Mood:  celebratory

Well the school year is winding down now.  Chelsea definitely has senioritis - can't wait for the school year to end.  She is state treasurer for HOSA - Health Occupational Students of America.  This is the first year for the state chapter and they had a convention at the school.  Students came in from Toledo, Kent, Columbus, Dayton and elsewhere.

 I was asked to fill in as one of the judges for Medical photography.  I was glad that I did it. Although I am very much an amateur, I have picked up enough to recognize what makes a good picture.  The girl that won it had the best picture - it captured a moment.  A fellow had had a stroke and had asked to have solid food for the first time instead of a feeding tube. The nurse was helping him eat a cracker and had a hand on his throat to help him swallow. She had a look of concern on her face and the patient had a look of determination. A fellow judge said that it was Norman Rockwell scene.  At the awards ceremony she was beaming when she walked back to her seat with a first place medal.  So it was rewarding to be a part of that.

Chelsea was on a biomedical debate team arguing whether the US is prepared for a biological attack or not. Her team won, saying that the US is not ready - hard to argue that assumption.  She gets to go to the national convention in Florida. Should be a good time for her.

Joe's grades are finally inching up. Still is struggling with algebra, but the remainder of his grades are actually pretty good, A's B's and a C.   I think he got behind in math early and just couldn't catch up.  Also Chad has 'helped' Joe by giving him his old Dodge Dart.  It has a V8 engine, so the gas and insurance will be expensive, not exactly the kind of first car I envisioned for Joe, but I don't want to temper his enthusiasm.  He has been doing some work on it - installed a new carbeurator(sp) and so forth.

Chad has been having Joe stay over the past couple of weekends to help do some work around his place. I like to see the two sons getting along, but miss having the extra labor on the homestead. Oh, Joe got to compete in the last track meet.  He did better than his last meet where he missed the call for the 200m dash! He was 7th in his heat this go round and didn't place in the long jump. We are hoping that they do the triple jump again at Madison on Thursday, hopefully he can repeat his performance from the first track meet.

Speaking about the homestead, we are expanding our livestock operation - adding some chickens and pigs. I was talking with farmers and with corn going higher because of ethanol, the price of meat will have to go up to compensate.  So we will be growing more to keep our costs down. Plus we are raising extra so that we can share it with the Deeters and with Chad and Sarah. 

 Chad and Sarah are having regular meetings with the midwife. I joked to Sarah that her belly has almost caught up to mine! His place is looking nice - lawn well taken of, and he had Joe tear down an old shed at the back of the property. The garden is planted. They have it all looking nice. The garage as one can imagine is crammed full - but well organized.  Once they get ahead, I can see them putting up a pole barn with a good portion devoted to a shop and the remainder for storage.

Little Elaina had tubes put in her ears - just had bout after bout with ear infections, which seems to be a family trait.  Vanessa reports that she is doing well after the procedure. All is going well South of the Ohio River. Vanessa did make a casual inquiry on a property and now they are deluged with real estate proposals. But they are not ready to take the plunge yet. 

Posted by christ77 at 11:37 AM EDT

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Mood:  mischievious

Joe had his FFA banquet last night, he was one of the freshmen selected to help out behind the scenes. He operated a spot light during the presentations and awards cermonies.  Dinner was great, an inch thick pork chop was the main course. He got his greenhand pin for first year FFA students.  He was on the FFA basketball team.  His defense was fair, but offense needs some work.

 I am trying to get Joe to work on his grades and since he likes hunting so much, told him that we would go Turkey hunting in April during the youth season.  He has an interest in going, so hopefully that will give him some extra incentive.  I also gave warning that if his grades were not good next fall that he can forget about deer hunting.

 Chelsea is having a busy spring. She was made state treasurer for HOSA - Health Occupation Students of America.  This is the first year so she is helping to get this organized. I gave her some tips on fund raising, etc.  So we shall see how all this works out for her.

 She will be doing some travelling this spring.  Trip number one is the senior girl scouts going to Cedar Point for a weekend.  Then in June she goes to the National HOSA convention in Orlando Florida for a week. Then she travels back to Charleston SC where she will meet us for our SC vacation.  This year we are going deep seas fishing, so that should be a good time.

Vanessa has Elaina in a day care facility now. She was not happy with the friend who was babysitting.  The first day seems to have gone well.

Chad has help at his shop. He was a one man band and was falling behind - putting in tons of hours.  Now he has help and so he is freed up on the weekends. Sarah got a job thru a temp agency and is working for National City Mortgage.  We will be taking them out to eat this weekend.

Posted by christ77 at 2:56 PM EDT

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Mood:  a-ok

chelsea and I visited Ohio State. It is the last of the colleges that she is visiting for the time being. The campus is big of course. The first test is finding the admissions office. They guide you thru the middle of campus and you have to follow all the arrows and twists and turns.  I guess this is how they weed out the weak ones.  I did get a kick out of seeing signs for Woody Hayes drive. On the way out we had a copy of the campus map and were able to navigate back out with just two turns!

 The campus is impressive - huge recreational area, multi-level with rows of exercise equipment. 6 swimming pools. Tons of student activities.  We ate at the Eddie George bar and grill for lunch.  She still prefers Wright State, liked the atmosphere there better and during the visit they actually took her into several of the labs and so she got to see their equipment. They did not do that at Ohio State. 

 During the ending stages of our visit they talked over majors with Chelsea and this other boy who was interested in the same college. He was interested in being like a park ranger. The brochure showed that major with a starting salary that averaged $25k. With tuition + board averaging about $15k per year, it would take a long time to pay off those student loans.  Chelsea said that she couldn't see going into such a low paying field like he was doing.

 Joe is going up and down academically. He shows two low grades in progress book.  After having a good grading period last time we rewarded him with a little more time on the computer. So we will have to back off on the computer time and also ground him until he gets things straightened out. Track practiced has started, he is moaning and groaning about being achy from the workouts.

Vanessa is still enjoying her work at the hospital. Chad is still doing OK at work. Lots of overtime. The midwife is coming out to their house for the first time this week.

Posted by christ77 at 9:03 AM EST

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Well Chelsea's season is over. Basketball wise it started with a bang as she scored 11 points. But had some rough stretches. She had some other games where she scored 7-9 points, but others where she struggled to get a bucket. Still the team ended with a 12-8 regular season record - the first winning record in about 8 years and the most wins in since way back.  So she got to be a part of that. Did beat South and helped contribute in that game. Her best game of the season occured when I was in the hospital with gall bladder surgery. So I was sorry to miss that game.

 On the plus side, she learned to be independant.  Had to be responsible and do her own homework, get to practice, etc. So that was a positive. This weekend we go to Ohio State to visit their campus. Chelsea is still leaning towards something in the biology field.

Posted by christ77 at 6:30 PM EST

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Well it certainly was an interesting weekend.

 Chelsea's baskeball team upset Arcanum. Then prank called Arcanum's star player afterwards. Sort of rubbing salt in the wounds.

Joe's birthday is on the 12th, but he wanted to celebrate the weekend before.  The celebration was playing paintball in the snow.  With the cold there was problems with paintball guns jamming and paintballs acting flaky. Still the boys seemed to have a good time. 

 Then Vanessa decided to drop in unannounced from Louisville. What a surprise. But a nice surprise. We were scheduled to meet Sarah's mother for lunch on Sunday anyway, so we all went.  It was a good time.  Baby Elaina had a good time with all the attention. After eating we made a quick stop at Chad's to see the ultra sound of the new baby.  Did get to see an arm move. Too early to tell if it will be a boy or a girl. I guess that if it is a boy it gets a Tilton surname, if it is a girl it gets her last name. If they were to get married, then Sarah mentioned that she would keep her last name.

 Becky got to play with the baby quite a bit Sunday evening before Eric and Vanessa left. Elaina was playing with her hair and laughing and coo'ing. I think that it helped pick up her spirits. When Chad and Sarah's baby arrives then Becky should be able to spend more time with the little one - that should help her keep her spirits up.

Posted by christ77 at 8:59 AM EST

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Mood:  a-ok

Well Chelsea's team had the first winning season at North in 20 years according to the coach. Their 10th win was against South on senior night. Chelsea did not score, but did have some assists and rebounds. We were worried going into the game. What if North lost, or North won, but  Chelsea did not contribute. The move to North would not have looked like a good idea. But things turned out pretty good. Chelsea did have a rough foul, she boxed out Bambeck early when she drove in for a layup and knocked Bambeck to the floor. She was out for the rest of the quarter. The team won their 11th game in a pretty ugly game over Carlisle.  So at worst they will end the regular season 11-9. Their last game is against a tough Arcanum team that has a girl with a college scholarship on it. So getting win number 12 will be tough.

 We visited Wright State and Chelsea was impressed with their biology facilities. She liked the campus in general too.  She still wants to do Sinclair and transfer to Wright State. I would rather she just do all four years at Wright State.  Anyway the two schools have a transfer agreement, so that is bonus - she won't lose too many credits.  We visit Ohio State at the end of the month. While at Wright State the advisor let slip that Miami has a good biology department.  Chelsea only is allowed two college visits. So we might go visit them in May when they let the seniors out early.

Her senior project got high ratings and so she will probably be selected to go to Sinclair for some sort of science fair type competition. She is also going to Louisville to compete in some sort of science competion. So she is having a good senior year scholastically.

Took Chad and Sarah out to eat at the Mexican restaraunt in Eaton.  We will start doing this once a month. Since Chad got the new job and new house, he hasn't been around our place as much. So it is a way to get together and chat, plus give them a night out. Sarah seems to be doing OK although she was fighting a cold. She was supposed to get an ulta-sound, but I don't know if they would be able to tell the sex of the baby yet.

 Joe's grades popped up at the end of the semester.  We have a challenge for him to get his grades even higher. I told him that I would get him an ipod if he gets a 3.0 in the last semester. He seems to be making an honest effort. He made Chelsea a very nice easel for displaying her poster board. Then it turned out she was going to display her poster laying down flat! I told Joe that it was too nice to just tear apart. So we will store it in the barn.

Vanessa is supposed to come up and visit in the new few weeks. Elaina has had to fight off an ear infection. But is OK now. They had to change baby sitters, so that was a hassle. She has started her new job at the hospital. So far so good. She said that she gets to see all sorts of people and that it fun to see all the babies in the maternity ward.

Posted by christ77 at 7:23 AM EST

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Chelsea has had a good couple of games 9 points and 4 points. Got yelled at a little bit at the NT game.  Lots of other folks make mistakes, but she seems to have a low tolerance for Chelsea. They had a quiz team competion at Northmont this weekend.  Chelsea's team won against TCN of all teams. They were close in several other matches, and were competitive. She found out that the other teams practice more than they do and are really organized.  So for winging it, they did OK.

Vanessa may have that job at the hospital after all. It will mean $1.50 more on the hour and a better shot at advancement. She thinks that the healthcare field may be the direction that she wants to go.

Posted by christ77 at 7:13 AM EST

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Some things don't change. Could not find my good ratchet the other day. Both Chad and Joe denied using it. I went thru the barn and could not find it anywhere. Giving up, I went and bought a nice one to replace it. Sure enough, Chad shows up a week later and apologized - I found it in my pick up truck and must have forgotten that I had put it there.  Arrgh.

Chad and Sarah plan to go to South Carolina with us this summer. So we are trying to get that trip planned now.

 Joe got his deerskin from the first deer. The tanner did a good job. Found out that grandpa Jack had his made into a nice vest - for only $15 in the 60's.  It cost 90$ just to get it tanned. 

Chelsea had a so-so game against Miami East, they were a very good team. We are arranging visits to Ohio State and Wright State here in the spring.

 Vanessa was sick over the weekend. She was back at work on Monday. Not happy with her job, she does a few hours worth of work, then has to hunt for work the remainder of the day.  Elaina is a roller - she likes roll to get a toy instead of crawl.  So Vanessa thinks that she may go straight to walking.

Posted by christ77 at 11:43 AM EST

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Mood:  down

Chelsea had one of best games of the year defensively.  It was a close game at halftime, but the taller TV team began to work the ball inside in the third quarter. They went on like a 10 point run. They put Chelsea into the game and she clogged up the middle pretty well.  She had like three blocked shots and had a nice steal for a basket. The other girl got the rebound and raised the ball above her head for an outlet pass. Chelsea was behind her and cherry picked the ball out of her hands and laid it in for an easy basket. 

 So that took away the other teams inside game, the North team pressed and was able to make headway, but couldn't close the gap by the end of the game. If the game would have lasted another 3 minutes the team may have been able to complete a come back.

Posted by christ77 at 8:47 AM EST

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