mexicocalls

Sunday, March 4, 2007

Bowen goes to State Chess tournament - click to see album

Bowen got to be one of the two students from his school to compete in his age group in chess. Even though he wasn't there for the in-school tournament before, the fact that he could win against the chess coach got him in.
At the zone tournament Bowen won 2nd place. He beat Cruz Alatriste, the kid who had beat him for the last few years.
After zone, Bowen went to Ascencion to compete in regionals. He beat the two kids that beat the kid who had won our zone. Bowen won 1st in regionals and was ranked #1 in the state-supervised schools in Northeastern Chihuahua. Bowen was told that now he was going to state. Bowen was really excited.

OOOPS, they changed their government mind and now the state-supervised schools had to compete against the federally-supervised schools. Bowen ended up being ranked #1 after that tournament. Now he could lay claim to the #1 spot among all the grade school kids from Palomas to Zaragosa to Flores Magon (and all points in between).

OOOPS again! On December 20th, some school person called me at the store and told me that Bowen was supposed to be at the tournament against all the 12 year olds from the Jr. high schools about 15 minutes ago. Hurray, I went to the school, got Bowen out of class, and with no warning he went to this tournament against the Jr-high kids who also wanted to go. Bowen had a close one there. He lost a game and had to replay the kid he lost to. Bowen won the second game and got to FINALLY lock in his place in the state tournament.

I went with Bowen to Chihuahua city on the 31 of January to compete. They told us about 2 days ahead of time. I had a hard time getting the time off of work, but I was able to swing it by using some "sick-days".
Click on the picture below to see some pictures we took with the cell phone.

Bowen's State Chess Tournament

Alex's visit to the Hospital - Click to see album

Alex had been up all night on the 9th of February with a bad asthma attack. In the morning, he was still struggling to breathe. Yadi decided we needed to get him hooked up with the Doctor. We couldn't get a hold of the pediatrician, so Yadi called her OB/GYN Dr. Rocha. Dr. Rocha told her to bring Alex to the Emergency room. I took a lot of pictures with the camera on a Palm Treo 680 (1.3 MP). Alex made this little picture book out of it. We are going to print this and add it to "Learning".

Click on the picture to see the album:

Alex Goes to the Hospital

Saturday, March 3, 2007

"Learning" -Grandpa Click to see Album

Here is a chapter from Alex's book "Learning". It is still in the 3-ring binder format and you can't get it at Amazon yet. He has great memories of his visit to Grandpa's and Grandpa's Farm. There are also some previews of memories that are yet to be lived.

We will be publishing chapters as we get time, but there are some really cute things. Some of them have a "based on a true story" disclaimer. Only the names are changed to protect the innocent. Rus and Liz Heggie (friends of ours from Canada) recommended the book: Thinking in Pictures to us. James read it and has helped Alex begin a compilation of writings and drawings. Click on the picture below to see the drawings.