(April): Easter Carnival #2

We also attended an Easter Carnival at the Methodist church in our neighborhood.  This is the girls with Elaina's friend, Haleigh

Erin getting her face painted

Elaina at the cake walk

Potato Sack Race

(April): Easter Carnival

We attended two Easter Carnivals this year.  The first was the week before Easter at the George Bush Library.  We've done this one almost every year that we lived in Bryan.  The kids participated in an Easter Egg hunt (more like an Easter egg dash) and then played some carnival games.

We were surprised when Isaac won a tricycle and helmet in a drawing that they had.  He has a few years before he'll actually appreciate it! 

Of course, they always love sitting in the fire engine!

(March): Rub-a-dub-dub, two girls in a tub

(March): Bluebonnets 2012

One of my favorite times of year in Texas is when the bluebonnets bloom each spring.  This year we went to a place called Washington On The Brazos, which is considered the birthplace of Texas.  Here, they signed the Texas declaration of Independence from Mexico in 1836.  The park is beautiful this time of year when the bluebonnets bloom.

Elaina and the flowers

One of my favorite pictures of the girls

Looking for poison ivy

Elaina

Erin

Daddy and his girls

  

Daddy and his boy

Fields of bluebonnets

In this building is where the Texas declaration of Independence was signed

 

The girls always want to do a silly picture after they take a nice picture.  This silly one actually turned out pretty funny!

(March) St Patrick's Day

We got together with several other families for a picnic at the park on St. Patrick's Day.  As always, Mike Lowe discovered that the leprechaun had hidden his pot of gold, and several clues to help us find it.  The kids were thrilled!  They ran around the park chasing clues and looking for gold. 

 

 In the end they discovered a pot of gold covered, chocolate candy!

(March): Mike's Dissertation Defense

I don't even know where to begin to express how happy I am for Mike.  He has spent five years working toward this goal and early in March he defended his dissertation to a committee of four Professors, and he passed!  I am so proud of him and his hard work, and his determination to achieve difficult goals.

For those unfamiliar with how the process works, basically Mike spent his final three years in graduate school working on a paper that estimates how to increase the profitability of operating state lottery games. He spent the previous two years on course work and classes.  The classes were grueling in order to weed out the students who weren't cut out for a PhD program.  His research had its ups and downs, which demanded many late nights, many revisions, starting over sometimes, or at least redirecting the scope of his research.  From my perspective, the roller coaster of roadblocks and breakthroughs became a routine part of our lives.  I learned that when those times came that Mike would come home feeling down and out, he would buckle down, figure something out and discover an appropriate solution.  For example, the summer before his final year, another paper was published that was very similar to his own research.  This was a really big deal because a person's dissertation needs to be a completely original idea.  Therefore, he decided to change the scope of his own paper in order to make it unique.  At the time, this was really a crushing blow to everything he had been working on, but he figured out a solution, redirected his approach to the research, and moved forward.

For a dissertation defense, the student assembles a group of 4 professors who have different fields of specialty so they each have a unique contribution.  He assembled his committee a couple years ago.  He chose one individual to be the committee chair, and Mike's chair has been really helpful in challenging Mike to push himself and figure out solutions on his own.  It was been frustrating at times when it would have been easier for them to just give him the answer, but in hindsight Mike realizes that he gained a lot of knowledge through the experience of figuring things out on his own.  For his defense, his committee all came together to listen to his presentation, ask him questions, and grill him on his knowledge of the subject.  It's expected that they will put you on the spot and make it an uncomfortable experience in order to make sure you know your stuff.  Mike calls it academic hazing, and believe me, they certainly make sure you know your stuff and are worthy of the title of PhD.  I knew it would be rough, but it was more intense than I had expected!

Generally they let the student present their paper uninterrupted, and then they send everyone else out of the room so the committee members can reel into him with difficult questions.  For some reason in Mike's defense, they just asked questions throughout the presentation and so I was there to witness them rip his ideas to shreds, and interrogate him on every measly detail of his research. 

I really wanted to attend to the defense and support Mike (often, students or family attend the defense).  It was one of the most uncomfortable situations of my life.  While I'm glad I went, I felt sick to my stomach the entire time just watching Mike go through that.  Imagine watching your spouse in a make it or break it job interview, and all you can do is sit back and watch as they purposefully interrogate him and point out every flaw they can find.  I felt like I was watching him being tortured.  It was seriously awful.  They asked him difficult questions, they put him on the spot, they agreed, they disagreed, and they weren't afraid to share their honest opinions.  It was brutal.  I sat there and watched it all, feeling helpless.

At one point one of the professors gave him some suggestions for a revision.  I figured that he might have wanted to write those ideas down, but realized he didn't have a pen.  I remember reaching down into my purse thinking that if I could just hand him a pen it might make everything better.  But then I didn't want to interrupt, or be a distraction, and really, a pen was probably the least of his worries.  So I just sat there, with a pen in my hand, and watched him continue to be torn apart.  Even my little offering of a pen couldn't really do anything for him. I felt so helpless.

At the end they sent Mike and I out of the room so that the 4 professors could deliberate.  As we walked toward his office, I wanted to throw up, I felt so sick about it.  I envisioned the past 5 years of our life being thrown in the garbage - all that preparation and hard work was about to be thrown away with a simple "Fail" on his dissertation defense.  Meanwhile he sat down in his chair with a smile on his face.  I asked him how he think it went and he confidently said, "Good!  They'll pass me."  Whoa, wHaT?!?!  You think that went well?  Apparently so.  His experience was surprisingly very normal.  The committee members deliberated for about 15 minutes and then called him back in.  I waited in his office and immediately heard, "Congratulations Dr. Trousdale."  Whew!!  I liked the sound of that!!!  They had some advice for him and want him to do a few more things included in his write up to strengthen his argument, so he would spent the next week doing revisions, which is pretty typical. 

**Having said all of this, in order to be fair to Mike, I have to point out that this is all from my perspective, and I understood very little about the details of what they were talking about.  When they got into the technical stuff, occasionally I heard the words, "Pi" and "log" which I am somewhat familiar with, but beyond that, they might as well have been speaking Chinese.  So when they had comments and suggestions, and criticisms, it was impossible for me to gauge how important these issues were.  Obviously they weren't significant enough to fail him, and I feel relieved to know that what I perceived as academic torture was actually, in some weird way, actually constructive criticism.**  

Regardless, he passed, and that's what matters.  I am so proud of Mike and his accomplishment!  He has worked very hard and achieved a difficult goal.  I'm glad that he sets high goals, and I'm glad that he has it in him to achieve them

(March): Scouts & Pinewood Derby

Mike really enjoyed serving in Cub Scouts this last year.  He was the 11-yr old scout leader in our ward.  He worked well with the boys, enjoyed going to the meetings, and the boys really had fun with him as well.

Here's Mike heading off to a Boy Scout Campout.  He managed to pack all of his gear on the back of his motorcycle!

 Mike and his future boyscout.

Technically the 11-yr old scouts don't participate in the Pinewood Derby.  For the past 2 years Mike has helped another boy in our ward make his pinewood derby car, so it's been a good excuse to make a car himself.  This boy has moved up in scouting and so wasn't participating in the race this year, but Mike wanted to make a car anyway, and so he did!  His cars generally don't race well because the focus is more on having a cool looking car, so he doesn't care.

Cheering on all the cars

When we arrived at the race several of the boys had cars that were too heavy to race, so Mike got a hold of a rotary tool and helped them carve out the inside to make it meet the weight restriction so that they were able to race.

Mike made a really cool scorpion car this year.  Like last year, it didn't race well, but it definitely looked cool! :)

 

Mike's birthday was on a Wednesday this year, so he was at Scouts that evening.  The girls and I decided to surprise him at his Cub Scout meeting with cupcakes.

(January): Teacher Erin

Erin really enjoyed participating in a preschool group the past 2 years.  She went twice a week, and had a great group of friends that were in the group.  Following one of my teaching days I found her playing teacher herself after it was all over.  She taught her imaginary students (nearly word for word) part of the lesson I had taught.