Our Young Author

Flashback!  Please ignore the non chronological order of appearance

In March, Landon's Young Author's story entry, "The Blizzard of the Art Room 2015" was chosen to represent Rochester's first through third graders at the Young Author's state level.  We had gotten a letter in the mail that he was winning something ...which he had done last year...and that we were invited to attend the assembly, but that's all the letter said.  They choose 3 story writers and 3 illustrators for each grade level.  So when Chad asked if he should take a personal day to go, I (unfortunately and regretfully) said it wasn't that big of a deal, surely if he had won the whole thing, they would've said something to us, no need unless you really want to.....hence creating the nauseous feeling I had when his cover was projected up on the wall and his story presented and read aloud by the fifth grade gifted class to every Rochester student kindergarten through third grade.  I sent Chad a text apologizing and informing him of the win, and he showed up as a surprise at lunch time and brought Landon a Subway cookie.  When I picked him up off the bus lot, the first thing he said to me was, 'Mom!  Guess what?!?  Dad came and had lunch with me today and brought me cookies!'  I explained, I had heard and Daddy felt so bad that he didn't make the assembly and that was totally Mommy's fault and we're so sorry.  Landon shrugged and said, 'lunch and cookies is way better than him being there for a dumb assembly anyway.'  Whew.  That eased my guilt a tad, but not enough.  

So I took Landon up to Bloomington in May for the state Young Author's event. Side note....I won the Young Author's contest in second grade too!...with my story, The Special Meatball, and went to the convention thingy in Bloomington.  I don't remember much about it other than the author appearance was a lady who wrote the story, "Wait, Skates!" which was just eh in my opinion.  It was a really neat experience for Landon.  We spend so much time and energy on his athletic gifts it was nice to pour some into his creativity.  :)  He met an author and an illustrator....a husband/wife duo who made the story Lion, Lion, which is a really cool story.  He shared his story with other winners, saw a really entertaining story teller, and left excited about his day.  Just another thing to add to the list of reasons we're so proud of our guy.