A Little Gessner

Hello from the Gessners! Hope that everyone is doing well!

Just wanted to provide an update, Damian and I welcomed our daughter Hannah into the world in April. We are slowly crawling out from under our rock of new parenthood.

She is a true joy watching her discover the world around her, and it’s amazing how fast she is growing; indeed this past Saturday she turned 2 months.

She’s staying up longer in the daytime and as her eyesight develops she’s interacting more and more with us; in fact Damian and I received our first smiles this week. She’s also starting to recognize things that aren’t her parents; Noel gave her a lovely stuffed panda, which she loves to have long conversations with, it’s adorable. I have yet to capture it on video.

Both cats have also accepted her into their lives (we’ll see how well this relationship continues once she’s mobile). Merlin our grey cat has even taken to bringing her his toys when she is upset.

I go back to work at the end of June, while Damian will be starting his paternity leave. It will be hard to leave her, but I know that her Dad will do a great job and it will be good for them to bond.

More OM news from Caleb...

Caleb's OM team came in third place in the State level of the competition! Although the team will not be going to the World competition, they received medals, a lovely trophy and great excitement for a job well done! Caleb had many fans...Audra and Simon spent one night in the hotel with Rick and Caleb. The next morning Audra and Simon were off for an overnight with Aunt Sandy and Uncle Joe, while Caleb and the team began their adventure. To surprise Caleb, Captain Ken made the trip from New Jersey to be a part of the audience during the long term solution! Nanny also made the trip from Rochester. Joshua and I stayed in Rochester for Boy Scouts and report cards and were happy to get the joyful third place phone call.

Happy Easter!

Good news from the Holfoth house. Caleb's team: a mixed gender group of six from his school participated in the regional Odyessy of the Mind competition after months of creation, practice and preparation. They won 1st place for their division out of 15 teams competing with the same problem in their division! They are going to the NY state competition in Binghamton the weekend of March 27th. It is rare that a team this young would win 1st place! Winning 1st place at states would send them to the World competition in Michigan at Michigan State University.

They had to research the problem they chose, discovered treasures and give a long term solution- basically a skit to present all the required information. Much tougher than it sounds as the problems are extremely detailed. All the props, script, etc must be created by the kids. They have a very small budget for materials. The coaches (who are volunteering their time) supervise, help them organize their time and guide them through delimna's using problem solving strategies. They must also participate in a spontaneous competition which requires creativity without props. In this scenario they may be asked any number of things. One could be to build a structure that can hold 1# of weight using toothpicks and marshmallows and/or to list 5 items from the garage to bring to the dinner table and what each would be used for and why. Both the spontaneous and long term problems are timed.
It's good for the sports nut to be prasied for good thinking!

For more information you can go to www.ootmweb.org/region14
their team number is 23950
Problem 3 Div I