Easter dinner with Ken's clan

It was fun to get together for a dinner with Ken's family. Gabriel was star of the show since he's the newest member.

Smiling at Aunt Rachel

Mmmm good

Grandma Polly with Gabriel

Grandpa sure enjoys his grandkids!

Maker Festival

To quote the lead-in sentence of the GT's article about the Maker Festival, MAKERSPACE COMES TO LIBRARY AND DRAWS DELIGHTED CREATORS:

"One of the activities at the Corvallis-Bention County Library's first Makers Festival event was a programmable computer chip attached to red, yellow and green lights.

"Ken Olsen, a software technician at Hewlett-Packard Co. who brought the device, let visitors to the festival try to program it to flash in time, like a traffic light. While he was away, someone not only programmed the light, but also pulled up images in the software of a car and programmed it so the car moved on screen when the light was green.

"Olsen said he didn't even know who programmed it, but "that's the kind of thing I live for." Ken said the boy who did it came back the next day and told him he was the one.

The second day Ken brought his train and let kids play with that.

He had lots of charts and visual aids set up. Plus he answered lots of questions.

Ken showed off his pinewood derby entry!

The bubble making machine was popular.

The end of the GT article quotes him again:

"Olsen, who brought some of his personal projects to the Makers Festival, will be working with the "Make it!" teen program in its May 6 event. Olsen brought a few other homemade creations, such as a motion-sensing bubble blower.

"Olsen said seeing kids excited to learn makes participating in programs like this worth it for him. Olsen's dad was an industrial engineer at Oregon State University, and Olsen said getting to do things like play games on the mainframe in the university's lab were influential to him when he was younger."

Battle of the Books

Today Sydney's Battle of the Books team participated in the regional meet. Sydney was the most colorful person on the team! They were an awesome team. They practiced during the lunch hour and knew the books backwards and forwards. I was proud of them for how hard they worked and the enjoyment they got out of the books they read and their feeling of comradery on the team.

I was also super proud of Brenda for organizing the Battle of the Books at the Errol Hassell Elementary School. Maia's team did very well also.

If you want to read some good books for next year's battle, these are the ones for the Elementary School level:

Abraham Lincoln: A Nonfiction Companion to Magic Tree House #47: Abe Lincoln at Last! by Mary Pope Osborne.
Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich
Clementine by Sara Pennypacker
Eleven by Patricia Reilly Giff
Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins
Into the Firestorm: a Novel of San Francisco, 1906 by Deborah Hopkinson
The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
Who was Neil Armstrong? by Robert Edwards

For Grades 6 to 8:

Magyk by Angie Sage
Middle School: the Worst Years of my Life by Jens Patterson
Night of Howling Dogs by G. Salisbury
Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt
Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi
Uglies by Scott Westerfield
Wildwood by Colin Meloy

Happy Reading! I love childrens' books.

I volunteer at the Adams School Library 3 mornings a week for an hour helping Kinders and 1st graders find books, check them out, check them in, and shelve them. It's a lot of fun! This year was Adams School's first year with Battle of the Books and it was very successful.

Gabriel's blessing day

We went to Sweet Home to see our little great grandson, Gabriel blessed. Jeff gave him a beautiful blessing His full name is Gabriel Cleveland Goodwin. Cleveland is Polly's Dad's middle name.

Reading to Annabelle

I think Gabriel is going to have reddish hair.

Ken and Polly's posterity

After sacrament meeting we went over to their house which is nice and new. They had a marvelous lunch--German vegetables and Mediterranean salad.