Sean Qualifies For Math Counts Competition
January 30, 2008
Over the last couple of weeks, Sean has been taking a series of tests at his school in an attempt to qualify for the school team competing in the Math Counts County competition. The competition is open to teams with students in grades 6 – 8. Earlier this week, we received word that he had qualified for the team at Elgin.
There will be 8 kids on the Elgin team. Sean actually qualified 5th in the school. The rest of the team is made up of 8th graders. He was the only sixth or seventh grader to make the team.
On Friday, the team will travel to Sierra Vista for the County competition. The competition is about a three hour competition where the teams solve math problems. There are a bunch of different rounds of competition. In some of the rounds, the students answer the questions independently, but the teams score is the aggregate of the individual scores. In other rounds, the students work as a team to solve the problem. Some rounds are timed where the fastest correct answer is worth more. Should the team do well, they could qualify for the State competition or even the National competition.
Sean is very excited, but also worried that the problems will be 8th grade problems. He already works on his own in math and is well into the 7th grade advance math curriculum. Tomorrow, his math teacher is going to work with him on some 8th grade concepts to help him prepare for the competition.
I will let you know how the competition goes…
Next Cruise
January 28, 2008
Well, it didn’t take too long. We thought we would skip a cruise this year because of two family reunions that we already have planned. Now, I am not sure that is going to happen. Cruising is our favorite way to spend a vacation and the thought of not doing one this year has not appealed to us.
It’s only been 7 months since our last cruise to Alaska, but the though of not cruising again until 2009 was more difficult than it should be. Anyways, we have decided to tighten the belt and see if we can’t go ahead and swing a cruise this Thanksgiving season, which is a common time for us to cruise.
Nothing is for sure yet as we want to make sure we don’t stretch ourselves too far, but we have been zeroing in on a couple of cruises that look really appealing to us.
The first is a 15 day cruise from San Diego to Fort Lauderdale. The cruise stops in a couple of ports in Mexico and then goes through the Panama Canal before making stops in Costa Rica and Columbia. This cruise would be on one of our favorite ships, the Celebrity Mercury. We like this cruise as leaving out of San Diego tends to save us a few bucks as we only need airfare back from Fort Lauderdale. Going through the Panama Canal would make for an exciting cruise.
The second is a 15 day transatlantic crossing. We have really been itching to do a transatlantic crossing since days at sea tend to be our favorite part of a cruise. The cruise originates in Barcelona, Spain and ends up in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It features stops in Spain, the Canary Islands and St. Maarten. If we did this cruise, we would probably try to spend a day or two in Barcelona before the cruise. This would allow Suzanne and the kids to take in some authentic Flamenco dancing in Spain since they all take dance classe. {Suzanne and Savannah actually take the Flamenco classes.} It us unlikely we would spend any time in San Juan.
The transatlantic cruise would require the kids to miss more school since it leaves on the Saturday after Thanksgiving while the Panama Canal cruise leaves the weekend before Thanksgiving. Either cruise, perhaps a bit more so for the transatlantic cruise, would be a unique learning and cultural experience for them. On either cruise, the kid would still have homework responsibilities.
I am do to learn what my yearly bonus will be in the next few weeks and the taxes will soon be finished and we are expecting a refund. With the drop in interest rates, we are also refinancing our home and should reap some monthly savings there too. Hopefully, the combination will be enough to allow us to take a cruise this year.
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