Wow! What a week!

What a crazy week--it started off with DJ's dad's funeral--he passed away last week, and everyone came in to see him and be there for the funeral. We had 3 of the Seattle Risks staying at our home, and we had a blast. DJ and crew went to the water park every day, went on two desert hikes (and only got lost on one), captured some freaky kind of tadpole from the springs on the San Andreas fault line, and stayed up WAY past everyone's bed time. Reagan's already planning her way into traveling to visit her Seattle cousins again.


Everyone left on Monday, and Tuesday was the RIMS district science fair--that's the Riverside, San Bernardino, and two other county sci fair (for you non-California types, the population of that area is close to 5 million people). Because we had all those pictures from this summer, and we wanted the judges to know that our kids had done the projects themselves, we had built a digital picture frame into each of the board. Given the electrical requirements, DJ went up to make sure the projects were set up correctly, but the kids wanted to ride the bus up with the other kids from our district. While he was waiting, the person from the school district asked if he wanted to judge the 4th grade projects at the fair. DJ jumped at the chance--he had a wonderful time and enjoyed talking to the other judges. He saw Reagan and Tre' talking to the judges and giving their presentations. They both seemed to have extra interviews.

The next day was the awards ceremony. We got there, looked at the projects, then found some seats. First the organization went through some special awards--Reagan got one of three awards for outstanding solar research and Tre' got an award from CREEC (which has environmental education somewhere in there). Next came the actual placing. Reagan was disappointed with her Silver, but Tre' got gold, which means he gets to go on to the State Science Fair next month. He's so excited--

The next day Reagan got a letter letting her know that she was accepted to Tech Trek, a summer science camp at University of California Irvine campus; the fee is covered by a local women's organization that tries to "inspire" young women to go into math and the sciences. Her regret over Tre's gold and her silver was washed away.

Later that day we left for the Taylor Swift concert--that's what she got for Christmas. We were on the floor, and as we looked over to the celebrity section, we saw Kobe Bryant, Katy Perry, Jake Gyllenhaal (sp?), Justin Timberlake...wow--we were in the place to be Thursday night in LA. Reagan had a great time, waving her glow stick, jumping up and down, etc. All of a sudden, the lights focused on the stairwell leading down to our section, and there she was. She walked down and 2 feet from our chairs did another set. You can see the picture below. Reagan's the blue glowstick waving frantically (you can see the bracelets she wears all the time).


After the set, she went back front and did a set with Katy Perry (Reagan was able to touch both Taylor Swift's and Katy Perry's hands as they went up front). We got home at almost 3 am--and went to school and work in the morning. I may get my hearing back in the next month or so. 15,000 screaming girls tend to do bad things to your hearing.