Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Science Fair


Science Fair this year was set for December 10, but because of scheduling conflicts it was moved to December 17.  This was a good thing for the Selzer household considering that we tend to wait till the last minute to complete our projects.  Abby and Zach actually chose  topics very early on and went through their experiments.  Abby discovered that her results could not be measured and Zach's experiment didn't work.  After researching on-line Abby decided on an experiment involving yeast and the production of carbon dioxide.  Zach had a hard time and finally with Daddy’s help he decided on an experiment.  He tested how the slope affects the distance traveled by using a ball and a ramp.  Deciding what to do seemed to take the most time because after decisions were made they both set to work and completed their projects and display boards.  What a surprise it was to all of us when Zach won the award for "Science Genius" for the 4th grade and Abby was announced as the “Science Fair Overall Champion” for grades 4-6.

Dream Whip and Velveeta!

Sorry this post is so long in coming.  I wrote it weeks ago and then with the busyness of the season didn't get it posted to our blog.  We are extremely grateful to our family and friends who continue to remember us in prayers and with e-mails.  Our children want to say a "HUGE" thank you to the Bible Memory Crew at Pleasant View Mennonite Church in Hydro, OK, for the Thanksgiving surprise box.  It was wonderful! 

There are times when living on the other side of the world from everything you know gets to be extremely hard...holidays are the hardest!  You start reminiscing about "Thanksgiving dinners" from the past (which is not a good place to go in your mind) especially when every meal is chicken and rice!  This year we spent the day with friends and our Thanksgiving dinner was delicious as always.  We ate way too much turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie.  We were happily uncomfortable.

Now why did I title this post "Dream Whip and Velveeta!"  We received a surprise package from America last week... when we opened it we discovered that it was from the Bible Memory Crew at Pleasant View Mennonite Church.  To our delight it was filled with Thanksgiving surprises!  We were especially excited to see the Dream Whip and the Velveeta.  We have been eating pumpkin pie without Cool Whip for 18 months now and well, it's just not the same.  First only Jeff and I were excited about the Dream Whip until the kids
realized what it was...  That was the first item we fixed from our package. 


I realize it's pretty sad to be excited about Velveeta, but in a land without good cheese Velveeta becomes a desired item by Americans.  As soon as we saw that golden colored box we started dreaming about the
grilled cheese sandwiches and the cheese sauce for broccoli or even mac and cheese (good mac and cheese!).  For those of you who have never lived outside of America this blog entry may not make any sense to you, but if you have lived somewhere internationally even for a short time maybe you can understand the delight we felt when opening this package.