours does.  Still, it was a lot of fun!

The next week, Margie spent every day at the high school supervising lunch time ticket sales for Anne of Green Gables.  It was a pretty slow week, since most just buy at the door.  Having the booth there primarily serves as just advertising.  Margie got a lot of knitting done that week!

Also that week, Margie attended a women's "Service Auction" at church.  This is just for fun, and didn't involve real money, as our church frowns on fundraising events.   The women earned dollars by taking a survey and counting up how many good deed-type things they had done in the last month or year, then "spent" that that money on items everyone had donated.  Some of the items were goods, such as knit hats or a cake, and some of them were services, such as a haircut or massage.  Margie donated couponing lessons as was delighted that there were a few people who were interested in learning this skill!

On November 13, we had a sit down meeting with the contractor we had selected for our remodel.  It had been nearly a year since Margie first contacted them about the job, and she was beyond frustrated with the lack of movement, or even communication, about getting started.  She didn't know whether to cry, scream, or punch someone!  The contractor was super nice and apologetic. He had been dealing with another client that was demanding more of his time than he would like.  He offered us a discount and promised to come back the following week, which he did, to poke holes in some of the walls so that he could better estimate and plan the kitchen portion of the project. We were hopeful that things would finally, actually get started.

That night was Anne of Green Gables opening night, but Dan and Margie didn't attend, because John was running sound at his school for Broadway Desserts, a music department fundraiser.  He is really enjoying theatre tech work!

The next night, Margie attended a local high school production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.  The kids did a really great job in this "reverse cast" production--the traditional male leads were played by girls, and the traditional female leads were played by boys.

On November 15, two shows closed:  Lyn's production of Anne of Green Gables at the high school, and Dan's production of Rocky Horror Show at LTA.  We finally got to see Lyn's show, and the kids did a great job.  Afterwards, Dan headed over to his closing night party.

The following week, Lyn auditioned for the One Acts--eight shows over two nights, all student directed.  She got called back, which was exciting, but did not get cast.  She was hoping to again work backstage, but it's such a barebones production that they really didn't need her.  Boo!

Also that week, Margie again got to substitute teach seminary, the before-school religious education class Lyn attends.   She brought in her most prized possession (a soccer ball--ask her the story sometime!) and talked about how the value of things in life is often based more on where it came from than the thing itself.  This related to the direction and revelation the early saints received from God via the Prophet Joseph Smith.  The value we place on this direction is not because of what they were told to do, but where it came from.

John had a lot of fun this week as he went on an AVID field trip to Northern Virginia Community College and got really excited about attending college (yay!).  He also attended Tiger Night, which is a kids-only evening of fun and games at the Middle School.  And a couple of days later he enjoyed playing games with his AVID Mentor on Mentor Day.

This year, we had a quiet Thanksgiving at Dan's sister, Debbie, and her husband Doug's house, as other family were out of town.  Still, we had fun eating all the traditional goodies, expressing gratitude for all the amazing things (and people) in our lives, and playing a fierce game of girls against boys charades.

The month wrapped up with John participating in another boy's Boy Scout Eagle project, doing some landscaping at the local Chamber of Commerce.  How nice that John was able to book end the month with service.

And that's it for November!