Larry and I watched as he went through the first round - it looked like he had really good competitors and it wasn't until we saw him counting his cards that we noticed that he had 2 and 3 dot cards which gave him enough points to win the round. On to the second round and he blew the competition away achieving 61 points. He was a silver medalist after 2 rounds. Next up the silver medalists (8 in all) were set up at 2 tables. Greg again won his table and received the gold medal. Larry and I were so proud of him and surprised at his success because he really didn't put much time into it this year as he wasn't sure he was going to compete again.
We couldn't see him at the gold medal table as he was way across the room. Robert Sun, creator of the game, proctored the Platinum table. When the championship round was complete we watched Greg's face for some reaction. None was forthcoming so we just assumed that he was not successful. Boy were we wrong! Larry and I were standing there when they announced that the Platinum champion was a repeat winner. WOW - he did it. He repeated as Math24 Platinum Masters Champ. 
He was given a hard time when he went up to receive his trophy because he was wearing his Rolen jersey. They plastered a 24 t-shirt over his jersey for the pictures. Once again, we celebrated his success with a trip to Dave and Busters. What an amazing kid he is.Casey had an awesome week too. The week before she had finally finished her graduation project with her demonstration of aikido moves. Katie C. helped her with the demonstration.
She ended up with a 98 on the project which is fantastic because she had to do this all on her own because of scheduling issues. Wednesday was the high school awards ceremony and once again Casey received her fair share of them.
She received a few academic awards - Gifted, Science, and Spanish, a citizenship award, and her National Merit $2500 award. She was also the first and very surprised recipient of the Hillman Family Scholarship award in honor of their father, Mr. Hillman, the physics teacher who is retiring after this school year. It was very emotional for Casey as she loved AP Physics and the class inspired her to consider engineering at Dartmouth. Mr. Hillman was very surprised as well.
This week is all about graduation. Both Casey and Greg graduate on Friday. Hard to believe that Casey will be heading off to college and Greg will be starting high school. Where did the time go?
