Random recent stuff....

This one is just for Mum and Dad-looks like Mad Pat has been up at the school!!!!!  It was teacher appreciation week and someone thought it was appropriate to plant these flamingos.  God, how I hate these things!!!!

Just had to take this photo of our "double decker" cats

School is ending and projects are coming home.  Maggie made this ugly pot, I can remember when Ben made his-is it really three years ago already?

Maggie has been really busy recently.  She does gymnastics on a Monday night, Girls on the Run on Tuesday and Thursday nights, Girl Scouts on every other Wednesday, and softball in between.  We did the GOTR run last Saturday and we did pretty well, although nothing like as good as last year.

We did find another St. Louis 250 cake when we were done running though.  This is #4

This is Maggie's first year doing softball, but she is doing pretty well.  Jan and Julie have been spending a lot of time working with her on hitting the ball.  She played as catcher the other day, she looked very professional

She also did the Mini Gymnastics at SLGC

Even though I was despairing over my garden, some things are coming back slowly.  My English bluebells have been lovely this year.  However, I figured out very quickly that they don't so well as cut flowers!!!!

Science at school

Ben has loved science class this year. He may not be getting good grades in it, but he loves the class and the teacher.  He really likes the fact that the teacher and I work in a similar field and he talks to her all the time about what I do.  I went on my first class field trip a few weeks ago when I went over to SLU to do the heart dissection.  Recently, I gave the school a bunch of pipet tips for them to use in class and Ben's teacher sent me a couple of pictures of the kids using them.

Mother's Day 2014

While I was away......

Even though I was only away for a week, I missed two firsts in the Sylar family.  First, Maggie had her first softball game of the season.  Doesn't she look cute in her uniform????

She played short stop at one of her games. I think she looks very professional, but I think she hated playing that position.  How did I get that feeling?  By the way she yelled "WHAT?????  Why do I have to do it?" after the coach told her to get suited up!!!!

The other first was that Ben mowed Caroline's grass for the first time.  Sam has been threatening to make him mow our lawn for a while, but our mower may be a little too heavy for him.  Sam has settled for him mowing Caroline's grass for now, we'll see what next year brings....

Trip to San Diego

I think everyone knows how much I love San Diego.  Some people have answered "oh, I couldn't live there, I'd miss the seasons"  Really?  You'd miss the brutal Winters and sweltering in the red hot Summer?????"  Not me-give me 70 degrees and sunny every day.  However, on this 6 day trip, we went from 50 to 93 degrees-I think that's a good enough season swing for anyone!!!!  Took this couple of pics the first day we were there, you can see how cloudy it was and it even rained a little bit

This was taken from the top of the Convention Center, our crazy hotel is on the right.  We had some very interesting stories after staying at this hotel.  I think we (John) picked it because it was a little cheaper than some of the others, but across the street from the Convention Center.  However, it should NEVER be listed as a meeting hotel.  First, they messed our room reservation up and Shannon and I were in a room with a single bed.  They brought us a roll away bed, but it was horrible and Shannon had a sleepless night.  When I asked about moving rooms, they told me they had nothing available.  Eventually, Shannon said she was going to talk to them and she read them the riot act.  Amazingly, they found us a room!!!!

Our new room was overlooking the pool, where they had a huge drunkfest on Sunday afternoon!!!!  What a contrast in one place-conference attendees and people passing out in one hotel!!!!  Luckily, the party was over at 7 and they cleared everyone out immediately, but it was quite an interesting afternoon.

Shannon and I went to tour Midway on Monday afternoon, it was really interesting to see.  I can't imagine being on it out in the middle of the ocean.

We found this huge statue on the Embarcadero

Oh, we did some work too (actually, we did A LOT of work!!).  Janhavi even flew down to see us, it was great to see her after so long

Great article about St. Louis

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/21/st-louis-reasons-to-love_n_4993763.html

Ben's latest band concert

We went to Ben's band concert right before I left for San Diego.  They really do a great job together.  I wasn't going to tape any of it, but couldn't resist Phantom of the Opera...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPtjFr-Lqbk&feature=youtu.be