Aaaaahhhhhh......

That's my sigh of relief. I am so glad yesterday is over. Yesterday was the school's Jr. Engineering day. I somehow signed up to be in charge of it. The USU Engineering Department puts on these awesome fairs at schools around Utah. I had to coordinate with the teachers who would be teaching the modules and make sure they had lesson plans and everything they needed. I also had to advertise, get volunteers and collect some supplies. It was pretty time consuming the past couple of weeks. And those two weeks happened to be Randy's busiest as well. Between I-15, Riverdale Road and UDOT's engineering conference he has been swamped. Yesterday I spent the entire day at the school, and thankfully, my friend took care of my three little ones so I didn't have to schlep them along all day.

All in all, the day was a success. The students loved it. They spent the entire school day in rotations, learning and experimenting with different hands-on science experiments. Some if their favorites included: making rockets, a Van deGraaf generator, playing with bubbles, learning about colors and light, building retaining walls, propelling cars with balloons after learning about the laws of physics, and playing with robots.

One of the stations about hearing, had some voice pick-up head phones. This allowed the students to hear how they sound to others. Hailey was shocked to hear herself. She finally realized that she can't say her 'r's. I have tried for years to work with her. Speech therapists have given me packets and ideas to help her, but she didn't even realize that she didn't sound right. She told me yesterday that to herself, she sounds just like anyone else. But that hearing herself in the headphones, she could tell it wasn't right. Now that she knows what she sounds like, maybe we can make some head-way.

Randy got back just in time to eat before we all headed back over for the Reflections awards. All the kids did a great job. I was especially proud of my own. Hannah and Casey got certificates and a gold dollar for participating. Tyler and Hailey won. They got certificates and 10 gold dollars.

Tyler's cheetah sculpture....

Casey's pencil sketch...

After the reflections awards was the Jr. Engineering Family Fair. The kids could bring their families back and explore any of the exhibits. (During the day they could only see the ones in their grade rotation.) That didn't go as well as the daytime. not that there were any problems, it was just different. The open house style didn't allow the instruction and teaching before the experiments. A lot of them lost the effect. Hailey commented that it wasn't as much fun. The kids still had a good time, but we were ready to leave when it was over. We were rounding everyone up, and Randy had most of the kids in the car, when Nathan decided he didn't want to leave. He kept running from me. He turn a corner and in seconds I heard crying. He and Tyler soon came back and then I saw the blood. One look and I knew this was trip to the Insta Care.

There goes our record. We hadn't had stitches all year.... We washed him off in the bathroom and loaded up in the car. Randy dropped us off at the Insta Care and I called Cyndi for a ride home. Luckily, they were able to get us right back in a room. The doctor wanted to try DermaBond. I was skeptical, but agreed to try it. Unfortunately, it wouldn't hold. The wound wasn't a clean cut (Nathan's never are.) and it was very deep. There was tissue kind of bulging out of it. So he decided to stitch it after all. Nathan was really brave. He only cried a little when they gave him the shot to numb it. Although, I was upset that he didn't use a topical numbing solution before the Lidocaine needle. But I talked to Nathan the whole time and he was distracted enough not to know that they were passing a needle thought his head! It's a good thing. I think if he realized what they were doing, there is no way I could have held him down. He is just too strong. The doctor commented Nathan was his best patient all day. He really was good. After four sets of stitches, I guess he has learned the drill.

Did I mention, I'm glad yesterday is over?