Bill Obesity on the Rise

In honor of the passage of our "health care reform" bill, Carl has created a political cartoon:

17th Anniversary

Yesterday we celebrated our 17th Anniversary! The day before, we went to a Brazilian grill called "Brasa." We loved it; it was phenomenal. It was like a better version of "Ahona."

We were very busy on our anniversary, so the next day we went to see the movie "UP."
We really loved it.

It was a great anniversary.

Miriam's Recital

Today, Miriam had a lot of fun at her dance recital.

She played two roles:

1. As a tortoise (she is the second person in the green)



2. As a car (in the tie-dye)

Strawberry Picking

One of our favorite things to do during this time of year is to go strawberry picking. This year our favorite farm, Phillip's, is back after being closed for two years! ☺☻

Here are some of the photos!

Gotcha Day!!!

On March 30th we celebrated my 10th gotcha day!! It was a very special day. I got a beautiful necklace from my parents. It was a necklace with my Chinese name on it. I love it! My Chinese name means sunny spring.

We went to Chinatown, a Chinese buffet, with my family and grandparents. We had a very nice lunch together and ate a lot!!

AWANA Olympics

Yesterday, we had at the AWANA Olympics at Catawba Spring Cristian Church. In the morning, Miriam and the sparks played games, while Bethany, Carl, and the T&T'ers did Bible Quizzing. Miriam did quite well in the games. In speed quizzing (where there are ten question and you buzz in like Jeopardy), Carl and another girl on the team, Amanda, quizzed out (answered three speed quizzing questions correctly), while Bethany got two questions correct! In paddle quizzing (where you answer a multiple choice question by choosing an "A" paddle, "B" paddle, or "C" paddle), Bethany and Carl both got 10/10 (100%), while another kid, Bob, got 8/10. They quizzed in book three and won the trophy! Also, the other kids in their club won book 2 and got 2nd in book one.

In T&T game time, we won in one heat of balloon relay, and bean-bag relay. We also won the marathon (Bethany won it!) and the sprint relay. We won more but that is all that I remember.

NCFCA Tournament Preperation

We have been very busy with prepping for the upcoming NCFCA speech and debate tournament. Christian and Carl have been editing their constructive cases, and writing briefs and cross-ex questions. Leslie-Jean has been asking local businesses for donations. She is doing pretty well considering the amount of time from now to the tournament. Our club just met today and debated each other.

We still need judges for the tournament. It is April 6-8. We are really excited and can't wait!

Teleportation Industries Open House

Another video that Christian and Carl made.

It's the Money You Could Be Saving by Switching to Geco

This is a video that Christian made.

Carl was ran over by a GIANT snowball

We were playing in the snow and Christian was taking video. He caght it all on tape.

Snow Day!!

Today, we were very excited to see a few inches of snow lining the ground.☺☻

We had a ton of fun out there. Bethany was sick, so she could not play. But the rest of the kids made two snow forts and had a huge snowball fight. They also filmed some video, and got some nice pictures. They also went to a friends' house and made a medium-sized snowman.

This snow was much better than the last snow; it was wetter.

It's hard to believe that it will be in the seventies later this week.

Macbook Air Spoof

Christian and Carl have made a new video. That is just like the ad for the Macbook Air. We hope you will like it.

Third Run At The NC FIRST Lego League Rookie Challenge 2009

Here is our Third Run. We got 85 points this time, our best of the tournament. Video of our last run will be on soon. Also, will have a (g00d) video of all of our missions working during a practice run.

Second Run At The NC FIRST Lego League Rookie Challenge 2009

Here is our Second Run. We got 55 points this time. Video of our other runs will be on soon.

Pictures of NC FLL Rookie Challenge 2009

Here is the team fixing a program glitch at the Tournament













Us with the Sweet trophy!

First Run At The NC FIRST Lego League Rookie Challenge 2009

Here is our First Run. We only got 25 points this time around. Video of our other runs will be on soon.

FIRST Lego League Rookie Tournament 2009

We woke up really early today to drive to Greensboro so that we could compete in a FIRST Lego League (Click on the link to see what FLL is) Tournament.

Christian, Carl, and the other kids on the team, The Charlie Bytes, had been working really hard to get our robot, Charlie, working. It wasn't until the day before that we actually had the robot doing our missions properly.

Also, we were working on our presentation about the drought.

We will have videos and pictures of both on soon.

Once we arrived, we got into the huge line for parking. Then we had some chill time before we started our runs. In practice, we had obtained 125 points; however, in competition, it is very rare that you get your max.

Our first run, we got 25 points, which was a little disappointing. We were in a tournament with only first-year teams, and there was another in December with veteran teams. It turns out many of the veteran teams' runs were around the score of our first run. Also, not so surprisingly, the rookies struggles a bit this year too. I guess that we were not as far behind the eight ball as we thought.

Anyways, our next and second run was a lot better; we got 55 points. WOW! Not our best, but we were still very pleased.

Next, we got our best score of the day: 85!

Then in our forth and final run we got 60. Overall, out of forty teams we finished tied for thirteenth.

Then we had a hurried lunch before our teamwork interview. We did pretty well there.

After a little time we went to our technical interview. We showed a couple judges how Charlie worked and how he did his missions. Then we told them how we programed him. They were impressed with our use of unit conversion, My Blocks, and variables, which our coach brought up the idea of using. We thought we did pretty well in the interview.

We changed and delivered our presentation a little while later.

We then went back to the first building and watch two veteran teams deliver a Teamwork Interview, and Technical Interview, and a Presentation.

Then we formed a line for the "Parade of Teams."

After being seated again, there was a award presentation.

The trophies were really cool, made out of Legos; however, we did not think we placed well enough to win one.

But we were pleasantly surprised when we were announced the winners of the Programming Award. Remember our technical interview? Well, the judges were impressed with our use of unit conversion, My Blocks, and variables. WOW! It was so exciting.

Again, we will have pictures and video of our fun-filled day up soon. Check back the next few days.