January 2009

Go Cheetahs!
The basketball team name is the Little Cheetahs, and this was their pre-game "Go Cheetahs!" huddle before their first game.

Chinese New Year
A celebration we went to for Chinese New Year through one of the organizations at my school. Kaira was a little afraid of the Chinese dragon at first, but was enjoying it by the end. This was part of an International Food Night, and Kaira actually did really good in trying a whole bunch of different foods including indian, italian, and asian.

Report Card
Kaira's report card for the second 9 wks of school. The first 9 weeks was a parent-teacher conference instead of a send home report card, so this is the first 'real' report card of her school career. She did really well both this period and last.

SciPort
I found out after moving here that there was no local zoo, a favorite pastime of ours in Baton Rouge. However, while looking for something else to replace our outings to the zoo, I found SciPort. "In the September issue of Parents magazine, Sci-Port Discovery Center has been recognized as one of the top 10 science centers in the country. The article highlights the nation's best science centers that have special exhibit areas exclusively for young children and their families." SciPort is amazing and has tons of hands-on science related experiments and exhibits especially geared toward kids. Kaira loves SciPort... we now have a membership and have started making regular trips. Just a sample of a couple of the exhibits...

The Body Puzzle
A multilayer puzzle of the bones, muscles and organs of the body.

Louisiana Map Puzzle

Marble Race Exhibit

Gyroscope and Pulleys
For the gyroscope exhibit, you sit in a stool and hold a spinning tire. When you turn the wheel to one side or the other, the chair you are sitting in also rotates that direction from the centrifugal force. For the pulley exhibit, the different chairs were attached to differing numbers of pulleys. You could sit in them and pull up your own body weight, and compare which were easier or harder to do.

Make a River
A downward sloping set-up with water constantly running and plenty of sand and shovels. You can dig a path for the water to flow through and see how the water changes its course.

Blowing a dandelion she found outside of SciPort on the way back to the car.

Kaira & Doyle
Kaira playing with one of our dogs in the backyard one day - she sat and hugged on him for a little while.

Karen's Stuff

Studying for a musculoskeletal test, trying to learn the cutaneous innervation of the hand... I finally just drew it on. I guess it worked cause I remembered this stuff. (By the way, orange is the part affected by carpal tunnel syndrome - the median nerve; and if you ever hit your 'funny bone' it's the blue part that tingles because of the ulnar nerve.)

New Running Shoes
My mom got me a new pair of running shoes as a late birthday present (thanks Mom!) delayed by the moving process, school starting, etc. She also got me one of the cool Nike+ receivers that fits in the shoe and communicates with a transmitter than plugs into my iPod. It tracks my pace, distance, progress, calories, etc. And I can plug it into the computer and track my results, compete against people online, set goals for myself and more. It has helped motivate me to get back into my old running habit of running. I set a goal to run an average of a mile a day throughout 2009, and so far I am right about on track. This is was my new spiffy shoes look like...

A Couple of my best runs this month... (I got in a couple 5K's and a 5 mile run!! - haven't done that since before Kaira was born!)