Generations of Awesome

This weekend proved again how awesome my family is.  On Saturday A1 attended the regional National History Day competition. Her presentation featured the innovations within the U.S. Marine Corps. A1 spent countless hours on this conducting research, writing, finding pictures, etc. The final project was made of plywood and featured a digital slide show, complete with music (Marine Corps anthem). She rehearsed and reviewed dates, equipment nomenclature and names of prominent people and stayed up until well after midnight on Friday to “tweek” the display board.

It was amazing.  The only drawback was that she had a “partner” who was completely absent for the entire process.  For months A1 had tried to get this other student to come help or at least do research and contribute information. This other student did nothing.  The first time she saw the original board was when A1 took it to the school competition back in January.  The remake was no different.  Not surprisingly, the partner showed up for the regional competition to present with A1. Saturday was the first time she had seen the board and she had no friggin’ idea about the dates, names, etc. However, this other student brought her mother and grandparents along to basque in the glory and admire her work.  I was so mad that it was hard to see straight. When it came time for the student interview (no parents were allowed in the rooms, but we could see through a window in the door) I could see this other student gesticulating, laughing and totally dominating the conversation. Every time A1 started to speak she was cut off. The other mother made comments about her daughter being so animated and outgoing and then asked if A1 was shy.  I told her that no, A1 wasn’t shy, she just hadn’t had a chance to talk. As I watched A1 grow more and more frustrated (she doesn’t hide emotion well) it grew more difficult to not choke the crap out of the other mother, throw the door open and tell the judges what a worthless lump the other student had been. By the time they were done A1 was almost in tears. We left the area immediately.  She told me that the other student took credit for all of the work, but misquoted dates, facts, etc.; all the while espousing her desire to be a Marine someday.   We ended up driving home for a break and to unwind.  A1 and her partner ended up moving to the finals but we’d made a decision by then. She told her teacher that should their project qualify for state that she would rather not go.  A1’s grace and decorum in this situation were commendable.

A2 had her hair cut on Sunday.  She didn’t want it to be too short (boyish) or too long (girly). The latter was more of an issue because she hates hearing me nag about looking neat.  I got a chuckle when I overheard her say to the beautician, “Just make sure it’s short enough that it can’ t be put in a pony tail.”  She definitely doesn’t want me or A1 fussing with her in any way, shape or form.  

A3 is mostly better, but she still has a terrible cough. Trying to keep her still is akin to trying to nail Jell-O to a tree and about as successful.  We’re waiting to see how school went before deciding if she’s well enough for wrestling.

Sunday morning the phone rang. It was my mom. She wanted to know if we had plans for the day.  Other than laundry and getting groceries we were wide open.  She and my dad hitched up a trailer to their truck then drove three hours to come cut up the fallen trees from our garden!  They managed to accomplish is less than an hour what would have taken us several days to complete manually.  Not only did they cut up the tree that was down, they removed another that was blocking sun to the garden and then my dad de-limbed a third.  Then they hauled all of the branches, etc. away with them.  My garden  has room for vegetables again!

 

And as if that wasn’t awesome enough, they also brought fresh eggs from their chickens and shook crab meat.

 

We’ll hoard the eggs for an omelet feast later this week. The crab was my lunch today (I did give the girls each a little).

 In addition we also got copies of the pictures from my niece’s wedding.

 

Heather, Robert, Abigail & Maliegha   

        

David, Heather, Mom & Dad

What else is there to say except, “Wow!” and “Thank you!”  Told you, I’m surrounded by generations of awesome people.