Day 29: Smarty Pants and Other Friday Stuff.

 This is one happy kiddo! On Friday morning we were discussing what time that day we thought Jake would get the email letting him know whether or not he got into STEM Camp. I was actually filling in a calendar for the summer and wrote in STEM Camp and Jake said I shouldn't since we didn't know if he got in yet. A couple minutes later he was working on Algebra and using his Kindle as a calculator when he excitedly said, "It just came!  The email just came!" and he read it to find that he was accepted!!!!  AWESOME!!!!  There is a waiting list but he is not on it.  :)

He immediately called Aaron, the grandparents, and Aunt Sheila.  Aunt Sheila didn't recognize his voice and thought it was someone trying impersonate my cousin "Big Jake" so she told him to get a job and hung up on him.  It was hysterical!  We called back on my phone (a number she recognized) and we all laughed about it together as she congratulated Jake. :)

Here are  couple more of him as he was reading the email...

 They asked for teachers references so they could check the applicants GPA. We gave them my email and phone number and explained that we homeschooled and that if they needed some one unrelated we could have one of his teachers from co-op give a reference  I never heard from them so I am assuming they read his awesome essay and decided that was all they needed. I keep hearing that homeschoolers are being recruited by colleges (because homeschoolers are awesome) and I am sure the same can be said for STEM Camps. They saw he was homeschooled, read his essay and knew he was a smarty pants. :)

 We headed over the library to sign up for the summer reading program and met some homeschooling friends there. The kiddos hung out while I chatted with their mom about how to document and count credits for high school. Her oldest is Jake's age (but born in September so he is a year behind Jake in school because of the cut off date...Jake made it in by 2 days.  He is always the youngest) and will be able to start counting high school credits next school year which is a

 little overwhelming when you start the process.  Our library has a teen room equipped with a Wii (sad but that is the only thing that draws some kids to the library...we don't spend as much time there in the summer since it is over run by kids that aren't at the library to check out books...) that the boys had fun playing while we talked.  Once Jake has read 10 hours he will earn the owl t-shirt in this picture.  He also got a free book that he is reading and there will be a book club and the author of the book is going to be part of the discussion via Skype. 

We went to Barnes & Noble after that because I know they have a kids summer reading program and we wanted to check and see if they had a teen program.  They don't. :(  We looked around and actually left with out buying anything...which took great restraint (and meant carrying books around, contemplating buying them, then putting them back...there is a little bit of satisfaction in doing that to be honest).   I saw this lovely copy of Little Women (one of my favorite books) and showed it to Jake.  He thought it was nice also and said, "Don't you already have that book?", to which I replied, "Yes.  Two of them actually" (plus I have it on my Kindle app on my smart phone).  But that seems completely besides the point to me. 

   We went to the gym after all that, which if quit impressive I think.  It is hard to be motivated to go in the morning...it is extremely difficult to go in the afternoon!  I feel like your body should know what a hard choice you made to still work out even though the day is half over and it should automatically burn more calories because of it...as a reward...

After working out we were both stretching on either side of the car so I of course took a picture....that was slightly staged since I had to get my phone ready after noticing I could see Jake and myself.  It still counts though.

Fridays are good.  Especially when you get an email about STEM Camp. :)