And the Verdict Is......Guilty

She was guilty of participating in the Mock Trial competition.  For the past school year, Maddie's afternoon's have been consumed by Mock Trial.  You may not know what Mock Trial is, I didn't.  Even after she came home late from school for a month, I didn't know what it was.  When she came home excited that she had been upgraded from witness to a prosecutor lawyer, I was excited for her, but I still didn't know what it was.  She was worried about it, she fretted about it, she studied for it, and she worked at it.  I still didn't really know what it was!  Finally it was time for the competition.  As I do with most of my children's activities, I attended the competition, even though I still didn't really know what it was!  After the competition, I finally knew what it was.  I had been cheering Maddie on all along, but after I finally understood what it was, I was very impressed.
For Mock Trial, the team is given a case.  They have a defendant, witnesses, and experts.  Then they present their case, the defense and prosecution to a real judge at the real county courthouse.  Each school has a prosecution and a defense.  One school runs the prosecution and another runs the defense.  They are timed so the trial doesn't go on forever.  They are allowed to object, and must defend their objections.  It was very interesting.  It was much more difficult than I anticipated as the lawyers tried to find different ways to ask the same question in a different manner, or tried to calmly explain or defend their objection.  The witnesses tried to answer the questions that placed their side of the case in a pleasant light.  It was very entertaining.  I had not thought that much about it.  It was much different from the traditional sports competition, but no less entertaining.  I enjoyed seeing the teenagers striving to improve themselves and learn to act in a professional manner.  I am grateful that Maddie was in the Mock Trial competition, and I thought that she did great!!!

A comedy of errors

And one thing just led to another until we arrived at this!

 So last week we ran into a comedy of errors.  On Sunday, I filled up the trunk with my scrapbook stuff to return home from my annual week at the Balboa house.  It was quite tightly packed, but it all fit nicely in the trunk.  On Monday, I did not unload it because I wanted to leave the stuff in the garage for a few days, but wasn't sure where to put it.  Monday afternoon, I put the checkbook for the volleyball boosters in the backseat. About 20 minutes later, I tried to get the checkbook.  It wasn't where I put it, so I started to look around.  There was too much junk in the car, so I grabbed a grocery bag and stuffed it in the trunk.  I searched the car, but could not find the checkbook.  So then I thought there might have been a small possibility that it fell in the bag that I put in the trunk.  But when I tried to open the trunk, it wouldn't open!  It was stuck.  We couldn't get through the pass through from the backseat to open it because it was too full of stuff to move anything.  There wasn't anything else we could do, so we started pulling off bolts and took the entire backseat out of the car.  It worked I was able to remove all of my scrapbook things from the trunk, and found the bag.  I was right, the checkbook had fallen in the bag.  I was greatly relieved to have found it.  But Jeff was unable to fix the trunk for 2 days, so anytime I took the kids somewhere, they had to ride in a modified back seat!  We decided it was legal because there were still seatbelts, although I can't imagine it was comfortable!

Basketball

Gabe played in his last regular season basketball game on Saturday.  He has been playing in a rec center league for the Warriors.  We have enjoyed watching him throughout the season and see him improve. 

February....so far, so good

We have had two weeks of fun around our house.  Here are a few pictures of the highlights:
Mindy played in a volleyball tournament with some friends.  They won a few and lost a few, but had a great time playing all day!  We started around 9:00 and ended around 6:00.

 Maddie went to Winter Formal with a few of her girl friends.  She looked very pretty in her dress, and had a good time.

The entire family went to visit the Eichelbergers so that we could meet the newest member, Ethan.  He is one month old.  He is very cute and very good.  He reminded me a lot of Gabe as a baby.  He looks like a newborn, and acts like a newborn, but at 11 pounds, doesn't feel like a newborn! 

For Valentines Day, we gave the kids huge Hershey Kiss chocolates.  We also wrote about the things that we love on our "moments we love" hearts.  As an added treat, I made heart shaped pizza with cheese in the crust for dinner.  They were delicious.

Philicellphia

Allie loves her science class.  This week she had a science project.  She was required to make a cell city, factory, or basically some kind of metaphor that included all the working parts of a cell.  I thought it was a great idea to cement some of the ideas of cell function for the kids.  Since Gabe was studying the same thing in his science unit, they worked on it together.  The assignment was to make a poster, but Allie wanted to do a 3D model for extra credit.  The three of us had a great time working on the project together.  I do enjoy working with Allie on projects, she is so creative and does things that I wouldn't even think of doing.  She must have a bit of Jeff's engineering mind as well, because not only does she envision something, she also can devise a way to make it just like she wants it (it usually involves tape).  I hope that she does well on her project.

A Little Bit of Magic....

Or maybe better said, A Lot of Magic.  Just before Christmas, Patrick, Maddie's boyfriend, taught Maddie to play a card game called Magic.  Since Allie and Gabe are loyal followers of Patrick (literally and figuratively), he taught the game to them as well.  They immediately loved playing the game, and begged him to bring his cards every time he came over.  After such a success, Patrick decided to give them their own starter deck for Christmas.  Over the past month, their love of the game has increased so much, that the small deck of started cards was no longer enough.  They went to the store and purchased 3 more decks of cards to use.  They have happily spent the past few days spreading out their booty, dividing the spoils into individual decks and playing to their hearts content with the different cards and their uses.

Awarded: Best Use of Flax Seed

Okay, okay, so the real award was the Best Use of Roses.  It was awarded to the Miracle Gro Float in the Rose Parade this year.  But I say the Best Use of Flax Seed because that is what Allie and I put on the float.  Yes, the day after Christmas, Allie and I headed out towards Pasadena (we actually passed it and went to a warehouse in Irwindale) and helped to decorate the Miracle Gro Float for the Rose Parade.  It was very interesting.  The float had a basic design, but every inch of the float had to be covered in something organic.  We were assigned the edges of the wheelbarrow.  We had to cover the edges in flax seed.  First we had to paint the edges with glue, then apply the flax seed.  I don't know how often you have worked with flax seed, but it is very small, light and slippery.  It was very difficult to apply to the bottom of a wheelbarrow!  We basically had to fill our hand with flax seed, then mash as much of it onto the bottom as we could.  Most of it fell off, and by the end our hands were covered in glue!  It was quite challenging, but it came out fabulous and the TV camera men zoomed in on our great flax seeds!  The flax seeds are the brown edge under the pumpkins.