fri, 3/12...day 71

It was the much-anticipated Pi Day in Niall's class at school today! Not the real Pi Day, clearly, which is 3/14 (aka 3.14). But since that's on a Sunday this year, they celebrated on the Friday before. All the kids got these very cool Pi shirts, which Niall was proudly wearing when I picked him up from Extended Day.

They did all kinds of fun pi-related activities (like measuring radii and circumferences of enormous string circles on the floor and figuring out the formulas for area), building up to the Main Event which was seeing how many digits of pi each child could recite. There were prizes for various numbers of digits (starting at 10 digits) - Niall got up to 26, based on spending one evening at Grandma's memorizing digits (then he kind of lost interest). Some kids made it to 50 or even 60.

But the ultimate goal was to reach 100 digits, with the prize being teacher Alice dressing up like a chicken and letting the child throw a pie in her face. And for the first year ever, one of the kids made it to (and past!) 100! Very exciting all around. Eugene enjoyed making a whip cream pie and "pie-ing" Alice with it, while the other kids hooted and hollered.

I wonder if Niall will be motivated to memorize a few more digits next year and perhaps earn the honor of pie-ing Alice himself? He's perfectly capable of it, but there are so many *interesting* things to learn, he didn't feel like adding all those digits into his head. Or...not this year anyway. :-)

thu, 3/11...day 70

I was happy to see my eldest this afternoon. Though I was working and he was busy on his laptop most of the time, it was nice to just have the time together.

It's a bit of a snapshot of my "organized disorder" on my desk at work too. Fewer Post-it notes than usual, actually, because I cleaned out a bunch of them the other day. :-)

wed, 3/10...day 69

Cory's class went on an all-day field trip to the Pacific Science Center today, to see a laser light show (which had a Star Wars aspect, much to Cory's delight) and a planetarium show.

Inbetween events, the kids explored the Science Center, which is always great fun. This photo (taken by Theo's mom Anne and posted straight to Facebook :-) is of Cory and classmates Charlotte and Theo.

tue, 3/9...day 68

From my Facebook status today: "Thinking of how amazing it is to connect and reconnect on this magical Internet/Facebook place, and also how sad it is to lose someone you've formed a whole new friendship with this way. Rest in peace, Pete."

Pete Holm - father of one of my best childhood friends, Narayani - passed away yesterday from a heart attack, while he was out hiking. I didn't know him well when Nari and I were children, but all these years later on Facebook, we connected and became friends. We shared a common outlook on healthcare reform and striving for patience and kindness in our lives. I enjoyed his many posts about his political passions and his hiking and camping trips, often with friends and family.

His loss really hit me hard. That someone could be here, posting away as usual one day, and then...simply gone. And he was my dad's age, which makes it all the more shocking. I will really miss his regular updates and sharing back and forth.

mon, 3/8...day 67

As we drive down the hill to the street we live on, you can catch a glimpse of the Olympic mountains through the trees. At least you can for now - until those trees grow a bit more!

You can also see the top of the water tower that's next to where Niall & Cory used to have swimming lessons. The boys get a big kick out of being able to see it peeking just above the trees and knowing how big it is when you're right next to it.

Tonight as we turned onto 160th, the sunset created a beautiful glow and I had to stop to take a quick photo of a very pretty version of this familiar sight.

sun, 3/7...day 66

My cute youngest on a bike ride with me around the block. Love getting out of the house and taking a brisk walk, now that the younger boys can ride their bikes and enjoy the outing as well.

We started off with Niall on his bike too, but he was being such an ornery pill, I sent him back to the house (Tynor was home) after the first few minutes.