Yesterday a really cool thing happened.  I was invited to go to the 30th Annual Arts Awards Luncheon put on by the Arts Business Education Consortium in Colorado Springs because our Elementary Arts Day and Evening of the Arts won an award for Ongoing Support for Arts Education.  My certificate says: "For exceptinoal contributions toward the promotion and continuance of the arts in Colorado Springs"  Our elementary principal submitted us for the award and we won!  I was able to share a little of what we are doing with some staff from Pikes Peak Christian School who were at our table.  We do get lots of accolades from people at our school, but this was some serious icing on the cake!!!

Yes, Ruth, I do get lots of help these days.  I still do most of the performance stuff myself because it is hard to split that up--and I love it, I'm not going to lie.  Why don't you all just come out on the 27th and see what all the fuss is about?  You could help Nicole celebrate her 16th birthday too!

Joe and I are supposed to drive to Denver tomorrow for the World Speedstacking Championships once again.  He has established a new personal best of 8.41 seconds.  The problem is, they are predicting the blizzard of the year tomorrow and Sat.  I have no idea what you do when you have people coming from all over the world to attend an event and a blizzard hits...to be continued.

Ok, but it will have to be quick...it is EOTA time again.  (Evening of the Arts...oh, that!)  I announced last year that this is my last year, but no one has come forward to help yet...

Erika starts basketball again this week.  Joe's first baseball game is Sat.  We are looking into swim teams for Nicole so she can get started as soon as she gets her license.  Uhmmm...19 days, but whose counting?!

Wow, I guess I am a little behind.  I haven't checked on here for awhile.  Sorry to read about Jesse's car.  Erika had a similar experience when her beautiful car got rearended.  She had a second accident with her second car, which should have totaled it as well, but we fixed it.  She just passed the year mark of having her license.

The regular basketball season is over.  Nicole is done.  Joe will have his final tournament this weekend.  His team is undefeated.  Erika's team got second in the league, so they got a bye for this week and will start post-season play next Tues.

Frankie is growing fast.  She is almost 6 pounds.  Nicole and I had to cut the hair around her eyes so she could see.  She is most adorable.

I guess Aug. 14-16 is now the date?  Do we have confirmation on that?

I'll check in again soon.

  Nicole was very frustrated after basketball tryouts because, although she made JV, they said she would be floating down to the "C" team.  After crying it out, she went back to practice with a great attitude and enjoyed being a mentor to the younger girls.  She did play on the C team, but also played more on JV than she anticipated.  Well....all this week the varsity coach asked her to practice with the Varsity and tonight SHE GETS TO SUIT UP WITH THE VARSITY.  The game should be a blowout, so she might even get some significant playing time.  She is floating on cloud nine today.

We have a professional photographer who comes to all the varsity and some of the JV games and takes beautiful shots of the players.  I have created a folder of just my girls.  The link is http://aclphoto.lifepics.com/net/Pro/ViewEvent.aspx .  Hopefully that will get you right to the page.  If you get stuck needing to sign on, the password for the event is 121108 and to my sight is my email address leniheckman@yahoo.com and my personal password is gadget.  Let me know if you can see them.  He takes some speed shots, so you can see her block some shots kinda like slow motion.

Hopefully you've all seen the pictures of our new baby on Facebook.  In case you missed it, I will try to get her on here.  Her name is Frankie and she is 8 weeks old.