Summer's Here!

Whoo-hoo!  Yesterday was the last day of school for Cody and Sidney.  Welcome, Summer Break!!

This week's been crazy with all the end-of-the-year ceremonies and celebrations.  It began on Wednesday, when I met Sidney and other students from Jefferson Academy at eleven o'clock for a grill-out picnic at the city park.  Students were invited if they were on the Gold Medal Honor Roll, and/or if they maintained perfect attendance, for third and fourth quarters.  After the picnic, I checked Sidney out of school early and we spent a few hours hanging out before Cody got home from school.

On Thursday, I attended Sidney's Fourth Grade Awards Ceremony.  Sid received a certificate of award for being on the Gold Medal Honor Roll for all four semesters.  That's straight A's on every report card for Fourth Grade!  Way to go, Sidney.

After the ceremony, I walked Sid back to her classroom and thanked her teachers for their outstanding work this year.  Next, I went to Subway and bought two 6-inch meals.  I took them to the Middle School where I met Cody for lunch.  It was his birthday lunch, since he has a summer birthday and never gets to celebrate in school.  When we finished, I checked him out early and we hung out together until Sidney got home.

Friday morning I went to Cody's Awards Ceremony, where he was recognized for outstanding achievement on his Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (or CRCT).  For those unfamiliar with the test, it is the state of Georgia's version of the yearly standardized test that all public school students nationwide must take in accordance with the No Child Left Behind program.  Cody exceeded expectations on all five areas of the test, based on his grade level and in comparison with the national average for sixth graders.  Cody was also chosen as best in class by his keyboarding teacher. Way to go, Cody!

I checked Cody out, and we headed across campus to Jefferson Academy where we joined Sidney and her end-of-school class party.  After pizza and ice cream sundaes, we checked Sidney out and......

Summer Break was underway!

It's going to be a great summer!

Sidney's 10!

Happy Birthday, Sidney!

We celebrated Sidney's tenth birthday this weekend.

On Saturday, she invited her BFFs from next door and from her class over for a little party. Sidney is a big fan of iCarly, so we used the show as inspiration for the day.

We started out with a little activity. As anyone who watches the show knows, Carly's older brother Spencer is a crazy and creative sculptor. We broke the kids up into two teams of four. The ultimate goal was for each team to work together and create a sculpture. The had to "find" the hidden building materials first, though.

Both teams were given an envelope. Inside was a riddle. The answer to each riddle was a location either inside the house or out in the yard. The teams had to solve the riddle and retrieve the bag of building materials from that location. Here's an example:

I'm never, ever lonely, you see

My branches are visited by birds and bees

We're a living fence, not bound but free,

Me and three trees just like me!

Where am I?

(Answer: The bag was hidden under one of the four Crepe Myrtle trees bordering our back yard.)

Here's another:

Don't look for me outside the house,

For inside's where I stay

I'm rather like a giant box

Between a lamp and a fireplace!

Where am I?

(Answer: Inside the antique wicker hamper in the living room.)

When they brought each bag of materials to me, I gave them the next riddle. The kids had a great time with this and recovered all four bags I'd hidden for each team.

Next, each team member was given one of the bags of materials. Inside they found any combination of the following: Ribbed paper cylinders, colored Popsicle sticks, puff balls, plastic beads, various shaped buttons, crepe paper, pipe cleaners, foam number stickers, and colored feathers. It wasn't a race or contest of any kind, but each team worked together to create a sculpture with the contents of their bags.

~Team A at work~

~Team B, building away~

And, here are their final products:

Sidney helped me make the flowers for this cake. She's getting very good at twisting her wrist as she pipes the royal icing, giving the flowers their petals and shapes.

I cut the stars from fondant and attached them to bamboo skewers with royal icing. In hindsight, I wish I'd tinted all the skewers with purple food coloring instead of just the three longest ones. But, there was a last minute design change...

The kids beat the tail off a fish-shaped piñata and took home loot bags stuffed to the gills with candy. I'm sure their parents were happy about that!

It was a fun day and everyone had a great time!

We finished out the day with our wonderful neighbors from next door, who spent the evening with us grilling out and chatting.

We love you, Sidney!

Still Unwell...

Though she was feeling better, Sidney was a tiny bit optimistic in yesterday's post. Turns out, she has more ailing her than a passing fever. The throat culture came back positive. Yes, Big Sid has Strep:(

A round of antibiotics will do the trick, along with lots of rest and relaxation.

Keep her in your thoughts and prayers!

~Have a wonderful day~

Feeling Better and Bubbly

Hey, so earlier my big brother posted that I was sick. True I was, but my family took care of me, and now I'm better! I want to thank Codeman for taking care of me when we were the only people up.

Now I want to talk about a different subject... Bubbles! If you saw my page, you know that I LOVE bubbles. Bubbles are cool; they're like soap but round and floaty. Popping them is fun too. When you touch them, your finger gets sticky and I like the feeling of it. Their shadows are colorful. What I mean is when you look on concrete, just under the bubble, it's colorful.

That is all I have to say about bubbles! Peace out.

Who is sick?

We have breaking news in the Duke household. Sidney is SICK. Currently she has a fever of 101.5°F. We hope if you read this post you will leave us a comment sending good will and health.She also has a monster head-ache.

Easter 2010

Easter weekend, Christian and I took the kids to one of our family's favorite spots in the area. The Botanical Gardens in Athens, Georgia is an oasis of gardens and nature trails. Every time we visit, we discover something new.

We began the day in our preferred picnic area, a shady spot under the canopy of an enormous white oak. No one else was there, so we had our pick of a pair of tables directly under the tree. The air was warm, and the sweet-smelling promise of summer wafted on the breeze. If the day had ended after our meal al fresco, it would have been a success. But we had more fun planned.

We decided to explore the Orange Trail. This was the only nature trail we hadn't tried yet; usually we wander along sections of the White Trail. To our surprise, the Orange Trail took us along the Oconee River bank. The unusual amount of rainfall we had this winter led to area flooding a few weeks ago. Now, it's easy to see from the dried silt on the trees that the water level rose twelve to fifteen feet. We were amazed that the sandy path we walked along was underwater not long ago.

The Orange Trail eventually loops back around to the main part of the gardens, where the atrium is located. We stopped in on the pretense that everyone wanted to use the restrooms, but really we never can resist admiring the beauty of the enormous leaves and over-sized flowers of the rain forest plants housed inside.

Cooled and rested from the air-conditioning, we headed out again to finish the trail and arrive back at the car.

Back home, Christian baked a leg of lamb on a bed of new potatoes. We wiped the dusting of pollen from the patio table and enjoyed our first outdoor dinner of the year. The kids clinked glasses of Sprite Zero against our glasses of Bordeaux, and we toasted a wonderful day, fan-tabulous family, and we wished each other a very Happy Easter.

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What's up with the question mark?

Hello people of the blogosphere!!! I heard from the grapevine that my mom talked to you about the exclamation point. Well I want to talk to you about the question mark... (?) I mean why not use the ^ for questions? I know when ever you think of a question you think of this... ? how come this thingy ^ doesn't comes to mind?? I know you say "But that's all I know for question marks..." Could you imagine a world with this ^ as the question mark? Well if you can, good for you because I can't. :D This my random question for you. Can you guess what this is <(")? If you can please leave me a comment right here. There where the star is * you can see it. Kidding, but send me a comment.

Spring Break Updates

The week went faster than we thought it would, though sometimes it seemed to be creeping by. That's the way it goes, right? The kids spent a lot of time playing with friends -- thank goodness the weather has been gorgeous.

Sidney had Jessica over for a sleepover. Cody's friends were busy with family in for the week, so in lieu of a sleepover for him, we let him choose an "outing." He picked a matinée showing of How To Tame a Dragon. It was in 3-D and fan-tastic!!

One day when Sidney was bored, we decided to make homemade brownies. I promise you, they came out as good -- better, even -- than brownies from a box. And you know how good those are! Here are a couple pics of the kids:

When you don't have a bar of baker's chocolate, it's time to improvise! Three tablespoons cocoa plus one tablespoon oil for each square of chocolate the recipe calls for.

Part of homemade brownies includes melting baker's chocolate with butter. Looks good, tastes bitter!

Add sugar, flour, salt, eggs, and vanilla and mix well. The kids are getting really good at figuring out how much of each ingredient we need and measuring carefully. These brownies came out perfect!

The only way they could have been better was if we'd had scoops of vanilla ice cream, drizzled with chocolate sauce and topped with fresh whipped cream. Yum!

On Friday, Christian had the day off. We got up early and drove to Atlanta. Rush hour traffic was mercifully light, probably a lot of people had Good Friday off. We went to the French Embassy in Buckhead and picked up Christian, Cody and Sidney's French passports. All three needed to be renewed for our upcoming trip to France in June.

After a late breakfast at Denny's, we were home by eleven. Christian and the kids went to a gardening center and bought a truckload of organic topsoil, while I stayed home and wrote a quick blog post on my professional blog.

Once they got home, some serious gardening took place!

First, we put in a new herb garden. In a couple months, we'll have thyme, rosemary, basil, chives, tarragon, and parsley.

Next, we planted various flowers in a new bed between our property and the Lowry's. That way we'll both enjoy them!

We're looking forward to the Easter weekend. Then, it's back to school with the kids, and back to more serious writing on my novel!

Hope your Easter is magical :)

Music, Pitch-forks, and Torches.

Hello people of the blogosphere!!! Now, I know that I haven't blogged in a long time, but that's NOT a good reason to get out the pitch-forks and torches. (Please don't... I have my entire life ahead of me!!) :) What's your favorite song? You know, that song you can sing to in the car even if you're embarrassed to sing at all. Well, I'm an impatient person, so I'm not waiting for your answer... My favrite song is Fireflies by Owl City. It's so cool and I love that line I like to make myself believe that plant Earth turns slowly. I mean, it's just a cool song!! :) (I don't care if you hate it . At this point, I don't care if you LOVE it, either.) I guess that I'm just mean like that!>:) But that's still not a good reason to get out the pitch-forks and torches.

I guess that's all I have to say about music, pitch-forks and torches.

Getting Our Act Together

First off, I want to welcome Joyful Jessi Bear into our little blog circle of friends and family! The kids were jumping for joy (or should I say, jumping for joyful *smile*) to see a new follower. Knowing someone out there is interested in what they have to say put huge smiles on their faces. Thanks for brightening our day!

We're getting this little blog project off the ground, one day at a time. Yesterday, Cody and Sidney were my art design consultants as we (finally) decided on a background and banner we all liked. How do you like the way it turned out? The banner was the most fun to create, and the kids picked up some of my mad Paint Shop Pro skills along the way. Fun!

This morning, Cody and Sidney started working on their personal "pages." Blogger's latest feature is perfect for a family blog, because each family member can create a page all their own, introducing themselves to visitors who don't know us and catching up family members, who live far away, on all their current likes and dislikes. They'll add to these pages as they become more comfortable with the format, but I hope you'll take a moment to click the links just under the blog banner and read what Big Sid and Code Man have presented so far.

Christian, preferring his role behind-the-scenes where this project is concerned (...okay, he's not interested at all in blogging...LOL), has nonetheless agreed to let us make a page for him. The kids and I will use this week, our Spring Break, to think up three questions each for him. Once we have our nine-question list ready, we'll interview Christian and record all his answers. From that, we'll create his "Papa" page. And he will like it!

As I said, this is our Spring Break and since our trip to France this summer will be our vacation of the year, this week we're on stay-cation. That means we'll have time to blog, so check back soon!

Spring, spring what a wondeful thing.

Hi, It's your little sis Sid here.

What's your favorite spring memory? Mine was on April 18th 2000. (LOL, that's my birthday!) Spring is full of cool and not so cool opportunities, for example spring cleaning, time change:(, stuff blooms:), sport season, and if you are in school like me, spring pictures.

This spring, I started softball. It's a very interesting experience. I'm enjoying every second of it. My best friend (and nextdoor neighbor), Jessica is on the team too. She's helped me a LOT! She's lent me her bat and her helmet, plus gave me tips on throwing and batting. We are the Dixie Chics and I'm #2. Jessica is #4.

I haven't much more to say for now. I hope you liked my second blog post!

Cody's perfect week.

This is Cody!!! So, celebrate!!!! You know when you have those weeks that just ROCK out loud? Well, dear readers, (If I have any that is...), that is just what I'm having, the perfect week. I have made lots of good scores as far as tests are going. I wrote letters to leprechauns then wrote back as the leprechauns. (I'm a double agent.);) My little sister wants me to write more. (Should I do it is the real question. If you think I shouldn't, I'm NOT listening to you.)

I'm reading a cool book series called the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I'm on the second book. (If you have read the series leave me a comment. Not if its mean though I don't want to have my feelings hurt.)

That's all I have to say for this week. :)

Introducing...Cody!

Hi! I'm Cody and I'm 11 years old. My hobbies are bulding with LEGOs and riding my scooter. According to all my teachers I can spit out info at any given moment. This is my first blog entry and I'm kinda nervous. ( I guess that's normal:).) I have a knack for looking at every little detail. (Is that good?)

If you like this entry drop me a line. (You know I mean comment, right?)

Introducing...Sid!

Hi! I'm Sidney and I'm nine years old. These are some things I like:

My favorite:

1. food is: pasta, plain no sauce
2. sport is: softball
3. color is: Maroon
4. meal is: pasta and steak
5. game is: hide-and-seek
   

I hope you like my first blog entry! :)

And so the adventure begins!

Testing, testing, one, two, three. Is this thing on?

To say that our family is excited about our new blogging adventure is an understatement. We've decided to take more pictures each week and reflect more on our day-to-day lives. On Saturdays, we'll work together as a team and each contribute something to the weekly family post. Fun!

Please feel free to leave us comments and share with us your week's highlights!