Catching Up

Wow - it's been a long time since I posted so I'm going to try to get caught up a little. I constantly think about things that I want to post but then I never seem to get around to it.

I can't believe it's the second week in July already! Where is time going? Jenny and I went to Cancun in June for a mom-daughter, high school graduation gift get away and it was amazing!

Jenny swam with the dolphins

Both of us had an oportunity to swim with the Whale Sharks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_shark

< -- (Picture from the internet)

Underwater picture taken by Jenny -->

We took a zip line jungle tour (this isn't one of us but it gives you an idea of what we did)

We rode segways

     

We spent a day at Wet n' Wild, this is Jenny on the big body slide.

We drank some Tequila

We haggled over prices at the flee market and .....

had a wonderful time enjoying the beautiful water, the perfect weather and the terrific service and entertainment at the all-inclusive Cancun Palace Resort.

And the rest of the story - 

 

Sam was busy this past spring playing baseball in the Frederick Babe Ruth league. 

He had the opportunity to play with two different teams within the league. A 13 year old prep team as well as a 14-15 year old team. A few of the 13 year olds were given the chance to play with the older boys and Sam was one of them. Most of the time he could be found covering 2nd base or short-stop. Although a couple of times he was spotted in the right field position as well. Unfortunately neither team made it into the final game of the playoffs but they had a good season nonetheless.

Jenny is continuing to work at Five Guys as well as getting ready for Penn State in the fall. She was able to purchase a student season ticket for all of the home Penn State football games ... a difficult thing to accomplish in past seasons but they've changed the process a little this year making it a little easier. We heard from Penn State this week that she will be able to receive 19 credits as a result of AP exams that she took in high school. Good job Jenny.


Sarah is working for Borders and finalizing her plans to study abroad this fall. She'll be attending the University of Cairo in Egypt for four months beginning the end of August. What a wonderful experience this will be for her. I think the most difficult part may be how to get 4 months of stuff in two 50lb suitcases. Ugh! Airline restrictions. I'd love to be able to visit her while she's there but I'm not sure if I can make that happen.

Happy Birthday Sarah!

Wow Sarah, can you believe it, 20 years old today. I'm going to have to change my profile on blogger now that I'm the mom of only 2 teenagers. It's a shame that you have to take a final exam on your birthday :( You're almost done your second year at St. Mary's and then you're heading off to Cairo, Egypt for the fall semester. What an experience that will be. I'm so proud of you and I wish you all the happiness in the world and success in the future.

I love you!

Happy Birthday Jenny!

18 years old! I can't believe how fast these 18 years have gone by. You're about to graduate from high school and begin your college career in Engineering at Penn State in the fall. I'm so proud of you and I wish you all the happiness in the world and success in the future.

I love you!

Cancun Vacation Plans

Well, Jenny and I (more me than her I think) are monitoring the swine flu situation very closely. As some of you may or may not be aware, she and I have a vacation planned for her graduation gift, to Cancun beginning on June 6th. In addition to the CDC and the WHO websites, I've been following a couple of blogs written by Cancun locals. Check them out yourselves if you'd like. They've been very helpful and informative.

http://dangers.cancuncasa.com

http://www.cancuncanuck.com

Susan Boyle

This was an article written by a gentleman in SanFrancisco about Susan Boyle's performance on "Britains' Got Talent". If you not seen her performance, please, please check it out here. All I have to say is WOW!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY



"Susan Boyle: Just Who Is The Singer Susan Boyle?

Unless you live under a rock, you know about the Scottish woman who has taken the industrialized World by storm: Susan Boyle.

Ms. Boyle, who appeared on a reality TV show called "Britains' Got Talent" last Saturday, April 11th and wowed a cynical audience and the judges, including the irascible Simon Cowell (also of American Idol) with her powerful performance of "I Dream A Dream" from Les Miserable has took the World by Internet storm.

What surprised millions - and does not make a great statement about our World industrial culture but is a great example of the power of online video distribution as the video has been seen over 15.9 million times on YouTube (I counted over 10 videos with over 200,000 views) as of this writing - is that someone who looks like her could sing like that.

But who Susan Boyle is as a person is a story of a good simple woman winning over a bad, complicated society. Ms. Boyle is 48 years old, unemployed, and she says never married or "kissed" which means she's a virgin. I do not laugh here because I think of her more as pure rather than question anyone's desire for her or perceived lack of same.
The Worldwide sensation lives in her childhood home in West Lothian, one of 32 council areas in Scotland, and which has Grapevine, Texas as its sister city according to Wikipedia, meaning they can claim her too.

Ms. Boyle cared for her mother until the elder Boyle's passing in 2007 at the age of 91; her father passed away 10 years before. Living alone, Susan attends church each weekend and it was there that her singing talent developed, and where her late mother encouraged her to sing, but Boyle had reportedly stopped singing and did not know how she would do on that Saturday night she shocked the World.

Susan's life has not been one without pain. Sadly, she was starved of oxygen at birth and has a learning disability because of the accident. Ms. Boyle says she was abused and teased by classmates, and reportedly the scars of their comments remain to this day.
What I identify with about Ms. Boyle is, I myself having lost two fathers (my stepfather and my biological dad) to prostate cancer in 2005, and the same year my Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer (she's still with me), one becomes painfully aware of their own mortality, that of others, and the desire to "make one's mark" becomes ever intense. Susan Boyle's stirring song was as much a testimate to the power of the human sprit and a form of grieving as it was a display of talent. Susan wanted to make her mom smile, but in doing so made mothers all over the World smile -- my Mom called and said Boyle was the next Julie Andrews.

So, in a World of nasty pirates, mean internet commenters, and crazy right-wing extremists, we have to stop and embrace Susan Boyle for making us smile."

Final Fall Plans

The offer for admission has been accepted - Jenny will be heading to Schreyer Honors College at Penn State in the fall.

She's still trying to decide whether or not to audition for the Penn State Blue Band. She was very fortunate to receive a good bit of scholarship money that is dependent on her GPA and she doesn't want her committment to the band to interfer with her academics. So ... that's still up in the air.

As for Sarah's plans - the deposit has been paid for her study abroad semester in Egypt so she'll be heading there for 4 months beginning in August sometime.

Update on college happenings

Jenny and I have traveled to Penn State University today so that she can participate in the Society of Women Engineers Stay Over.  They invited accepted female students for the fall 2009 semester to come to the college and stay tonight and tomorrow night and experience the  college first hand. I understand that there are 120 female engineering students here this weekend. They have events planned out for them over the next two days including going to a women's basketball game, attending a freshman engineering class and some type of social event tomorrow night.  The weekend will conclude Saturday morning with a breakfast at the Atherton Hotel (which is where I'm staying) and then open house activities the remainder of the day for all of the accepted engineering students and their families.

The next big piece of news is that Sarah has been accepted to the American University of Cairo, in Egypt, for the fall 2009 semester.  How exciting.  Now we just need to figure out how to get her there and most importantly how to pay for it.   You can check out the college at the website below.  You'll probably need to copy and past the link into your browser, it doesn't look clickable.

 

http://www.aucegypt.edu/intstudents/pages/default.aspx