Day 32

Today was a snow day from school due to the weather, so I was home with the kids.  We didn’t have much snow for most of the day & the wind was really blowing; thus, we spend the day doing indoor activities.  Here’s a shot of Mia playing WebKinz on my laptop. 

I opted for a square crop to this photo in honor of Miz Booshay herself, Donna Boucher, who has been doing a lot of square crops lately.  Love it! 

Editing: cropping, the pioneer woman boost action, icing action

• f/3.5
• 1/15 sec
• 400 ISO
• 50mm

Here’s Seth vegging on the floor while watching a movie, Impy’s Island.  On most days, it’s hard to catch him being this still unless it’s bedtime.   

 

Editing: cropping, the pioneer woman boost action

• f/3.5
• 1/30 sec
• 400 ISO
• 50mm

When Brian got home from work, we had a little mini celebration. Mia’s team competed in the Regional TeamQuest academic challenge (click here for my first post about this) last Friday.  Her team placed 6th out of 24 teams and though they did not get trophies (which were only given through 5th place), her team did qualify to go to the State Championships.  They ended up advancing the top 12 teams. 

Our school sent 4 teams to Regionals and 3 of the teams advanced.  Mia’s team, which was the team to score the lowest at the local event out of our school’s 4 teams actually ended up scoring 2nd out of our school’s 4 teams at Regionals.  We’re so proud of her!

A little background info:

Team Quest is a program that challenges students to apply their knowledge in a group
setting to come up with an answer to a question or a solution to a problem.  It also allows
students to come up with their own ideas and to be creative to accomplish the
challenges of the program.  This program is a competitive activity which makes the
students strive for the top award.  Our goal is to encourage students and give them the
opportunity to show their talents while working on a team together.  By placing students that are high achievers together we have found that it challenges them to work harder and get excited about what they can achieve.  The challenges are based on a wide range of subjects:

• Engineering - a problem is given which must be solved by constructing something to complete a task.
• Trivia - a challenge where questions are asked in a game format.  Strategy and applying knowledge must be used in this challenge.
• Math - math questions and applying math to help solve problems.  How math is applied in everyday life and why math knowledge is important in solving everyday problems.
• Music - questions on theory, recognizing types of music, where and when different types of music is found, and what role music plays in the lives of people. 
• Creativity - a challenge to come up with totally new and innovative ideas and be able to communicate that to others.

Since I was gone to my scrapbooking retreat when Mia got home from Regionals, I wanted to do something to celebrate her achievement.  Our celebration was a few days late, but she was still just as excited.  Here’s a shot of her with the ice cream cake I picked up for her.  And despite the low light, my picture turned out pretty darn good!

Editing: exposure & brightness increase in ACR, cropping, the pioneer woman boost action, icing action

• f/2.8
• 1/60 sec
• 800 ISO
• 28mm