From our family to yours!
Last night, we took the family over to the Nashville Chess Center. Why were we there you ask? Well, Kalonji went to meet the administrative staff at the center to discuss potential collaborations for Kalonji’s non-profit. Admittedly, I know absolutely nothing about chess, but Kalonji has been teaching Kaleya & Jihad how to play. They were having their Holiday Party and there were at least 50 or so people there.
It is located in a gorgeous old home on Belmont Avenue.
Picture of the Chess Center building
And, the space is divided into areas for play, for learning, and they even have a small library. It was fun to watch some of the regulars play even though I couldn’t follow along. One of the members set Kaleya & Jihad up on a computer to do a chess tutorial. Kaleya knows how a few of the pieces move so she was actually explaining them to me. Jihad was doing his own thing – he didn’t need me at all 
Jihad snacks
Jihad and Kaleya play
You know me…I had to take some pictures in their library.
a view in the libraray
cool chessboard
my librarian self loves the classification
The club is open two nights a week and a few hours on Sunday afternoon so we will likely join after the holidays. Kalonji wants the kids in his mentoring program to understand the rules and ways of the game as a way to further stimulate strategic thinking skills. There may be more chess reported here on the blog in the near future :-).
Last night as I was about to go to bed I heard noises outside the window so took a look. Saw a news truck outside and then noticed fire engines – there was a fire near our house and I could see the smoke coming from the building. Since I’ve newly discovered that I can listen to Fire & EMS radio with an app on my phone, I quickly connected and could hear the conversations going on. The fire fighters rescued the guy who lived there, but he ended up dying later in the hospital. They also rescued a female pit bull and her 10 puppies – one of those puppies died. Very sad indeed. The news story is here (be sure to watch the video clip).
Then, this morning we wake up to more chaos on the streets because of our snow yesterday. Kelli took some pictures and the situation is just crazy. Doesn’t this look like a line of cars in line waiting to go somewhere? Well, there’s no waiting – these are all stranded in the driveway of an apartment complex.
Over the weekend, Kaleya showed me one of the routines they have her class do in PE class at school. I thought it was great! Obviously a way of doing some strength-training with the kids. Kaleya is already pretty strong, but one-armed pushups?? Puts me to shame
O
One week, Jihad even came home and said they were doing a Michael Jackson routine as a whole grade exercise at his school. How cool. Nothing like PE was when I was young.
