Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Mathletics

This week Ryan is participating in the American Math Challenge with kids all over the country ages 9-14 where he gets points for every right answer to math problems. He broke the top 100 yesterday and is working hard to stay there. He has been as high as spot 53. He has spent probably 6-8 hours a day, maybe more, working on math problems-- and even decided to come straight home after scouts instead of going to basketball with Stephen so he can do more problems and earn more points. I guess he inherited my competitive streak. Stephen would NEVER have chosen math, or anything academic, over basketball.

It is only for this week and next week, so I figure he can do as much math as he wants and is excited about during his free time. I'm still having him do his writing and other school work. He will go do one of his assignments and come back to do more math. He was marking off his assignments and I told him he could count this for math this week and he was totally excited. It was pretty funny-- This doesn't seem like schoolwork to him, even though he has done over 1000 problems in the last 2 days. (His regular assignments have 22). He is already planning to get up early on the last day because it ends at 7 am our time and the kids on the east coast might slip ahead of him. It will be interesting to see if his enthusiasm holds.

I wish the contest was for a scholarship or something like the high school level of MathCounts (the program sponsor). The top prizes for this one aren't as cool. The top 3 kids, nationwide, get a medal and the top 25 get a certificate. Not nearly as good as money for college. But, he is motivated and is working so hard I told him if he ends in the top 100 either of the two weeks, or both, I will buy him a half gallon of ice cream to share with the family and he can have a "free" day to just read instead of doing regular school-- he'll have earned it.

Going on a Cruise

Stephen and I are going on a cruise in December to Catalina Island and Ensenata, Mexico. We leave from San Diego. It is for our 10 year anniversary, which was actually last May, but Lincoln was too little to leave-- he'll be just over a year. I am super excited. Ryan is going to fly down to Utah to stay with grandparents there and is counting down the days. The other kids are going to the other grandparents or Aunt Karma's. They all think they are getting the best deal. We had planned to go in January or February, but I found a good deal on plane tickets ($150 RT from Boise to San Diego) and then the price of the cruise for this week dropped to $149 per person for an oceanview room. That will leave me more money in my budget for excursions or shopping! If anyone has been on a Carnival cruise to Catalina or Ensanada, let us know what you recommend.

October Update

October was crazy and busy. I gained a huge appreciation for Relief Society as I tried to help my friend whose husband had passed away. She is not LDS and didn't have that built in network to call on. Then my in-laws came to visit and we had a fun weekend Christmas shopping and driving around the area and just relaxing at home. Soon after they left, we got hit with the dreaded swine flu-- and it was MISERABLE!!!! Lincoln and I got it the worst, but no one had serious complications. We had to alternate Tylenol and Motrin round the clock to keep his fever down and I would have coughing fits so hard they would bring me to my knees. It was NOT fun!!!! The other kids all got it for a few days, and by the time it ran it's course, I hadn't left the house for 2 weeks.

On a positive note, the boys are in a Christmas showchoir and Ryan was selected to sing the solo. He is very excited! He loves to sing. The older kids all had a wonderful Halloween with lots of candy and fun dressing up. Lincoln slept through most of it-- he's fighting another cold.