girls who code - saline

Back in the summer of 2015, I began to see Girls Who Code presence on Twitter. I became more and more intrigued and finally decided to see if I could start a club in my hometown in Michigan. I remembered walking through an open house at the high school the previous year and seeing a programming club sign on a table with nobody manning the table and no one around. Sad ... I thought. With all the technology in use today, you would think it would have more of a presence.

Girls Who Code - Saline, 2015 - 4 instructors and nearly 40 girls.

The first thing I did was get in touch with the high school to see if they interested in sponsoring the club. Since all the clubs were ran by students, they graciously declined. I then went to the superintendent Mr. Steve Laatsch who was very excited to sponsor a club in our district.

Now that I had a sponsor, what I needed was to actually become a Girls Who Code instructor. You had to pass a background check and also an exam. The test was somewhat of a challenge. Some of the questions pertained to computer science theory and in my 20+ years of coding had never seen and had no practical knowledge of. Since there were only 7 questions, every one was important. I passed it on my second try.

Mr. Laatsch arranged for us to meet in the Saline HS Media Center and have at our disposal 200 chrome books. Amazing! He also arranged for the club to be offered through community education and they handled the marketing and sign up. I just can't say enough nice things about Mr. Laatsch, he cares very deeply about our community and was excited to help me get this going.

The new community education program booklet arrived at my house and there it was! First page ....

I immediately felt an explosion of pride. Cool.

Several weeks later I began to think about how the registration was going. I contacted the community ed department and asked them to give my access to the class registration. They did ...

I logged in, really just expecting a few signups and thinking about how to go about marketing to attract girls to the club. I hadn't even signed Holly up yet. I was immediately shocked and absolutely thrilled to see 25 girls had signed up and we still had nearly a month left for registration. O.M.G. I got up from my work chair and did the happy dance. Holy smokes!

After celebrating for a few few minutes, realization set in. Holy smokes .... how was I going to effectively manage a large number of girls? O.M.G.

I started recruiting helpers. The product manager of the team I was on at work -Steve Sobieski actually wanted to become a teacher at one point but changed to computer science in college. He has a great sense of humor and an awesome work ethic. He was totally in. Yes! Still I needed more, I felt.

Next I contacted our local Girl Develop It - Ann Arbor chapter and asked if anyone was interested. I got 2 additional helpers, Ronda Bergman, who is the chapter co-founder, and Karen Dickensen, who is a active participate. Both amazing women in technology and fun to be around.

I was set .... we picked Monday nights from 6:30pm - 8:30pm. I was so nervous and anxious about our first meeting. By then 40 girls had signed up.

Headquarters sent us some cool swag ... and we were on our way! The only criticism I had is that there was just so much information sent by headquarters on curriculum and running a club - it was hard to keep it all straight and figure everything out. We did eventually figure it out and added our own flare to it.

It's now January and we've had an awesome time so far. We even inspired Ann Arbor to create a couple chapters in the area. They came and sat in on our club and we've established a wonderful relationship with them.

Usually we start off with about 10-20 minutes of discussion about something related to computer science. I've found a tons of great short videos from code.org and youtube. Then we work on our modules for about an hour. This is the curriculum designed by Girls Who Code. We're actually fortunate to have all the girls at the same Level. The last 30 minutes is a fun activity and then we end the night with "standup". We get into a circle and talk about challenges or triumphs - or what kind of pie we like.

I should have written more on this journey - I feel like it's alot of info to read. I swear, I'll get better. Stay tuned to hear all about our community project.

northern michigan wedding - lake michigan wedding photos

Just in case you didn't get enough of wedding photos - he's some more. The day after the wedding Jenny and Bobby got dressed back up and we went down to Frankfort, MI and took more pictures. I really think they turned out beautifully, but I'm biased.

northern michigan wedding - sunset on lake michigan

 It seriously can't get any more beautiful than this. It was a blustery day and we grabbed our hoodies and headed over to Frankfort, MI to watch the sunset on Lake Michigan.

The waves were spectacular.

The kids on the beach in front of the lighthouse.

While Bobby was wrestling with the baby to keep him from eating the sand.

Burke and Holly practicing Tae Kwon Do on the beach.

Mom relaxing on the swing. She's never seen Lake Michigan before.

I finally got some decent shots of Jason in the lake grass. I love this one.

Got my grandson William to do the same. Isn't he handsome?

The waves were breaking around the pier near the lighthouse. Amazing.

In the distance off the shoreline. I used my blue filter to get even deeper blues.

Then I put on my tea color filter to really bring out the grays.

And now the orange. I love the orange filter on the already orange sunset.

The waves were strong and the reflection of the sun hit the beach.

The people gathered earlier to all watch the sunset together. My mom saw her first one and was speechless. If you haven't seen a Lake Michigan sunset - I would highly recommend it. A sight to behold.

Muskegon

End of the school year, end of Holly's middle school years, Julia's 18th birthday and the end of Julia's school year in America. I think it deserves a special trip so off we went to Muskegon, MI.

And Michigan Adventure.

We stayed at the KOA in Muskegon. We stayed in a cabin right on the lake - very nice.

It was a great weekend for family fun time - and they were packed.

The lake was full of fish, ready for swimming.

Julia grabbed the bottom bunk and refused to put a sheet on the bed, stating her blanket was big enough to be a sheet and blanket. She brought her tiny little pillow and crawled into bed.

We watched the Emperors New Groove that I projected on the bedroom wall - then off to bed we went.

The next morning we set out for Michigan Adventure. Jason talked Julia into going on the largest, scariest roller coaster in the park as her very first ride. Her hands were shaking when she got off the ride.

There were many other rides.

And the water park.

Sitting under an umbrella - looking at the blue sky. Beautiful day.

After which we headed back to the campground. We had some dinner and cake for Julia's birthday. We ate at the Harbor View Grill in WhiteHall, Michigan. It was the most delicious dinner - everyone's dinner was amazing and it was reasonably priced. The service was great - I highly recommend it! There was also chocolate cake for dessert.

Holly and Julia wanted to go to the park.

So we did. Holly went down the slide.

And jumped up and down on the air pillow they had.

While I got ate by mosquitoes.

The girls had fun.

Jason fished. For a couple of hours.

But never got anything.

Looking for wood to build a fire.

Where we made smores.

And told ghost stories, staying up until 11:00pm by the fire.

Poking the fire around all night long.

An awesome weekend in Muskegon, Michigan. The weather was beautiful, the company was awesome and it was a great day.

the julia adventure

Although I don't think Aunt Dottie had a foreign exchange student, she did take in and mother lots of kids during her life. Since I had 2 bedrooms open in our house, and Holly has a passion for Sweden - it just seemed like the right thing to do.

I contacted ASSE, which apparently is out of the norm. Usually they are begging people to take students, so if you have love in your heart and a spare room - give them a call.

We read over the profiles of all the kids from all over the world and knew Julia was the right person for us with her love of languages and books. We began communication with Julia and her mom and sent almost daily emails back for forth for about 1 month.

The big day was finally here! The airports website said to park in the short term lot and go into the terminal to pick up International travelers. Holly and I left in plenty of time to pick her up with rush hour traffic and the stop for gas.

We finally found the parking garage and went inside Detroit Metro. Still early ... we paused for hot chocolate and coffee.

We checked the sign and found her flight - 15 minutes before the flight landed. We imagined the pilot coming on ...."Ladies and Gentlemen, we are preparing for landing at Detroit Metro. We will arriving in 15 mins."  And how wonderful that might be when you've been in the air for about 10 hours. And then it happened - the sign reflected it.

We moved towards the doorway where the passengers would come through. Someone said it would be awhile before they came through - they still needed to gather their luggage and clear customs. So we waited.

And every time the door opened, our heart skipped a beat. Was that her? She said she would have jeans and a striped shirt on. Soooo excited and sooooo nervous!

Nope, Julia doesn't have blond hair. We soon noticed the family next to us. They had a sign and flowers and I heard them say several times, "is that her?" Their sign was great!Turns out they lived in Saline too and were waiting for their foreign exchange student from China.

Sigh ....I didn't get the memo on the sign and flowers. This was ours.

Yep .... lame, but effective. And then ... there she was. And so ... our adventure begins ... with Julia from Sweden.