May Days

Adam turned the big 3-6 last week and we celebrated with a picnic at the park.  The weather has been great this spring, which may never happen again so we have been enjoying every minute of it. :-)

Jameson is not a fan of solids quite yet.  We've tried them 3 or 4 times, but this is all we get.

Seriously mom, why are you doing this to me?

He is a fan of his johnny jumper, however.

Grandma and Grandpa were up this last weekend getting their lot ready to built on. Because my Dad always believes in having the right tool for the job his buddies at the local Case dealership let him have a backhoe for a few days.  The kids each got a chance to take a little ride with Grandpa.

Britton's Utah program at school was a lot more fancy shmancy than I was expecting.  All of the 4th graders sang songs and put on quite a little program.  They each had to make a float of their county and the parents watched all of the floats go by before the program started and then we went to individual classrooms for the board presentations.  Britton lucked out when he randomly selected Salt Lake County.  I felt bad for the kids who had counties like Piute.  Yeah, not a lot of information and the cows outnumber the people.

When I was a kid I moved to Utah for the 4th grade and was assigned a Utah county for my project.  The only thing I remember about my county was the name of it. Sevier County. I remember kind of feeling bad for the people who lived there because it was in the middle of nowhere and I was sure there was nothing to do.  Turns out I married someone from Sevier county and now I can say that they grow some pretty good people in addition to all of those cows! 

Hum Drum

Well, nothing much going on here, unless you want to talk about the 12 soccer games, (and as many practices), an orchestra assembly and concert, fathers and sons camp out, violin dress rehearsal and recital, piano, Gifted and Talented student projects and parent night, scouts, Daddy/daughter night at the school,  the Wellsville mile, class puppet shows and plays at school and other big school projects for Britton.  Other than that this May has been rather slow.

At his 4 mo. appt Jameson tipped the scales at 16 lbs 12 oz.  This last week he had a few firsts to add to his repertoire- he rolled from back to front and sat up by himself for the first time.

He is still dutiful in his job to listen to Korinne read to him each day.

Parent night for the SEM (gifted and talented) students was this past Friday night. Britton had to do a big project about a person who has made a significant contribution to society  and he selected John Brown, Jr. one of the original 28 Navajo Code Talkers in WWII.  He had to dress up like his person and the recite a bio-riddle he had written about him to every person that walked by his display during Parent night.

Jenna is also a SEM student and made a podcast about how roller coasters work with fellow SEM students from her grade (there are 6 in all) and they showed it to the parents.  Both of these were going on simultaneously but since we were the only family in the District that had SEM students in both the 3rd and 4th grades they didn't feel the need to plan around us. We just had to run around a little bit.  It was all held at the same school which made it much easier.  They select about 5 or 6 students in each grade to be in the SEM program (it stands for School Enrichment Model) each year.  Everything they do is in addition to all of their other school work but both Britton and Jenna have really enjoyed being part of the program.  Parent night brings all of the SEM students from each elementary school in the district together.

 Jenna had a violin and piano recital last night and did a great job.  She is really enjoying her music lessons.

We have been busy and have managed to stay out of trouble.  Always the sign of a successful month! 

Where's Waldo?

I've lived here for almost 4 years and for the most part I feel like a true local.  Today, however, I was reminded that I am merely an import.  True locals know the significance of the "Wellsville Mile" for 4th and 5th graders and don't think it will only take an hour out of their day to go and cheer for their child during a quick 1 mile race with spray painted start and finish lines.  I've also learned that the good people of Wellsville don't mess around when it comes to the "Wellsville Mile" for 4th and 5th graders.  They've been doing it for 32 years after all.

For the last few weeks there has been a little blip in the weekly school newsletter about the Wellsville Mile and while it gave a date, it didn't give any other details.  I didn't think anything of it until I remembered a friend telling me a year ago that she attended it with her son so I figured I should at least make an attempt to go and support Britton if other parents did so.  Since the school newsletter said nothing about a specific location in Wellsville I asked Britton if he knew where it was. "Um, I think it's at the Elementary school there."  I googled directions but as I neared Wellsville I noticed buses with a lot of mini-vans following close behind so I opted to follow the crowd.  It was a good call. You see, the Wellsville mile isn't just for a handful of 4th and 5th graders, it's for 1,300 4th and 5th graders and as they unloaded from buses they were all dressed to run and had race numbers pinned to their shirts. These weren't just flimsy numbers made out of paper, they were the same type of numbers you get at big road races.

I saw the crowd and wondered how I was going to find Britton.  I tried to think about what shirt he was wearing and smiled when I remembered he was wearing what I like to call his "Where's Waldo?" shirt.  After finding him and calling him Waldo just to be funny he gave me a confused look.  Apparently the "Where's Waldo?" craze was before his time. He had never even heard of it. How is that even possible?!

The opening ceremonies included members of the Army National Guard bringing in the flag. . .

. . .two students bringing in the torch to start the competition. . .

. . .a rousing rendition of a song written especially for the event about how everyone is a champion and it doesn't matter where you finish, only that you continue to run.  Short motivational speeches by a few of the High School cross country runners about how they remember running the Wellsville mile and how it influenced them to run in high school, etc. and instructions for everyone on hand. Once the competition actually started I realized it was a longer event then I thought. They ran 12 heats with over 100 kids in each heat.

Here is Britton's heat at the starting line. (Can you find Waldo?) They had police blocking traffic for the race and the finish line was something you would see at a real Marathon.

The high school runners were there and several ran in each heat pacing kids in both the front and back.  Britton was lucky enough to have one run with him for part of the race.  Here they are at the half way point.

The big finish!

They even had a big clock showing the time.  Britton ran the mile in 7:16 and placed 6th in his heat. By the time the kids came out of the shoot and received their free beverage from a local sponsor they were given a card that had their official results.  It was all computerized and because their numbers had been programmed in previously the card had their name, official time and place on it.  Like I said, the good people of Wellsville don't mess around.

Britton was really happy with his race.  He said he took 12 seconds off his PR.

Why do they do all of this? To promote fitness and good health in elementary aged kids.  The kids train for a few months during recess and PE at school so they can be ready.  All 1,300 finished the mile and almost all of them ran the entire way. That is nothing to shake a stick at, my friends.  The winning boys time was 5:53 and the winning girls time was 5:57. Phew, that's fast! (So that's why the high school x-country team around here is so good, they find 'em young!)

Now I know what to expect next year when both Britton and Jenna run. See, I'm that much closer to really being a true local.