Our Pi Celebrity

As many of you know, March 14th is pi day {3.14}.

Keri’s middle school held a 6th grade Pi contest in honor of the special day.

The night before the event, about 9:30 in the evening (and after she had finished up quite a bit of homework), Keri remembered she wanted to memorize as many digits of pi as she could so she could participate.   We went to this site and printed off the first five lines of digits, approximately 780 of them.  I then sent her on her way to get ready for bed.

By the time she came back upstairs to say goodnight, she had already memorized quite a few numbers.  I wasn’t overly surprised because she has a knack for memorizing things.  However, I was surprised when by the following morning she knew about 100(!) digits as she was getting ready to walk out the door for school. Holy smokes, girl!  Randy encouraged her not to memorize too many more because he didn’t want her to forget the ones she already knew.

In her math class, she faltered on a few numbers early on, but she still ended up knowing the most digits for her class period ~ 33.  This put her into the final that was to be held at the end of the school day.

By then she knew 108 digits.  However, when it was her turn to recite the digits she knew she needed to beat what she knew.  She guessed on the 109th digit and got it right and therefore won the competition (though she didn’t know she won until the last few students went).  The student who came in second knew 108 digits and the student who placed third knew 102 digits.

Keri called me immediately after school and ecstatically told me her fun news!  She even said some of her friends were calling her a school celebrity.

And yes, she won a pie for all her efforts !!  Go Keri!

“I’m so proud of her. One of my proudest moments, not because she won, but because she took the initiative and showed such determination. When she fell short in the first competition, she didn’t let it shake her.” ~ Randy

The 109 pi digits Keri can power through:

3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058
20974944592307816406286208998628034825342117
067982148086

5th Grade Promotion

Well, it’s official.  As of Monday Keri finished her elementary school career when she participated in her school’s 5th Grade Promotion … though they still had a tiny sliver of 5th grade to finish on Tuesday when they had to show up for a partial day.

It was a special moment when the class award she was presented with was for being the most creative writer.  That is truly one of her passions and it was neat to see her get recognized for that!

I must admit I surprised myself when I got a bit misty eyed not just once, but a few times during the ceremony.  I was especially feeling it when the students sang a song they had written for the occasion.  [Written meaning they penned new lyrics to an already existing melody.]

I still remember my own elementary school promotion, though back in the day it was called graduation. And for me it happened in 6th grade. I also went to Junior High, not Middle School … am I dating myself yet ?!?

Here is a picture of me from June of 1982 when I was in kindergarten.  I am the one in the pink dress.

Here are a couple of pictures of me from 6th grade, both of them from June of 1988. I am 12 1/2 whereas Keri is just shy of turning 11.

In the first picture I am participating in a Monday Morning Assembly, a responsibility I had since I was part of the student council. The second picture is from our 6th Grade Domino’s Pizza Graduation Party.

It is hard to believe Keri will soon embark upon her middle school journey. I am hoping she will enjoy her adventure despite the fact that she will be enduring some of the more awkward years of her life.  We are so proud of the remarkable, talented, kind and gracious young lady she is becoming!

Our First Science Fair

A few weeks ago, Keri participated in her first ever Science Fair which was hosted by her elementary school.

This  project was to be done entirely at home and the students had two months to work on it.  The main requirement was the experiment needed to be an investigative one as opposed to a project that would merely yield a yes or no answer.  I know how time consuming things like this can be, but thankfully Keri managed her time relatively well (with some reminders and gentle prodding from her parents) so things never got too ominous.

I must admit I was pretty excited for Keri to learn and better understand (and appreciate!) the steps of the scientific method.  Yes, the former Biology Teacher in me was coming out.  Interestingly enough, I did a blog post on the Steps of the Scientific Method back in May of 2007.  That post has had nearly 12,000 hits and it is the 5th most popular post on my blog.  Who would have known?!

Randy, with his science and engineering background, was also looking forward to helping Keri with her project.  They spent some quality time together … and had fun in the process … while researching a lot of topics.   She finally settled on the topic of eye cone cells and afterimages.

Perhaps the highlights of this whole process were:  1)  seeing how satisfied she felt with the finished project and all the hard work she put into it and 2) seeing her at the actual Science Fair interacting with students and parents, explaining what her project was all about and answering their questions.  She seemed to be completely in her element.  She is definitely a people person.  We are very proud of her!

And because some people were asking for more details, here are some excerpts from the write up of her experiment:

Chaotic and Confusing Cone Cells

Purpose and Background

I once looked up at a new light bulb in the kitchen for about two seconds. I then looked up at the white ceiling and blinked. On the ceiling I saw a bluish, purplish color in the same shape as the light bulb. Every time this happens to me I wonder how and why the color of a white surface changes when I look at a light. After doing some research with my Dad, I found out that eye cone cells can get fatigued and then they can’t give a proper signal to the brain. Instead, you see an afterimage of a different color. You won’t see the real color again until your cone cells regain their strength.

Question

Will the color of the afterimage change to blue, red, green, or a combination depending on which of your three cone cells is fatigued?

Hypothesis

I predict that if the blue cone cells are fatigued, then the afterimage will be red, green, or a combination of the two colors on a white surface. If red cone cells are fatigued, then the afterimage will be blue, green or a combination on a white surface. If the green cone cells are fatigued, then the afterimage will be blue, red, or a combination of the colors on a white surface.

Conclusion

My hypothesis was partly supported. The color I saw when I fatigued the blue cone cells was a pinkish, salmon color. When I fatigued the red cells I saw a sky blue. I saw a purplish, magenta color when I fatigued the green cone cells.

My hypothesis was supported because the color that I stared at had an intensity on the RGB Color Model of at least 110 (average) less than the other cone cells I didn’t fatigue. However, my hypothesis wasn’t completely supported because the color I fatigued wasn’t entirely tired out. There was still a little bit of the fatigued color in the afterimage. Only five times during the twenty seven trials was the intensity of the fatigued cone cell exactly zero.

Discussion

The results of my experiment weren’t entirely accurate because our cone cells seem to regain strength pretty quickly. When you look at a white surface to see the afterimage, you blink, which makes the cells regain strength, which affects the results. To make the results more accurate we need a robot or a computer to do the experiment because they wouldn’t blink. Another reason why the results weren’t completely accurate is because I couldn’t always remember the exact color I saw when trying to find its match on the color palette.

Now that I have done my experiment, I have even more questions about light and cone cells. For example, how long does it take for cone cells to regain strength? Another question is what would the afterimage be if you looked at a yellow surface afterwards instead of a white surface? I also wonder what it would be like if we had different colors for our cone cells.

“An Easter Poem”

Within the last 4 or 5 months, Keri (who is in third grade) has developed quite a fancy for reading and writing poetry.  Back in the beginning of November, she devoured “A Light In the Attic” by Shel Silverstein in less than 24 hours.

Here is her latest creation, complete with artwork.  Drawing is definitely one of  her other favorite passions.

I hope you have a magnificent, happy and peaceful Easter week!

AWOL, MIA and CA

I suppose after publishing 500 posts, one is entitled to a bloggy break.

Even if it was a bit unintentional.

It has been so long since I wrote a post, that I find I am struggling with writing. How do I form a sentence?  What voice do I normally write in?  How does this work again?  My brain is stuck in Facebook status update mode.  I have a feeling I am going to have to break myself back into blogging kind of slowly.

I definitely have missed writing.  It is therapeutic for me.  It keeps me grounded. It helps me process things. It gives me a broader perspective.  It reminds me of the purpose of life.  And lately I feel like I have needed a lot of reminding in that department.  (Perhaps the lack of blogging has made this problem worse?)

Our summer has been an adventurous one … boating, tubing, swimming, going to a “real” beach in California, hanging out with lots of friends and family, consuming way too much chocolate and calories in general [the new Cheesecake Factory Cheesecake, the red velvet one, packs in a whopping 1500+ calories a slice!], playing games galore, losing a laptop in the airport security lines and not realizing it until we landed at our destination [thankfully it was found and is in the process of being returned] … but I think my love affair for summer is coming to an end.

Though I am sure I will be longing for it again real soon.

I certainly love the warm rays and the plentiful sunshine it offers, but I am fondly looking forward to school starting up in a couple of weeks.  I think my body, heart and mind are craving a more predictable routine and schedule.

But I am grateful for the summer that has been.  Grateful we have had a good summer, even though I haven’t been the nicest or quietest mom lately.

I am especially grateful that just a few weeks ago, my precious daughter was able to celebrate her 8th birthday.

And on that very same day, she was able to get baptized.

In the same font I got baptized in.

And her loving Grandma, my mother, made her gorgeous dress.  She even made the sash by sewing lace onto the ribbon.

Becoming More Childlike

During the most recent General Conference meeting which our Church held, my seven year old daughter, Keri, diligently took notes.  Did we ask her to do so?  No.  She made this decision all on her own.

Not only did she take notes on what the leaders had to say, but she also wrote down some of her own personal thoughts which she later shared with Rudy and me.

Choose the right.

Read the scriptures.

Follow the prophet every day.

Be nice to everybody.

Love other people.

If you want to do something fun but you have to do something else that is not fun, go and do it.

Be happy.

When somebody does something nice to you say thank you.

Be thankful.

Forgive other people.

Trust Jesus.

Don’t tell lies.

If somebody does something nice to you do something nice to them.

Teach the gospel to other people.

If you’re tempted to do something wrong don’t do it.

If you do something bad to someone say sorry.

If someone gets hurt go and help them even if you don’t know them.

If you want something and your mom says no don’t get mad.

If you need to be quiet but you want to be loud be quiet.

Don’t yell at other people.

Be a good example.

Keep a promise.

Be cheerful.

If you are at a place that you really like and somebody says that you need to go home don’t get mad.

Listen to Jesus.

Sometime go to the Temple.

Jesus loves us and Heavenly Father does too.

Have faith.

When you get a present say thank you.

There is so much I can learn from this sweet and precious child of mine.  She has such a deep and abiding testimony which inspires me to want to be a better mother to her and her siblings.

A few of the thoughts she shared also shed some light on things I need to change about my parenting behavior.  For example, I need to learn to not to shush my kids so often and I need to learn to find more ways to say “yes” to them.

**********************************************

And on a completely separate note, many people are asking me how Cory’s haircut went.  It was a raging success!  Cory even allowed them to use clippers in the beginning.  That in and of itself amazed me.

For the most part Cory sat still, ate his Skittles and watched the show they put on for him.  Of course he got a little fidgety towards the end, but then the hair stylist gave him the blow dryer to play with while she finished up and that kept him distracted.

**Cory sporting his new short look … extra short so we don’t have to get it cut for awhile.**

Since he did so well on his haircutting adventure, afterwards we went to the toy store so he could pick out a new $0.99 Matchbox police car.  Of course that is what he is clutching in his hand in the picture.

A Special Birthday Wish

To my daughter who made my dream of becoming a mother a reality …

Happy seventh birthday to someone who has taught me how to be more humble, more patient, and how to love the small and simple things in life more passionately.

I love you more than words could adequately describe.

Thanks for being such a remarkable part of my life.

All my love,

Mommy

Like Father, Like Daughter

While helping Keri with an at-home school art project, I reminded her not to forget to do something. A few minutes later, she realized on her own that she still hadn’t done what I had already reminded her to do.

She then promptly and matter-of-factly exclaimed, “Oops. I’m just like Daddy. I forgot to do something.”

I laughed pretty hard, especially when I retold the story to Rudy later.

Apparently mommy’s never forget anything .

Keri’s Nativity

 I am the first to admit I have no artistic ability at all.

None.

Zilch.

Nada.

Even the stick figures I attempt to create come out crooked. However, my six year old daughter seems to have been blessed with the artistic gene. The detail she captures when she draws never ceases to amaze me. She whipped this beauty out in one sitting.

“T” is for Tentacle

Like both of her parents, six-year-old Keri definitely seems to have a passion for learning. She recently created this little masterpiece just for fun. With pride in her voice, she eagerly told me what she drew to represent each letter sound.

I am amazed at the complexity that exists in the minds of little children.

My Halloween Pets

Have a safe and happy Halloween!

 

The Country of Rainbows

As I was driving Keri to gymnastics the other day, we saw in the distance a brilliant and vivid rainbow.

In a wondering voice Keri asked, “Which country do rainbows come from?”

We then had a little lesson about science, geography and the beauty that God has given us.