Hellooooooo??? Anyone Still Out There?

I'm not sure anyone is still checking on this blog anymore. I've been a total blog loser! Things have been busy. Poor excuse - I know!

So, wanna know what's been happening? Well, it's been quite a month for F!...

One afternoon at the end of January, F got in the car after school and we had the following conversation:

F: "Mom, remember the hero essays our class has been working on for a few months? Well today in class we read them and we all voted on which essay was best and mine won!"

ME: "That's awesome Buddy! Way to go!"

F: "So now I'm the class representative and I will go to the library tomorrow and read my essay to the librarian along with the other 5th grade class representatives. She will listen to each of us and then chose the best one and that person will go on to be the school representative at the district Hero Program."

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After a lot of mother-henning on my part, F assured me he was well prepared for the next day. The following evening I received this email from his teacher:

"As you probably know, F was chosen from our class to recite his hero speech for the librarian today. The other fifth grade classes were sending their students to recite speeches to her as well. After hearing them all, F was selected to represent our school in the Roll Call portion of the heroes program at the High School on Friday, February 13. All fifth grade students in the district (approximately 600 people) will be there that morning to celebrate American heroes. This is an incredible honor. He was chosen from all of the fifth graders here to represent our school, and he should be very proud of himself! The speech he wrote, he did entirely on his own. He did not get help from teachers at school. It is a really great speech, and he reads it with such enthusiasm! I know he'll represent us well at the program. I'm very proud of him! He will need to memorize his speech as well as dress up like his hero for the program. Congratulations F!

~Mrs.Williamson"

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OH. MY. GOSH!!! I actually cried when I read the email! I cannot tell you how hard F has worked this year and how proud we are of him! BUSTING AT THE SEAMS!!!!

Now while all of that was happening, other stuff was brewing too. Remember back on this post I told you guys I was working on a PTA project that was keeping me pretty busy? Well the project was the PTA Citizenship Essay Contest. It's a yearly contest supported by the state PTA in which 5th and 6th grade students submit an essay or poem about a given topic. This year's topic was "To Be A Good Citizen Means To..." The students were to complete the thought in essay or poem format. This was my 2nd year serving on this particular committee and I have LOVED it both years. It's fascinating to take a peek into the minds of these students and to read what it is that they are really thinking about. Of course, being that this was an election year, there were a lot of entries that addressed voting and global warming. But there were also essays that addressed just about every other aspect of citizenship. It made for some very good reading. As a co-chair for this committee, I served as one of about 8 judges who have read and scored the essays. This made for a bit of a tricky situation this year because F is now in 5th grade and so he too submitted an entry into the contest. The essays do not have student names on them and the only information about the students that the judges are given prior to reading the essays is their grade level. However, I am a rule follower and so I went to great lengths to ensure that I did not have anything to do with any part of scoring F's essay. As a matter of fact, I handed over every 5th grade essay to the other judges and I only read the 6th grade entries. Can you see where I am going with this?...

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After all entries were read and judged, the scores were averaged and the winning entries were selected. At that time, I emailed the student ID #'s to the school secretary and she emailed back the winning names. I about FELL OUT OF MY CHAIR when I got that email back and saw my son's name listed as the 5th grade poetry winner! You cannot imagine how quickly I sifted through the papers searching for his entry so I could read what he wrote. It was great and I am so proud of him! Here is his entry:

To be a good citizen is to…
Pick up trash in the school hall,
You should also do it at the Mall.
There are papers, bags, and cans,
To pick up this stuff we need a lot of helping hands.
You can start by picking up one,
Pretty soon you’ll have a ton.
Be a good person and recycle every day,
And if you do our planet will stay.
You can also help with community service,
If you sign up you shouldn’t be nervous.
You can wipe graffiti off of walls,
You also can clean bathroom stalls.
Remember, to be a good citizen is a good thing,
And when I’m a good citizen I feel like I need to sing!

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The winning essays went onto the district where they will compete at that level and if they win there, they will go onto the state level!

Everything seemed to happen all at once. The Hero Program was on February 13th and the winners of the Citizenship Essays were recognized at a city council meeting on February 17th. The timing was a good thing because my parents flew out from California to watch F read his Hero speech at the Hero Program and my mom was able to stay a little longer to see him receive an award from the Mayor at city council for his Citizenship poem.

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The morning of the Hero Program we arrived at the HS early so that we could get the best possible seats. Turns out that we were actually first to arrive. We met with the woman organizing the event and she and Frederick chatted for a couple of minutes:

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ORGANIZER: "Who is your character?"

F: "I am William Clark from the Lewis and Clark Expedition."

ORGANIZER: "Since you are first to arrive, you will be first to recite your speech which also means you will be line leader. Are you okay with that?"

F's reply??? In his oh so dry tone:

"Ma'am, I led an expedition. I think I'll be okay as line leader."

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Here is the expedition/line leader himself:

The below shot shows only about half of the people who actually attended the program. Big stuff, I tell ya!:

Being early paid off. We got setas right in front of a huge screen which showed each school representative as they recited their speech:

So proud of my boy!:
William Clark with Nana and Pop-Pops:

The next big event was the City Council Meeting:

(below) Receiving his award from the Mayor:

(below) With his principal:

(below) With his fantastic, fabulous, awesome, amazing teacher, Mrs. Williamson (can you tell we looooove her? I'm old enough to be her MOTHER! Maybe I should word that differently...she is young enough to be my daughter!):

Proud, proud, PROUD family!:

Nana treated us to a great dinner out to celebrate F's week of success!

So all of that coupled with a visit from Nana & Pop-Pops, Valentine's parties, Valentine's dinner, ice skating lessons, cheerleading, roller skating, etc. etc explains my blog slacker status! Don't give up on me! I promise to try to post at least once a week from now on!