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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Pinewood Derby #1

Patrick had his scout pinewood derby on Saturday . One of the parents whose boy won the last two years in a row shared some of his secrets. Patrick 's car placed third twice, second once, and first once. The first place was because his was the only car racing. It got a cheer from everyone watching.

Rachel is almost done gathering data for her science project. She is studying whether different types of music affect our dog Leo's appetite. I've been helping by feeding him on days when she was away. I have not looked at any of the data yet, so I can't say if it has or not. April noticed a Pavlov effect as he ran over to his bowl when Patrick played some songs.

Thomas started First Communion classes at the start of the month. Rachel and Patrick had to go the full year, but there is a new director who didn't think that was necessary. I think he is right, because despite missing half the class, Thomas knows all the prayers except one (Act of Contrition), and the other kids are still working on most of the prayers. It's still a new concept, and we get notices and calls about how Thomas has missed half the class.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Patrick's birthday

As I made out invitations to Patrick's birthday party, I was thinking of an ad I hear in the mornings where a woman complains that everyone communicates by email, but she doesn't own a computer. Filling out each one, I realize why so many use email over a snail mail: I'd be writing the invitation once, check for mistakes, then send everyone on the list a copy. The written version has me do the same process , and potentially make a mistakes on each one, over and over. There are only ten, so it's not difficult. Conversely, the same would not apply to thank you notes, where you want personalize each one.

The party was fun. We took the kids to Speed Street in Layton, an indoor go-cart track. You do a qualify run, and the top five get to race together. Patrick was in the top five, of course, and finished first. The surprise was that Thomas was also in the top five, beating out a lot of the older kids. He didn't want to race again, though.

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