Elser Family Blog

Ok, Guess i have to find those pictures of Melindas “graduation”!
[parental boasting]
This morning, we were at the school to see Hannah win a new bicycle for her reading performance. “Hey hannah, do you like it?” response “Its only the coolest bicycle I’ve ever had!”
What a great response.
Hannah had the most points in the whole school, and by a longshot. Unfortunatly, no one in the fifth grade even met the goal for the grade.. (100 points). I’ll mention that the school is a good school. It’s in the top 1/4 of performing schools in the state. Not even any of the “gifted and talented” kids had anything on Hannah. I’m wondering about the GT program… Hannah had straight A’s the whole year, 100%’s on the vast majority of her tests and quizzes. In second grade she scored high in math and had a perfect score on the language section of the national testing (indicated as >99th percentile nationally)
[/parental boasting]
And yet she is not in GT. I’m dubious.
The only reason I bring it up is that she inquired to us about it.. “Mom, what is GT? how come I’m not in it?” What are we to say?

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to 4th grade.. we will be able to start doing some really cool science related experimenting and fun stuff on our own time. I hope to get her involved early in the science olympiad.

Melinda graduated today!

I have a movie for you, if only my internet connection was good.

Melinda saw that I loaded the picture of her and her “friends”, and wanted me to print it out for her.
Later I found this laying on the floor… I like it!

[parental boasting] Our Hannah is an excellent reader, that goes without saying. But Check out this graph. Only three other people in her class reached the yearly goal of 50 AR points (You get points by taking a test that checks your comprehension of the book) Hannah reached her goal, and went on to achieve 176 points, 3 times more than anyone else. [/parental boasting] WOW, Hannah.
(Click on picture for a larger version.)

Here some School photos for you to enjoy.

A couple days ago Greg Elser called me and said, “hey, what is that bright planet right next to the moon?” I thought it would be Jupiter, but it wasnt. OK, so I guess I needed to drag out the telescope! It was Venus. I dont know if I have ever seen Venus in the scope to be honest. In this case, it was neat because it was in crecent. (actually, I think gibbous is the proper term). However, I cant show it here, because it was so darn bright, the camera wouldnt take a good picture of it.

Melinda likes care bears.(Click on picture for a larger version.)

And the next night Hannah and I found Saturn. I took this picture just pointing my camera at the eyepeice.

Kathi took the kids to the YMCA water park in augusta. Can you beleive this is a YMCA? amazing. (Click on picture for a larger version.)

A video message to say HAPPY 81st birthday Grandma

And Rockwell graduated. From preschool. It’s certified!:)

Not too much to report. Did I tell you Kathi is back in school? She is taking a math class.

A picture for you. Courtesy of Melinda:

Last weekend was the first (annual?) Yellow Jasimine Festival in Little old N.A.
A statue of the founder of our city, James U Jackson, was dedicated. Here he is before being revealed.

And here is what he looks like! tada! The people standing in front of it are decendants of James U Jackson. A great story goes with this statue. The artist that created it, aslo created a statue of former SC senator Strom Thurmond for the town where he was raised (its about 20 morth of us). Evidentially it was too lifelike, and they wanted her to take it back and remove a double chin. Well, she did, but she also added a bronze cockroach under his suit. It too about 4 years for someone to discover it. I guess the town fathers were not to pleased.. but I think they left it there.

We got to draw with Chalk in the middle of the street. Thats always fun. We had Melinda lay in the street and we traced her. She colored herself in.

Just a funny picture. (that mark is NOT supposed to be on her forehead..?)

Another one. This is during the fireworks in front of the house. The kids were yelling at me telling me to stay on the porch or I’d get hit with debris. As it turns out, a peice of debris landed on the chair I was (not at the time) sitting in! (Melinda has it in her hand. its a white peice of plastic)

Here is a the view from our porch! Click here to see a short video.

Hannah made 12000 pages on her pagemaster list. I dont know about you, but that’s pretty astounding to me.