Weekend Wrap-up

After returning from Yosemite and getting a few hours of sleep, we were off and running again. Christian went to help a friend move.

The girls and I went to the Bourns Engineering Day sponsored by The Society of Women Engineers at UCR. We were supposed to be at an Easter Egg Hunt, but as Emily is over the age limit and Caitlyn most likely won't bother with the hunt if Emily doesn't get to do it, we opted to go to the Engineering Day at UCR instead.

We checked in and the girls got little goodie bags. They started out the event with a lecture about how  scientists and engineers are like super heroes. Most of the kids were pretty entertained by it but I think the message was a little lost with too many references to super heroes. Most of the kids got too side tracked.

Afterwards, there were many activities and demonstrations that they could participate in. The girls got to make lip balm, UV bracelets, ice cream, borax slime, extract strawberry DNA and lava lamps. There was a bunch of other stuff but I won't bother listing them all here. Caitlyn got an event patch for the Girl Scouts.

Suffice it to say, the kids had a good time. It was a bit warm and fairly crowded but it is a short walk away from home. We were surprised that not many kids from the neighborhood was there but there were school buses from nearby cities full of kids there. I wonder why they did not invite the RUSD kids. I did not even see a mention of the event on the Riverside STEM website.

On a side note to that, after two years, Emily finally got a slot at the STEM academy...and we declined to accept it. Basically, she is doing okay at her current school. She only has a year left. We have enough fights with her about her homework now. STEM is supposed to have a lot more homework and that is just more battles I don't want to fight. I warned her of the consequences of her choices and her lack of taking her responsibility seriously and this is it.

We also didn't bother adding Caitlyn to the waiting list (lottery). Two years ago, when we added Emily to the list, she was sixty something on the list. There are already over a 150 students in the queue with another 76 students wanting to get on the list. Although she wants to go, it is pretty futile at this point. I'm just not going to worry about it. Our girls will be fine wherever they go.

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On Easter Sunday, our friend Marian came by to celebrate Easter with us. She brought belated birthday things for Emily as we ended up canceling her birthday party.

Marian decided to have (another) one last Egg Hunt for the girls. She made it extra challenging though, since they are much older now.

It may have been a little too challenging for them though, as it took them over an hour to find all their eggs. In the end, we got tired of waiting for them and helped them gather the remaining eggs in!