Today was the annual school Spelling Bee final with both girls winning a place in the competition by being the top spellers in their respective classes. Unfortunately, Claudia was poorly and had to stay at home, which was frustrating after she had spent so long practising the 450 words on the official Scripps National Spelling Bee list. Kerstin was pretty determined and had learnt all the words on the list. She was fantastic and ended up taking second place! We woke up to 1 inch of snow on Wednesday morning and a temperature of -7 with the windchill making it feel like -16, so the entire city shut down as it wasn't safe to drive. The continued freezing temperatures meant that the snow and ice didn't melt so everyone stayed at home again on Thursday. Then, just when we thought school would be open as normal on Friday, Atlanta Public Schools announced that some school buses couldn't drive safely through the narrow streets due to continuing small patches of ice, so everyone was home again on Friday! We have now had 7 extra days off since August due to inclement weather. These closures would not have happened in Sweden where every vehicle has to have winter tyres. Kerstin and her all-girls robotics team from school nailed it again today by winning the Core Values trophy at the Super-Regionals robotics competition. They were competing against other metro Atlanta area students aged 9-14, and they were one of the youngest, and only all-girl teams! They are waiting to find out now if they scored highly enough overall (within the three categories of Core Values, Project and Robot design) to gain a place in the upcoming State Championships.
Today we drove downtown to the Carter Presidential Center which is home to the Carter Presidential Library and Jimmy Carter Museum. The temperature was -6 degrees celsius which gave us the perfect reason to go and visit an indoor museum on our list of places to go!
Jimmy Carter is a Georgian native and was the 39th president of the United States from 1977-1981. The museum chronicles his life and work before, during and after his presidency and it was fascinating and inspiring to learn about the vast amount of time he and his wife have dedicated to advance human rights, peace and health around the world. The couple are still active members of their home community in Plains, Georgia, about two and a half hours south of Atlanta. We were all left wondering how the museum, library and legacy of the current president will look. We've had a lot of fun at home this winter break with Uncle Pete coming for Christmas, and Anna, one of his friends from New Zealand who is currently living in the USA, coming to join us for a few days over Christmas. We've been for walks by the river as well as venturing downtown, taking our visitors to the Martin Luther King Jr Historic site. We also surprised the girls with a trip to the cinema to watch Wonder. The weather has become much colder than normal here with temperatures well below zero for a few days already now, and set to continue for another few weeks.
On our drive home from Alabama, we stopped at Little River Canyon National Preserve to admire the Little River Falls with its sheer cliffs and whitewater rapids. We didn't have time to drive the dramatic 11-mile route along the winding canyon but the girls were able to complete another Junior Ranger program, adding to their ever-growing National Park collection. After that it was time to cross the border back into Georgia to our final quick stop - Berry College - which is home to the most famous pair of bald eagles in our state and we were fortunate to be able to see the female eagle up in the nest! The eagles can be observed continuously online via the nest webcam here: http://www.berry.edu/eaglecam/
We had a fantastic day at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center and highlights included seeing the Apollo 16 Capsule and the impressive testing prototype of the Saturn V rocket. Highlights for the girls were the HyperShip motion-based simulator which they experienced many times, the Spark Lab where they built mini rockets to test, and the Mars themed climbing wall! An unexpected extra stop on our route to Huntsville was the bizarre but exciting Unclaimed Baggage Center! This business began almost fifty years ago by an enterprising family who continue to run it today: They have agreements with domestic airlines in the USA to buy their 0.5% of unclaimed baggage and ship it to their processing center in Alabama where it is sorted and cleaned, ready to be sold in their massive warehouse. The center attracts over a million visitors a year and it really was a fascinating and surreal place. After the excitement of Christmas, it was time for our next road trip, this time to the U.S Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville Alabama, along with a couple of planned stops at National Park sites on the way there and back. Our first stop was Russel Cave a National Monument where archeological artefacts indicating 9,000 years of human habitation have been discovered. The girls enjoyed completing the Junior Ranger program and we all got to try out various implements.
This Christmas Eve we went to the Carols by Candlelight service at Peachtree Presbyterian Church, one of the local mega-churches, which is also the location of the pre-school where Susan works. The main sanctuary of the church seats around 1000, and on Christmas Eve the church celebrated 8 different services, all of which were full. The service was led by the senior pastor with the wonderful music provided by the Chancel Choir and Orchestra.
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AuthorsSusan, Jonathan, Kerstin & Claudia Archives
September 2017
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