Today was quite the busy day for everyone! Today’s excursion for Carmen included meeting with the Mayor of Naperville and then going to Centennial Beach to swim and have fun. When they met with the Mayor, each of the students was made an honorary citizen of Naperville. They received a certificate making it official!
The Spanish group with Naperville Mayor George Pradel.
Today is also Carmen Day in Spain! Each day there, they celebrate a saint or someone important. All the Carmens were celebrated today in honor of St. Carmen of Spain. We celebrated by getting German Chocolate Fudge custard (ice cream) from Culvers. Carmen (as we have mentioned before) really likes chocolate. The only thing you have to do to get her to smile is mention chocolate. It’s pretty funny! 🙂
After their inauguration as honorary citizens of Naperville, the group went to Centennial Beach to swim and hang out for the afternoon. Compared to where Carmen goes to the beach, it’s not really a beach, but they have done a pretty good job in building out this swimming area off of the River Walk.
Centennial Beach in Naperville. There is MUCH more to this water park than what you see here.
Zachary wearing Kirk's jacket and holding Angela's umbrella.
I picked Carmen up on my way home from work and we ran back home for a quick dinner before all leaving to go to Brittany’s final track meet for the Waubonsie Track Club. This meet was at Neuqua High School (rival high school in the district). It looked like it was going to rain pretty hard and we prayed for good weather (Brittany especially). It couldn’t have turned out to be a better night for track. It was cool with a very light breeze and overcast, but only a small amount of rain fell at the first (as you can see from crazy Zachary’s picture to the left)!. Then it cleared right up!
Brittany ended up doing the:
– Shot put: 19′ 6″
– Triple jump: 22′ 4 1/2″
– 100 meters: 19.151 seconds
– 200 meters: 34 seconds
– 400 meters: 1 minute 21 seconds
She did very well and got 5 ribbons for her efforts. A couple of the events were personal bests! She had never run the 100 meters before and thought it would be fun to try! Here are some additional pictures from the meet:
Brittany running the 100 meters.
Brittany getting ready in the shot put.
Congratulations on your achievements, Brittany!
We are very proud of Brittany and her accomplishments. She had tried very hard this summer to do well in track. She has had some great coaches who work hard to help them become better (even though this track club is all about just having fun). After the track meet was done, we all came back to the house and had our ice cream in celebration of Carmen day, and stayed up late playing cards. Carmen taught us some great card games that she plays with her friends at the pool and the beach during the summer.
Today, Carmen’s mother, Cayetana, sent her a link to show to the family. It is a video clip of Carmen’s brother Pablo saying hello to the family and also to us! He is travelling around Spain (20-day trip) as part of a group of 200+ kids from 53 different countries. He won a research and writing contest as part of a program that allows for this and he will also go to Chile at Christmastime. Here is a link to the video clip of him: Pablo Montanes Says Hello! It has been edited to remove other people speaking and posted to my site. Enjoy!
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