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JANUARY - A quiet January in the Derrickson house. Sam has started back to school and doing very well. |
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FEBRUARY - February also very quiet. Sam has started basketball both at the YMCA and at Skyway. He loves to play.
Sam also crossed over from Weblos II to Boy Scouts. This will be a whole new journey for us and we are so looking forward to the transition. |
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MARCH - This month was the last Pinewood Derby for Pack I. The boys volunteered to give up their design trophys to the younger scouts and
do the judging for the competition. Sam's final car won 2nd place in the speed category. He was pleased. Hockey wrapped up this month. Finally!! No more hockey until August.
But football practice started. Sam's team is called the Black Nights. So far we are not doing well and are losing most of our games. |
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APRIL - So this month has been very busy at school. During the first part of the month Sam's class went to see a presentation by an astronaut at the Space Symposium held at
The Broadmoor. The astronaut had been on a spacewalk that repaired the Hubble Telescope and he did two of the longest spacewalks on record. He had a wonderful slide presentation about the flight, and
then a cool video. The kids loved it. Sam's team is getting a lot better in football. They aren't winning yet, but they are holding teams back to a low score. Easter was this month as well. Sam colored
eggs and got everything he wanted from the Easter Bunny. Sam had his 11th birthday party at LaserQuest. His friends, and some of the dads, enjoyed several times through the LaserQuest mazes. Sam
wanted an Indianapolic Colts themed birthday part and I had to get his cake specially made!! Finally, since Sam is in advanced reading at school he was chosen to participate in "The Battle of the Books".
In this competition, groups of students from schools all over Colorado, read as many of 40 books as they can (Sam read 28) during the school year. Then in April they come together and panels of
judges (teachers) as them questions about the content of the books and they compete to see how many questions they can answer. Sam's team came in 5th in the entire city of Colorado Springs. AWESOME!!
I went to the entire day and Sam was up there answering most of the questions for his team. I was amazed at his skill. |
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MAY - Another busy month at school. Sam participated as the section lead for percusion in the 5th grade band performance. He was also nominated for peer leader
for the 5th grade band. There were only three nominated from each class, and the grade members voted for the leader. Sam is proving himself to be quite the leader at school!! Next, Sam's class
went to the Colorado capitol building in Denver. Sam was sick that day and I made him go anyway. He was miserable with his nose running but it was an outstanding chance to see how our Colorado
government works. We even met the Colorado Springs legislative representative for D-12 (which is where he goes to school). He came and gave about a 10 minute speech about how the Colorado Congress works.
And then we got to sit through about 20 minutes of both House of Representative and Senate activites. Really interesting. Mother's Day was in the middle of the month and I was treated to breakfast (a donut) in bed.
Sam rode his scooter down the grocery store and made sure I stayed in bed until he came back. Then when Grammy came over we saw how much Sam had grown over the last year. he is as tall as Grammy now!!
Ms Roxanne had her first birthday on May 17th and we celebrated with treats at the dog park. Roxanne got to swim in the river as much as she liked, and run through the trees endlessly. Notice how high
she can jump!! Near the end of school Sam and I finished the Skyway Marathon. He and I ran 26 miles over thirteen weeks (me just barely) and were able to run the last mile at the high school in our
cool T-shirts. Finally, over the last week of school, Sam's grade, along with other D-12 schools, performed a Revolutionary War re-entachment at a local park. An organization comes in with costumes, props, and
explosives and the kids are filmed. The compnay then remixes the film and sells a DVD. VERY cool!!! |
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JUNE - FINALLY, the end of school and for the first 2 week of June, Sam is in Indiana with Grandpa and a friend John. Sam said they had a great time. Sam has been very
busy with Scouts since he crossed over in February and during this month they were doing their Swimming merit badge. Sam is a natural since he has spent so much time at the lake. Father's day was in
the middle of the month and Grandpa and Sam had their traditional water gun fight. This year though, Sam cooked us hamburgers since he learned to do that while at the lake. |
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JULY - SOOOO, this summer we were finally able to do our Revolutionary War vacation in Virginia. We left on July 1
and stayed until the 8th.
- Day one travel from Colorado Springs to Richmond Virgina. We will be headquartered in Richmond while we do our travels.
- Day two visit we saw Mount Vernon. Sam actually loved this day. We toured the house and the
grounds which were neat. We did a short boat tour (very refreshing in the heat). But man the museum, that was awesome. Sam loved
all the interactive things to do. SOOOO much better than when I was a kid.
- Day three Monitcello and dinner near the University of Virginia
Now this day Sam didn't like too much. The house was okay but he found most of it kinda boring. Not like Mount Vernon!!
- Day four Williamsburg. Fourth of July. We have an awesome day planned seeing the reading
of the Declaration of Independence, an old time parade, and Thomas Jefferson and Martha Washington. Then later in the day we head to the palace
for a special dinner, show, and fireworks. And of course the Derrickson luck. A HUGE lightening storm comes right at dinner time and
drives us inside the palace. Those poor people tried to entertain us while it rained buckets. We had to clog out to the car in the rain!!
- Day Five Busch Gardens. Just before we left we were watching the Travel channel and Sam
saw Bert the Conqueror ride "The Griffin" at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg!! UGH! Sam insisted we go. So we did and we rode all the
coasters. Sam loved Apollo's Chariot. I hated it.
- Day six Williamsburg again. We finished touring the town and had an awesome meal at Christina Cambell's Tavern and the "Cry Witch" show.
Sam and I were chosen to be on the jury for the trial and he LOVED it. We had to determine the witches innocent or guilt based
on the standards of the time. There were two barristers, one arguing for and one against. We convicted her!!
- Day seven Jamestown and Yorktown. These have changed so much for the better since I was here
as a kid. The museums were incredibly fascinating. But man it was HOT and MUGGY!! Sam and I wilted without the air-conditioning.
- Day eight, heading home. Tired, but wiser, and a few more rollercoasters under our belt.
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AUGUST - Sixth grade at last. Sam got the teacher he really wanted, Mr Terrones. Mr. Dillard is the other
other 6th grade teacher. However, come to find out Sam has been placed in both advanced writing and math; therefore he spends most of his
days in Mrs. Chissesi's classes. He is of course struggling at the beginning of the year (seems to be his learning pattern), but as things
go on he finds his groove and excels. He was very concerned he would never be able to do well in math; however, he has applied himself
and gained confidence. |
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SEPTEMBER - Sam played football again. He was on the Vikings. The team did great and ended up at
the top of the league. Sam played a defensive position. ANOTHER VACATION!!! Over Labor Day Sam and I headed to
Rocky Mountain National Park. We entered the park from
the west and working our way through to Estes Park.
- Day one we drive from Colorado Springs to Hot Sulphur Springs where spend the night in a old 50's motel.
- Day two we started out with a stop near Granby Lake with a 7 mile hike to Cascade Falls. Then we start heading up to the top
of the park. We stopped at the Alpine Vistor Center for a little education and rest. Then we started making our way down to Estes Park.
We stopped at any trail that looked interesting. Finally, we had dinner and a giant ice cream cone in town that night.
- Day three we stayed at the YMCA Estes Park hotel which was gorgeous. In the morning we went into the park and visited Mirror lake.
By the afternoon we were back at the hotel for a horse-back riding adventure (Sam wanted the 3-hour tour!!). My horse was a very naughty
boy and tried to buck me off several times!!
- Day four, back to the park early to try and see some elk or beaver (no luck) and then finally heading home.
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OCTOBER - This may be the last year Sam goes trick-or-treating. Since Halloween was on a school night we only went to a few houses and he really didn't seem to be very interested.
His sixth grade class did a huge Halloween Haunted House as a fund raiser for their gift to the school and I was the mom in charge. Now I think Sam wants us to have a Haunted House next year at our house.
We went out and bought a bunch of cool decorations. |
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NOVEMBER - The entire family was able to get together for Thanskgiving this year at Grammy's house. |
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DECEMBER - Sam had lots of fun activites this month. He was in Honor Choir and sang at several events. They had a winter concert. Unfortunately Sam was very sick during the day
and wasn't able to make it. He pulled himself off the sickbed to come in for the evening performance. He was greatly missed as he is the only player in the Percussion section!! And they had a whole song
built around the bongos!! Anyway, the evening perfomance was great!! We had a great snow day mid-month and were able to take the dog out and went to a great sledding hill (no trees). Finally Christmas of course.
Sam got a new bike and a new hockey bag (which he desperately needed). |
| More miscellaneous pictures of Sam in 2011:
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