Tonight was Young Womens in Excellence award night. The theme was “A Night at the Oscars” and included dinner, a movie starring the young women, and a red carpet that they walked down to receive their awards. When I got there they were having technical difficulties with the laptop that was supposed to play the movie (it was a Mac). Fortunately, I happened to have my trusty old Dell laptop with me so I whipped it out it and it worked flawlessly.
The cutest Young Woman in the world (right) with the cutest YW mom in the world (left)
Emily won an award for her “individual worth” project which was playing in a piano recital. Other Young Women won awards for pictures they took or crafts they did or service projects they helped out on. Our ward’s YW leadership does a really great job with all the Young Women and Emily really enjoys going.
Last week we went to the girls spring piano recital. Grandpa Kent and Grandma Connie were in town and able to come and the kids were excited to have them there. Caroline was up first. She played Colors of the Wind by Menken and Stuck on C by Vandall
Caroline
I generally like what their teacher does with the exception of recitals. The teacher let’s them play pieces in their recital that they haven’t fully learned. I really wish the teacher would require them to memorize their pieces and not let them play pieces that they haven’t fully prepared. I also wish the teacher would teach them to bow afterwards.
Next was Emily. She played Witch’s Dance by Hill and Song For a Princess by Miller.
Emily
I think Emily has improved significantly since the last recital. Because she’s not fond of counting, she typically does better on the types of flowing songs where a rigid rhythm isn’t as important. She’s also learning to play hymns and plays for the Young Women organization in church occasionally. I have no dreams of my kids making it to Carnegie Hall. In fact, I’ve always thought that if my kids learn well enough to play hymns in church, the lessons will have been worth it. It looks like Emily is well on her way to achieving that standard. Now I just have to figure out how to get her to memorize her songs.
Anne followed Emily and played Fur Elise by Beethoven and Dorothy by Smith.
Anne
Anne probably enjoys playing the most out of the kids and I think it shows in her progress. She does a good job of memorizing her songs. She also delights in the fact that her pieces are becoming more difficult for me to simply sight read without mistakes. Although not a child prodigy, I think she did a pretty decent job for a 10 year old.
After the recital Grandpa Kent and Grandma Connie were gracious in enduring the chatter of our excited kids as they took us out for an ice cream celebration. It was a great way to top off a fun evening.
Today was the day that Emily got her braces put in. She was definitely apprehensive about getting braces put in in the first place. She thinks she looks funny. The thing is, most of the girls in her class at school and at church have braces too. I think she looks really cute in her new braces and I hope that she will brush and take care of her teeth so they will look good when the braces finally come out.
This is when the technician was showing Emily the proper way to floss with braces I had Emily give me a big smile as we were leaving the orthodontist
We finally finished up both Emily and Anne’s science fair projects tonight. Anne did all her researcch and experimentation a few weeks ago and made her display a couple of days ago so she wasn’t rushed at the end. I forced Emily to change projects relatively late in the game so she needed every last day to finish her report and display. That being said, she has been working on the research for the last couple of weeks now so putting the final report and display together tonight wasn’t too big of a project.
Anne’s project was the same old paper towel project that we’ve done for the past two years. After the third year in a row of that project I put my foot down and said that nobody can do paper towels again. No surprising results in this project. While it probably won’t win an award it is certainly worth a good grade.
Anne’s Display
Emily’s project was “Effects of Soft Water on a Seed”. I was actually interested in doing this project with Emily to determine if watering seeds with soft water would hurt them. Emily’s project produced surprising results in that the seeds watered with soft water sprouted faster and grew faster than the hard water seeds. We were expecting soft water seeds to do worse because soft water is reputedly bad for plants due to the high salt content.
Emily’s Display
One thing that might have produced unexpected results was that the water temperature of soft water is warmer than that of hard water. This is due to the fact that soft water goes through the indoor water softener first while hard water comes in directly from outside. I think I’ll try the experiment again when I start my garden seedlings in a month or two and see if better controlling the water temperature produces a different outcome.
Overall I thought the girls both did a good job on their projects and I’m glad that we’re done for this year. Next year Emily will be in Middle School where science fair isn’t a requirement and Caroline will be in 3rd grade where it is also not a requirement. Thus, we’ll only have Anne’s project next year…
Emily’s really looked forward to her 12th birthday because she finally would graduate from Primary and join the Young Women’s organization. It’s been quite interesting thinking about her being in Young Women’s. She definitely isn’t a little girl any more. She had her interview with the Bishop and worked on Faith in God tasks right up until the last minute but was able to complete everything in time. I’m a bit disappointed in the Faith in God program for Primary girls - not the program itself but the fact that there really is no award at the end. Just a signature by the Bishop and Primary President in the back of the booklet - not even a certificate or anything else to hang on the wall. The cub scouts get beads and badges and I even had that cool looking torch where you could stick a little button on each article of faith you memorized. But the girls get nothing. Just an “atta girl” and that’s all. Nancy thinks chapels should be built with a Priesthood Room because they all have Relief Society rooms. I think primary girls should get some type of little trinket or something when they complete their Faith in God.
Emily’s birthday party was just a low-key family affair and with the YW presidency coming over to visit, and meeith with the Bishop, and getting ready for Young Women’s, I don’t think Emily minded a bit that she didn’t have a friend party. Happy Birthday to Emily and here’s hoping that the soon-to-be-upon-us teenage years can go relatively smoothly.
I have been helping Emily finish her faith in God award for Primary. One of the things she had to do was to make something and display it. So I helped her make an apron for her first ever foray into sewing. She did a great job for her first try.
I have always told my girls that they had to wait until they are twelve before they could get their ears pierced. Even though Emily won’t be twelve for a few more days, Saturday is the best day to go because there is no school and Anne can stay home and babysit. Earlier in the week I searched on the internet for places to get your ears pierced. I was definitely not going to go to a shady place in SLC so I decided on a store in the mall. So we were off to Claire’s, but what I didn’t realize was that it would be really busy because of all the Christmas shoppers. There was only one clerk in the store so we had to wait a little while until another showed up. Finally the time came to get it done. Emily was slightly nervous, but she did a great job,she only flinched a little bit when the earrings went in.
Emily and Anne had their piano recital this evening. One thing I like about this teacher is that she makes the kids memorize the pieces and she makes them bow. Both Emily and Anne did a pretty good job (a few mistakes here and there). I think they’re progressing fairly well. Now if I can only get Caroline to make progress.
Anne playing “Jericho”
NOTE: This is the first time I’ve uploaded video to the internet so we’ll see how it goes. I’m using YouTube for now so that their bandwidth is consumed and not my own; however, Nancy is fussing over the fact that the video is on YouTube - she has some fear that people will use it for nefarious purposes. We’ll see how it goes…
NOTE 2: The knocking sound is an artifact of when I transferred the video from the camera to the computer. I’ll have to mess with my video transfer settings and figure out why that is occuring.
Emily playing a sonatina
In past recitals, Grandma or Grandpa has been there and have taken the kids out for a treat afterwards. I didn’t really want to go out for a treat this time but I was the only one (I could tell Nancy was campaigning to not have to go home and make dinner) so I got outvoted. Nancy chose the place: Iceberg Drive Inn. (Yes, it’s really spelled that way). Not my favorite place but Nancy sure likes it.
I think her favorite thing about Iceberg is the the shakes. The big shake in the picture is called a “mini-shake”. I would hate to see what the large size looks like…
Emily turned eleven on Tuesday December 12th. We celebrated by going to Leatherby’s for dinner and ice cream. The kids had lots of fun and made a big mess of themselves. Afterwards we went home and Emily opened her presents. She was happy to finally get a tomagachi like her sister Anne. Now they both can play with those little electronic pets to their hearts content. Emily also got the game of LIFE and a couple of barbie dolls.
Emily had trouble answering one of her homework questions for math class: “What is more accurate: a measurement given in centimeters or a measurement given in millimeters?”
The author of this question made the classic mistake of confusing precision and accuracy. Precision is about being well defined while accuracy is about correctness. The unit in which a measurement is given has nothing to do with its accuracy (unless the unit is incorrect of course).
Take, for example, the question “What is the value of pi?” An answer of “2.78495718397583711985″ would be very precise but not accurate. An answer of “3.14″ would be accurate but not necessarily precise. The amount of precision needed depends upon who’s asking the question. If your math teacher asks you “What is the value of pi?” then the answer “3.14″ would be accurate and precise enough for the situation. However, if a NASA engineer is calculating orbits for the space shuttle and asks you for the value of pi, “3.14″ is probably not going to cut it. Space shuttle orbits require significantly more precision, say, 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510
What? NASA engineers aren’t regularly asking you for the value of pi? Well, it must just be you, buddy, because I’ve got NASA engineers calling me night and day wanting to know the value of pi. It’s a good thing I know all about precision and accuracy.
So, in answer to the question “What is more accurate: a measurement given in centimeters or a measurement given in millimeters?”, I had Emily write the following:
“Neither. A measurement given in millimeters may be more precise but not necessarily more accurate.”
I then wrote a little explanatory paragraph below her answer:
“Emily’s Dad thinks this is a poor question because it confuses the concepts of precision and accuracy”.
Who knows, maybe Emily’s teacher is a former NASA engineer and will appreciate an answer like that? Now, if we can just get Emily through fractions we’ll be making good progress…
