Seventeen Years Ago Today . . .

I became a Mom! Rebecca has been such a joy all these years. Here's a little video of her right after she was born.

Rebecca's First Birthday @ Yahoo! Video

Seventeen years later, she gets to celebrate her birthday by having a mid-term exam in her college class. She is taking it in stride, though. It will be a low-key family celebration tonight with her favorite caramel cake for dessert.

Let the Games Begin!

From Vancouver Olympics

I love this quote from World Magazine about the Olympics:

"Ah, the glory of the Winter Olympics: A chance for ordinary people to sip cocoa while watching sports far too expensive and daredevilish for them ever to play. A chance for the Swedes to finally show those smug Norwegians whose is the greatest country on earth. A chance for America's men to reconnect with their forgotten love of figure skating . . . if their women have anything to say about it."

Well, we didn't get a free trip to these Olympics, but we are enjoying them nonetheless. We've got our Panasonic plasma and hot cocoa!

I love seeing the games in HD! My favorite parts of the opening ceremonies were the opening scene with all the scenery from Canada (a very beautiful country, I might add)

From Vancouver Olympics

the flaming Maple Leaf in the snow, the shots of the stadium with everyone wearing white

From Vancouver Olympics

And the "sheet thingy" with the skiers and the skaters:

From Vancouver Olympics

I wish the parade of athletes was a little bit shorter (it was much easier when the Soviet Union was still together), but I can't really complain - those folks have done the work to be there! But for this part of the ceremony, I'm glad to be on my easy chair instead of in the stadium.

Watching the Olympics is bringing back lots of great memories for us. We will be doing our traditional unit study this week - this time studying the geography, history and culture of Canada, doing reports on winter sports, reading inspirational stories of athletes (including the stories on One Winter, Five Dreams featured by Panasonic, and, of course, watching the Olympics on our plasma with a roaring fire in the fireplace and plenty of hot chocolate and popcorn.

"Academy Awards"

I know the nominations are now in for this year's Academy Awards, but the winners of our local theater's acting awards were announced at a banquet last week. Rebecca won the award for best high school actor, and Noah won for the best K-8th grade actor! Their main competition consisted of fellow "siblings" from the "Cheaper by the Dozen" cast - including one of their real-life siblings, Nathan.

The awards came as a big surprise, so there were no speeches!

From Vancouver Olympics