****NEWSFLASH****

Ani just called from Rainier - 6:01 in the 1500, beating her personal best of 6:03 but she is incredibly annoyed that she didn't break 6 seconds. Poor poor Ani!

For blogging's sake...

Yes, I'm blogging for blogging's sake, for the sole reason that it's been a while and we wouldn't want you to think we'd quit! At left, Ani and Naomi in a rare church appearance (piano recital, that is!)We are incredibly busy, although amidst that I seem to have a lazy afternoon at home today. Ani is at a track meet, too far for me to get there and back before my budget meeting (yawn). She has my cell phone so I am expecting up to the minute times as she finishes her races. Tim and Mateo are here - having taken a break from careening into the road on Tim's go-cart (recipe in the Dangerous Book for Boys), they are slurping root beer floats.

I read a great article on energy policy this morning by Thomas Friedman, the great quote of which was: "...the biggest energy crisis we have in our country today is the energy to be serious — the energy to do big things in a sustained, focused and intelligent way." Here's the whole thing, complete with Ani, rightfully worried about energy policy: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/opinion/30friedman.html?ex=1367294400&en=0588e238277893d6&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Jon is in Corvallis today, riding the bus with 50 or so high school students to visit OSU. Then he will work the rest of the week, go on a rafting trip all weekend with more high schoolers, and spend 3 days next week ridin' the bus again, this time with the entire 4th grade, all over central Oregon. Ani and I won't budge - she'll run, I'll go to meetings. Then next weekend Jon's Aunt Sally will come with her friend, which will be fab, though our Saturday will include district track meet and the tail end of Ani's soccer tryouts. Sigh. I'm putting in a picture of Tim - they are harder to come by as he is photo-phobic, but here is a recent past case of sad boy road rash.

That's about all for today. It's sunny and windy and there is a gigantic cruise ship in town, another tomorrow, and one more on Friday. I'm missing cruise tourists tomorrow to go to Portland and see my friend Taeryn and her family - daughter Madeline discharged from the hospital this afternoon after a full month in there!

More of the Kings

Hi! Here are the chess pics on our school district website. Our tech guy happened to stop by during chess club so he shot a bunch of pictures. It's all good.

https://www.edline.net/pages/Lewis_Clark_ES

Also, while I was surfing around the school site, I found this - can you find our mini-Einstein?

http://www2.astoria.k12.or.us/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=31

Jon Here- sorry no pictures... pouring rain at Ani's track meet. She beat her times at both running events. 2nd girl to finish in the 1500 meters at 6:03 minutes. Her previous best time at the 1500 was 6:17- Go Girl Go!!! At the 800 meters she came in 4th at 3:06 just beating out her previous best of 3:07!!! Both Laura and I were timers so we watched all the races and timed the kids in our lanes. It was great fun but so wet and cold!

My soccer game was actually a bye this week, so I did not have one... Next week we are playing one of the teams tied for first place with us and it has most of the Astoria High School team on it which will be really fun since I work with a lot of those kids and know the rest! (or at least it will be fun if no WHEN my team wins!!!)

Tim was lucky and spent the rainy afternoon at his friend Sam's house. hope everyone is well!

Misc.

Just want to tell you that even with her cold, Ani kicked ____ in her second track meet. She came in 2nd in the 800 and 3rd in the 1500, improving her 1500 time by 2 seconds. The top 3 1500 runners were Astorians! Sorry to brag but I am...
Home meet Wednesday, I'm sure we'll have a full report.
Tim had a fab chess club last week. I convinced a high schooler to come and play with the kids and Tim learned a lot from him. I am hoping he will come often. He is an exceptional musician who is going to the Berklee (sp?) School of Music in Boston next fall, and his chess skills are way past me (which isn't saying much).
School board continues to be a challenge. I am alone on the board in thinking that I was elected to express and advocate for my opinions on issues. I am alone in refusing to tow a party line, though I am well aware that I will support what ends up being the board's decisions after they are made. I am having some conflicts about this, but will continue to do what I do. I also think that my east coast/jewish communication style is a bit foreign to the others, all northwesterners. Oh well, live and learn. I have a LOT of meetings in the next two months - budget, negotiations, regular meetings and study sessions...
Vegas was like a strange planet. We had a good time, but it really is sort of a foul place, existing only for consumption and debauchery, and as Jon said, using a good portion of the world's energy supply to that end.
Off to piano lessons.
Laura

Ani Recital

Jon here:

Here is Frodo, on his FIRST Birthday, telling Ani good luck on her recital!!!! You should really click on the photo to see it bigger so you can appricate what a fluffy bird he can be!!!

I will now try to upload a vid of Ani's Piano Recital!

So Let Jon talk on Las Vegas: Amazing; Crazy; Wallet stolen with a bump; SpamOlot Great!; conferance good; People watching- Wow! Everything that we are doing to stop or at least slow down Global Climate Distabilization is canceled out by the excess of VEGAS!!! Lights; people; desert;water- it does not add up- just like the odds of the slot machines...

Now here is a brief sample of our Passover Sader today:

Track Meet

This is Ani. I just had my first track meet and it was really fun. I did three events - the long jump, the 800 meter run, and the 1500 meter run. 1500 is a mile, and four laps, and 800 is half that. My best jump for the long jump was 8 feet, which surprised me. In the 800, I came in third place out of all the girls, and my time was 3 minutes and 7 seconds. In the 1500, I came in 15th place out of boys and girls, and there were probably about 25 people. My time was 6 minutes and 19 seconds. Here's a picture of me running and a picture of me and my friends, Kelsie and Naomi, after we were done with all of our events.

Game of Kings

Well, we successfully launched the Lewis and Clark School Chess Club this afternoon. I, Laura, am thrilled with the turnout of 9 boys and 1 girl, me, a mom, a dad who played all the boys in turn while his daughter was schooled by a nice retired aquaintance who came to volunteer his expertise. The boys had to be run and watered periodically, but they were all quite skilled players and good natured. I think the club will continue on and be a big hit at school. I got royally whupped by a 6th grader but was impressed with his tricky plays. Here are Tim and Sean getting warmed up...

Tie Soccer Game

While Jon Here heads the ball away, we tied 3-3 with the other EVIL team. They did not realize they were beat when we made the score 3-1 with 20 minutes left... They scored the tieing goal with literally 3 seconds left... It was fun though! More pics at the league web site:http://northcoastsoccer.blogspot.com/

Jon Here! Here is a pic of Laura from the Florida Keys two years ago. I am posting it just cause I like the picture... Tim and I spent much of Saturday working in the garage getting ready for a garage sale next weekend! We are both very excited and Laura is extatic at the possiblity that we might get rid of some stuff. Ani asked if she could have 3% of the sales but when asked to help she said no... Interesting...
We won our soccer game on Wednesday 5-1, so we have now won Three straight games! good fun! We have a make up game this afternoon from the snow day we had over spring break.
My work is going well. Students are getting into college, parents are refusing to cosign loans for college education or telling seniors that they are moving away and the kid has to graduate from a different high school or general boyfriend girlfriend brake ups causing great saddness and general distress.
Last night I made pizza out of spelt flour to see if my digestive system can do spelt. I find it generally takes about 24-36 hours for bad food to make itself known to me so I am just waiting to see what spelt does. It sure would make things a lot easier if I decided I could handle spelt... more later! Jon