Our Family

The Saturday before last Elliot successfully tested for his Taekwon-Do green strip belt. Here are a few photos:

For the last few weeks Elliot's been going to a basketball class for an hour on Saturday mornings at the community center. I know I'm not objective, but so far everything that Elliot has done (school, baseball, soccer, Taekwon-Do, etc.), he's always one of the few best kids in the game or in the class. He's smart, athletic, and competitive, but I think a big part of it is that he pays attention and focuses, listens to the coaches or teachers, and quickly learns how to be successful. Anyway, basketball is apparently no exception. Here are a few photos and videos from last Saturday:

This is another funny (kind of scary) story involving Finn. Elliot, Finn and I (Lisa) were headed out to take Elliot to his Tae Kwon Do practice. I had finally gotten the boys out of the house (a difficult task these days with all the snow gear). We stepped outside and noticed the garage door was still down so with the boys by my side I entered the code into the key pad to open the door. As the door was opening I took a few steps over to Elliot to help him zip his coat (I think) and I heard Finn calling "Look mom I'm flying"...... I didn't immediately look because I was preoccupied with whatever I was doing with Elliot. A split second later I heard a much more urgent cry "mom, mom, help". Thankfully I decided to turn and look to see Finn rising above the ground holding on to the handle on the garage door. In the split second it took me to take the 2 steps to his rescue he was just about to reach the top of the opening......I had to quickly grab him by his legs to get him down before he was gobbled up. Why the door didn't stop lifting when it felt his weight, I do not know. All I know is we are very blessed he didn't get hurt! Still shaken up on the way to Tae Kwon Do, I lectured both boys on how dangerous that was and how we were very lucky we weren't heading to the hospital right now because Finn would have really gotten hurt falling from such a great height. Finn promptly replied, "Don't worry mom, I would have landed on my feet."

We have the desktop computer in the office set up to require a password before going to the main screen. Both boys can navigate to their favorite sites with ease once on the main screen, so we have set the password up to make sure they ask permission before hopping on the internet......Anyway, I (Lisa) was in the basement the other day and I heard Finn calling down to me, "mom, how do you spell PLEASE?" I didn't think I heard him correctly so I asked him to repeat. He yelled louder, "how do you spell PLEASE?" The requests for spelling a word usually comes from the resident kindergardener not the 3 year old, so curious to see what he was doing, I headed up the stairs. As I got to the top of the steps I saw him sitting at the computer. I asked him, "why do you need to know how to spell PLEASE?" He replied that he wanted to play computer and needed to type in the password :)

Yesterday I received my first real promotion since joining Dow Chemical in Corporate R&D in 1999. There were several mini-promotions in the first few years on the "development curve", but those are automatic as long as you're still breathing and still with the company. This was the first real promotion. It was a pleasant surprise though not completely unanticipated (since it was about time considering how long I've been with the company). The relatively flat organizational structure means that realistically I can only expect at most one more promotion during my career (since I'm not a high-flyer, rapidly climbing the corporate ladder...to mix metaphors). And maybe not even that. Obviously, promotions are not what I'll be working for/towards.