Yes, I am still alive!

Can't believe it has been almost 2 weeks since I last blogged. Things have been a bit crazy on the work front (running the home show and moving the office to a new building recently purchased) and at home with the always-crazy pace of getting things done around the house while juggling 3 kids' activities and needs. And now it's almost March!

I have been looking forward to March. After my traditional Jan/Feb home show madness with work, I always look forward to Spring Break in Destin with the whole family ... and we're just 3 weeks away from that right now. But before then I do have one other diversion ... I am taking my mom on a short Royal Caribbean cruise to celebrate her 75th bday! She has only flown one other time in her life and has not really ever traveled ... so she is stressed and excited about the trip all at once. HA

So on Sunday afternoon, mom and I head out. I'll post again and leave the address of the "cruise blog" that I created for her to share with her friends. I hope that time and connection will allow me to post some pics of her enjoying her big trip.

And I have to throw out a big congrats to Drew (warning: mommy brag) for his advancement in the Eureka College Reagan Leadership Competition. He received a phone call today that the field of 78 semi-finalists who competed two weeks ago has been narrowed down to the top 10 finalists ... and he is one of them! He will have a phone interview with several faculty members and that will help them narrow the field a bit further. Six of the final 10 will receive full tuition scholarships to attend Eureka College due to their leadership experiences and skills. We are very proud of him and hope for the best ... all while we also wait for word on any progress in the scholarship competition he also was part of at Carthage College. He should have final word on both by the end of March and have a clear path as to which college is going to become his new academic home next fall! It's an exciting time for him.

I've Been Tagged! Twice!

Looks like I have been tagged by two friends, almost simultaneously ... Colleen and Marla! Click on their names to visit their blogs. How can I come up with 14 blogs to tag?!?!?

How this works: I am to list 7 strange/weird things you may not know about me. The rules are to link the person who sent this to you and leave a comment on their blog so their readers can visit yours. Post the rules on your blog.

Share 7 strange/weird facts about yourself. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, linking their blog. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. I have been in my current job for nearly 12 years. I'm a working mom who you will never hear say resents working. I really love my job. I hear people say how they hate going to work or can't stand their boss or they are counting down the days to retirement. I feel so lucky to have a job that I love, enjoy going to every day, and allows me to juggle work and family in a sane way. I'm very lucky to have always had the choice to stay in a job that I love, and not everyone can say that.

2. My parents both came from really large families (10-12 kids each) and I was an only child. I always said while growing up that I wanted to have a big, happy, crazy family of 6 kids. I got the happy and crazy ... and I made it halfway to 6!

3. Adoption has always been part of my family ... my dad was adopted by a family member as an infant when his mom was lost in childbirth. Watching him deal with some loss issues with his father and facing his biological past had an impact on me that I hope will be helpful to Abby someday.

4. Mitch and I have been a couple for 75% of our lives, I was 15 when we met.

5. My parents are/were kind and loving people as a whole ... just not the kind to verbalize their feelings and affection. It leaves a void in your soul when you don't hear someone say they love you, even if you know they do. I tell my kids that I love them every day because of that experience.

6. When I was in grade school, I was taken to the police station every day after school. Don't panic, it wasn't behavior related ... we were picking my dad up at the end of his shift! :-)

7. I find watching aquarium fish to be very relaxing, and when I used to have more time to tend them (before 3 kids), I really enjoyed doing that. I do still have an aquarium that I enjoy using as a stress-reliever.

Ok, here's the deal. I have assessed my ability to be responsible for all 14 tags ... and I don't think I have the energy or resources today to do that! So here are my 7 tags. Just click on their names to visit their blogs!

Jen S at The Schmidt Family 5
Julie B at The Burt Clan
Jill B at The Biehl Girls and Two Guys
Amy E at Little Red & Princess Buttercup
Christie W The Wrights 4
Karyn M at Emily & Olivia Updates
Susan W at Adventures in China

Another College Weekend!

Drew finished up the scholarship competition weekend for Eureka College late afternoon today ... another weekend that went really well for him, and experience that he really enjoyed.

Now we wait about a month to see if anything good happens for him with either one!

I'm way behind on blogging with being busy at work (it's home show time for me) and just busy with kids and housework and basketball tourney. TJ's team played late tonight (it was 10pm when we got home, Abby was crashed!) and they play in the 4th grade championship game tomorrow night!

I have also been tagged by Colleen and Marla, and I have lots of catching up to do with that! I'll post more on that soon.

Carthage Scholarship Competition

(click on banner to see the beautiful Carthage campus on Lake Michigan) We're back from the land of snow and cold. Drew was a finalist in the Carthage College Lincoln Scholarship Program this weekend, so he and I headed to snowy Kenosha, WI on Fri/Sat for the activities.

We left on Fri for the 4 hr drive and got there in time to check into the hotel and explore a bit. Then on Fri night the college hosted a welcome reception for the finalists at our hotel, so we spent 2 hours there talking to faculty and admission staff, as well as some current students. Sat morning we were up early and off to campus at 7am for the day's events. We checked in and had a welcome session from the Carthage President, and they divided the finalists up into 3 groups for the competition, which consisted of a 50 minute timed essay writing on a topic revealed at that time (which wasn't as bad as Drew thought it could be), and then he had a 20 minute personal interview with 2 faculty members. He was happy to learn that one of his interviewers was head of the Education Dept, and they had a great conversation about why he wants to teach music instead of use his musical talents in a performance role. He felt the interview went very well, and that's all you can hope for!

While he was doing all of that, I sat through parent sessions telling me what essay question was being sprung on the finalists, what the interviews would be like and exactly what they are looking for in the students they will choose as the winners. There is a lot at stake for the kids, because the winners receive full tuition scholarships for 4 years ... which is worth a six-figure dollar amount, total.

Just for participating in the competition, Drew received $4000 in scholarship money to be used over his 4 years at Carthage, should he end up there and not be a recipient of one of the large awards.

After the competition they brought the kids and parents back together for lunch, and then we dashed off for 1pm music department activities. All music majors have to pass a music theory test to be accepted into the dept, so he was able to get that out of the way. Then we waited for his turn at a vocal audition, which is also worth a nice amount of scholarship dollars. The full tuition scholarship is much more of a long shot than these music dept dollars ... so this was very important ... and it was his first chance to sing in front of the music dept chair and faculty. It went very well, and they told him they really want him to come and be part of their dept.

Then we hit the road about 4pm and it took us 4.5 hours to drive through some snow, strong winds and marginal road conditions to get back to Galesburg, where Mitch and the kids were staying for TJ's basketball tourney. TJ had 3 games yesterday ... they won 2 and were eliminated in the 3rd game, so it was all free time by the time I got there. The kids were in the pool and having a great time when we arrived, and we hung out for a bit this morning and got back to Tremont about Noon. So the laundry is going and I'm playing catch up to get everyone ready for work and school tomorrow!

Next weekend Drew is a finalist in a similar competition at Eureka College, with the winning students also receiving full tuition scholarships. We are so proud that his background put him in these competitions, and happy that he just had the opportunity to interact with other students and faculty ... because at one of these schools, they will be his classmates and professors in just six short months!

I'm including a slide show of some scenes we found in Lake Geneva, WI when we made a pit stop on the way to Kenosha ... we found the ice fishing and vehicles on the frozen lake quite interesting. Plus there was an area with some really neat snow sculptures from a recent festival. The last pic is of Lake Michigan from a building on campus ... it was amazing to see the 10-15' high glaciers of ice that have built up on the beaches of Carthage College! Kenosha received about 14 inches of snow just last Wed, so we saw many snowpiles taller than our car and much higher than that. It gave Drew a good taste of what going a few hours North for college might bring! HA

IMEA Honors Chorus

(click photo for larger version) We were proud to see Drew perform this afternoon with the IMEA Honors Chorus, a group of approximately the top 2% of high school voices in the State of Illinois. The kids audition in a district format, then move on to a district music festival, and a small percentage of the thousands of kids who audition get a chance to take part in the 3-day Illinois Music Educators Association conference, which is capped off with this concert.

Three groups participate in the event ... and they are all seated on the floor of a large arena ... the Honors Chorus, Honors Band, and Honors Orchestra. It's hard to imagine that these are all high school juniors and seniors when you hear the level of talent and skill these kids have vocally or with their chosen instruments. Here's a slide show of some of the performances. Of course you can't spot Drew in the shots taken from afar, but in the more zoomed in shots, he's on the left side about 5 rows down from the top, burgundy choir robe, 2nd from the end and next to a girl in a light blue robe ...

and a video of the Honors Chorus peforming one of their songs ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT0AnQr_vbA

and a video of the three groups peforming "America the Beautiful" in unison. Quite a feat with probably almost 500 kids on the floor in three different performing groups!

Snow Day!

We got a surprise snow day today! When we went to bed, we were forecast for 4-6 inches of snow, so that would normally not be enough to call off school in this area. But then we woke up to this ...

So a snow day it was! Mitch spent a lot of time shoveling and only got about 1/3 of the driveway cleared. He went on to work about 7am and had an interesting trek to work, but made it fine. Drew is at a hotel in Peoria from yesterday through Saturday for the Honors Chorus activities, so he missed the snow day opportunity but is having a great time with all the kids, I'm sure!

The kids and I made some cookies and then they played in the snow for a bit. It was really too deep for them to walk around the house and sled down the hill, so they spent most time right off the cleared driveway. The neighbor took them on a quick sled ride behind his four-wheeler, so the day so far has been a huge success for them! HA

Enjoy the slide show of their day!