Tennis & Gardening

Carson has talked about playing on the Githens Middle School tennis team for months. In late February the coach finally gave details about the team. Carson attended the pre meeetings and made the team. He practices after school each day with the team0- they have had 3 matches so far! His serve is getting much better each week. The team still has about 5 matches to play before the season ends. Carson practices hard and wants to get better each match. Now if he could just have the same level of committment for his piano lessons and practicing his parent would be very happy.

One of the nice things about having a Boy Scout in the family is his requirement to help with some family and service projects. Carson volunteered to help with landscaping the flower bed near the front door. On the right is a before picture. Carson was very enthusiastic with the rake! Doug and Carson planted several flowers and bushes. The final picture shows the completed project. Now Carson will have the task of keeping the area weed free! I think this deserves a Merit Badge of it's own!!!

Criger Catch up - March 2011

Time for a Criger catch up. It has been a cold winter for us in North Carolina and we are ready for a bit of spring. To keep us from going completely crazy we have done a few things. First - Logan is learning to sew. Her first project was a pillow case. Simple straight seams - some pinning and ironing to start with. She did a great job. She made 2 pillowcases - one to keep and one to give to the million pillowcase project. Her next project will be an apron to use while cooking! It is so much fun to have a 10 year old girl!!

Look at me with the FOOD NANNY!! Liz Edmonds - the "Food Nanny" did a presentation in Chapel Hill a few weeks ago. She discussed how important having a family dinner each night is and ways to make planning and preparing them easier. Hey - anything to make dinner time a bit easier is what I need. She shared some good recipes - I even made her delicious pizza crust the other day and it was super easy. I purchased the "Food Nanny" cook book which has some fun recipes. I am sure this will make dinner time so easy - -- just check back in a few months and we will see how it is actually going!!

Can you spot Logan in this picture? You can just see her face in the Creekside chorus group - left side 3rd row back. Back in February Logan's chorus group sang the national anthem at a Duke women's basketball game. This will probably be the only time I will ever attend a basketball game at the Duke Cameron indoor stadium. We were there for about an hour getting ready for the group to sing. The chorus performance lasted about 2 minutes - then we left! Logan had a great time and she really loves singing in the school chorus group! I can't wait
for her next performance at the spring concert in April!

As a middle school student, Carson had to complete a science fair project. He and his friend Kit did an experiment involving how fast different over the counter pain products dissolve

and give pain relief. They spent about a 2 hours one Saturday afternoon in February watching tablets and gel caps dissolve and taking pictures along the way. Then they wrote up the results and posted the results. The boys won 3rd place in the physical science category for the school. This is the second year in a row Carson has placed in the science fair- he will have to come up with a great project next year to make it 3 years in a row!!