Matthew at the Hamilton County 4-H Fair Scrapbook Display Area. (Alex was at P.E. class.)
Scrapbook judging at the Hamilton County Fair was yesterday...for SEVEN hours and I had two judges this year! 144 albums in three divisions: Clover, Junior, Senior...very impressive one and all. Congratulations to all the kids in our club who took the scrapbooking project: they all got blue ribbons! Seven of the Nine got Honors as well. (Blue ribbon is a first place finish and with Honor ribbons means they were considered for champion.) Blue Honors go to (alphabetically) Allison, Bernadette, Caitlin, Holly, Matthew, Megan, and Sammie. Blues go to Alex and Rebecca. Very proud of all of you...your albums were wonderful! This is one of the largest enrollment projects at our fair, so there is a lot of really good competition each year. (And, to think when I went to the 4-H Council and wanted to start this project 10 years ago, they laughed and said, "No one is going to want to take that as a project." I countered: "Oh, I think they will...can you give me a shot at it as a trial run?" Well..."Okay, because we know you will keep at us until we do, we will give you ONE year as a trial, you can have a card table for display at the end of the posters in the Winks building, and if you don't have TEN people sign up, it's a no-go next year, deal?" Me: "Deal." We had 75 people sign up the first year! They had to clear one entire wall length for the display. The council continues to bow before me...LOL...just kidding, but they truly were amazed and delighted that we were the FIRST in the entire nation in 4-H to have this project. Counties and states fell like dominoes once we put it out there. How cool is that? A card table at the end of the posters....ha...we now have a good share of an entire building and specially designed and handmade display racks just to fit scrapbook measurements!) Congratulations, 4-Star 4-Hers...you represented our club well!
And, in other news around here yesterday...the CSC State Team Party! This is where they announce all the members who have earned cuts to swim at state and also the relay team qualifiers...always a big deal! As you can see from the photo, Matthew has individual cuts (he got to pick his favorite five as you are only allowed five events at state) and he made the "A" relay team, which really delights him...to be on the top relay team is always his dream. The kids all enjoy their individual events, but they LOVE their relay team events the best of all. About one in four member of CSC make the state cuts each year...Carmel sends more kids to state than probably any other team in Indiana, so that is always fun for the kids. After dinner, the announcements are made, and the fun begins...a whole lotta dancing going on! 
The t-shirts are a big deal...each year they are different and it is really an honor to qualify and get the state team t-shirt, can you tell from the big smile? Then the dancing begins: the big kids showing the little ones how it's done! It is just so much fun to see them all together having such a good time and celebrating! This is our last age group state...after this month, Matt will be an open swimmer and in the senior group. When he was little, he would look at the older kids and say, "I will be there someday, Mom, I just know I can get there, too, like all those big guys." Now he is one of the big guys...where there's a will, there's a way! Congratulations, Matt, we know how hard you have worked for this and you deserve every bit of it!