Geographic Bee

Oskar participated in his school's Geographic Bee today. This is his fourth time qualifying for his school's geographic bee (which is in fact, every year he's been eligible to participate).  As per usual, he did awesome!  He made it to the last round before it narrowed down to the final three. He said he knew most of the answers for the questions he didn't get, and I believe that to be true. But I suspect that was probably also true for several of the other kids as well.  It's easy for me to believe that your brain overloads a bit when it's your turn. It's a lot of pressure to be answering tough questions in front of an audience.

Having said that, I actually did think some of Oskar's questions were on the trickier side. I won't be specific since that's against the rules, but I'll share some general observations.  In the first round - which he missed - his was the only question I *didn't* know the answer to.  He had it narrowed down two options but picked the wrong one.  Round two was a group question and most of them got it correct, including him.  I didn't know the answer although maybe I would have guessed correctly.  There were several more rounds which he answered correctly.  The question that he finally missed, I was pretty sure of the answer that proved to be correct.  Again he had an excellent guess.  In both of his misses, he picked a spot neighboring the correct answer. So they were educated guesses. But that's still a miss and in this case, two strikes and you're out.

As always, this kid blows me away.  I love his passion for not only Geography but just knowledge in general.  Oskar has a thirst to understand the world on so many levels.  It's pretty awesome.  Proud to be his mom!

Adventures in San Antonio

We went to San Antonio this past weekend. I uploaded a few photos to this album.

The River Walk

The River Walk at Night

The Alamo

Light Show on the Cathedral of San Fernando

Fountains at the Tower of the Americas

Tower Life Building

Mission San José

Flying Home

My Afternoons with Margueritte

I didn't realize this was a French movie when I first stumbled upon it. It was a treat to be able to watch it in French. I haven't quite finished it but so far, it's a lovely movie. The chemistry between Germain and Margueritte is wonderful. Great performances! Highly recommend.

2016 Emojis

Check out the emojis that A sent in her most recent email.

P.S. I can see I need to do a little photography 101 - make sure there aren't things out the back of your head!

Blast from the Past

I just found a stack of shoulder pads that I had cut out of my clothes way back when. I have no idea how they have managed to hide away for so long but I think I can safely discard them now. I do feel a little bad throwing them away so callously after they managed to survive this long but it must be done.

Soup

I picked up a chest cold over 4th of July weekend.  I'm not sure I've ever had a chest cold before.  I'd be fine if I never had one again.  This thing has kicked my butt.  Today I finally conceded defeat.  I started taking the antibiotics the doctor prescribed last week "just in case".  And I've been "resting" in bed all afternoon.  Unfortunately I'm not the best at resting.  So I'm not sure how useful this has been.  But I've watched a lot of Justified.  And at this point there's no way I dare leave my room because who knows what the kids have done downstairs, in my absence.  Seriously though, I was grateful that I had one last jar of the homemade soup that my brother gave me for my birthday!  He makes a mean cabbage soup!  Yum.  It especially hits the spot when you're not feeling good!

Starbucks Gift Card

This past Fall, three of our kids started orthodontics.  This is probably good practice for putting them through college!  They have come to realize that it was an error in judgment to have been looking forward to this (which they all were).  But all the same, they're having a pretty good experience. They love the people who work there.  They enjoy selecting different color bands for their braces.  Perhaps most of all, they love getting rewards on their own personal "credit cards".  A month or two after we got started, an envelope came for Annika in the mail.  It was a great surprise to discover that Annika had used her very first points to buy me this Starbucks gift card...and she did it all by herself.  As much as she drives me crazy at times, she also blows me away with her ingenuity, with her resourcefulness and with her generosity (amongst other things). She's a pretty remarkable kid!