Math 1050

So we found out a couple days ago that the math department at UVU is once again trying to ruin Dalt's college dream. Dalt's mom Debbie was checking online to make sure that her payment for his class went through when she noticed that she had one credit that was paid for but hadnt been used...She thought that was wierd so she called UVU and found out that they had dropped his Math 1050 class right out from under him! He was still going to the class and didn't even know that it had been dropped! Debbie had a yelling match with several different people from the math department for about 2 hours. She found out that Dalt's ACT score for math had expired! I didn't even know that was possible! So they just dropped his class without even telling him and he would have to take a test to get back in to the class. Debbie finally talked to the Chair of the Math Department and she said that because of "policy" Dalt couldn't take the class. But Debbie told her that it wasn't his fault his score expired and how if Dalt wasn't so strong willed he would have just given up. Then she went on to ask the lady "What about the not so strong willed kids? Do you want them to not graduate? Is it your goal to keep as many kids as possible from graduating?" So eventually the lady gave Debbie her email address and home phone number and said if he doesnt pass the test with a high enough score just call and let me know. Go Debbie! So Dalt has to go in and take the test tomorrow but it's supposed to be really easy so i'm sure he'll pass it. It's just dumb.

Congratulations Dalt!!

When Dalton started high school, he decided that he wanted to graduate not only with his high school diploma, but also an Associates Degree from UVSC. He took more than a dozen college classes while still taking his required high school classes. He even had to take some college classes before and after school to complete all the requirements to get the degree he wanted. While he was participating in concurrent enrollment and distance education classes from the college, he heard about a scholarship he might be interested in. The New Century Scholarship is a state funded scholarship awarded by the state's Office of Higher Education only to those students who graduate high school, along with their associates degree, with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better. So Dalt decided that he would try his hardest to get this scholarship.

In 11th grade he started taking a class called Math 1050 which is college algebra. He decided that his class load was a little heavy so he dropped the class 2 weeks into the semester. Unfortunately, the math department at the college didn't process his paperwork until 4 weeks after the start of the semester. This meant that he would have to take a failing grade in the class and because of "policy" the department couldn't do anything about it. This took a hit on his scholarship goal. But he just kept pushing.

In 12th grade he continued as planned and registered again for the Math 1050 class. He took the class and struggled alot, but he didn't give up and passed the class. Unfortunately his grade was a little low and he felt that with this grade and the failing grade from the previous year he might not stand a chance at getting his degree let alone the scholarship he had been working so hard for. After some of the longest weeks of his life Final Grades were posted online and he learned that he had met the requirements to recieve his Associates Degree. UVSC had been in the process of developing University status. Its new name would soon be UVU, Utah Valley University. If Dalt waited an extra week for his actual printed degree to arive, he could be among one of the very first students to have the name Utah Valley University printed on his degree. So he did.

Life went on. He was among only a handful of students in his class who graduated with his Associates. He worked at Big O Tires until January, when he started school again at UVU. He wasn't sure if he had qualified for The New Century Scholarship but he decided to apply for it anyway. He sent the papers in and a week later (Wednesday of this week) in the mail he recieved a letter from the Utah Office of Higher Education saying that they were pleased to inform him that he had been awarded a scholarship that would pay 75% of 60 college credits. That is basically the equivalent of $45,000!!!! He did it! He has accomplished what he has been trying so hard to do the passed 3 years! I am so proud of him! He has done an amazing job and accomplished so much as a high school student! Congratulations Dalton!

Hunters Safety

So Monday was my hunter's safety test day! I took the actual class online so that I didn't have to go to the class everyday for 2 weeks. So on Monday we went in to the place and our instructor talked to us about a bunch of different things and we watched some movies on hunting safety then we took the shooting test and last was the written test. I was so nervous! We took our shooting test and we had to shoot at 3 different targets in 3 different positions. We shot laying down or prone, Sitting or kneeling, and standing. I got 28/30 on my shooting test!! The instructor said that I got the highest score he had seen!! Then we went upstairs and we had half an hour to complete the 50 question written test. I was one of the first ones done and then we had to wait for everyone to fininsh. Well when everyone got done we corrected our tests and I got 49/50!! I was so happy! I passed all 3 areas required to pass hunters safety! So they gave us a Hunters Safety Graduate patch and our temporary license. It was so awesome! I am so excited that I get to put in this year!

Ok so after we went and saw the petroglyphs, we went across the street and there were some deer in this field. They were right by an orchard. So there were 2 big bucks right next to each other! so we stopped and took some cool pictures. Well out where we were there are a bunch of orchards right next to each other. When the pilgrams first settled there they all wanted to have fruit. So they all planted fruit trees. So each orchard belongs to a different family but every family wanted different kinds of fruit. So they planted lots of different kinds of fruit trees in the same orchard. With all of these orchards being next to each other, there are over 3000 trees! Since these orchards are in a national park, no one can hunt there. So the deer stay in these orchards all year round and they are protected! So these deer will probably live to be old and die of natural causes! That is so cool to know that there is somewhere where deer can live like this. So these deer see people alot because there are always taking care of the trees. They are practically tame. People don't scare them at all! Well after we saw the deer we decided to drive around and see the rest of the orchards. so we drove all the way around and got to the back. When we got opposite of where we saw the deer we saw them again and they had come around to the back! So we stopped the car and sat for a while and just watched them. They just kept coming! There were about 30 of them and they almost came right to us! There was a 3 foot fence around the orchards and we were on one side and they were on the other side only about 10-20 feet away from us! It was so fun to watch. We got out of our car and stood next to the fence and they didn't even care! There were tiny babies that were only the size of dogs! They were still fuzzy and they were so cute! There were deer of every size. Then we saw the bucks. There were 3 of them as well as a couple little spikes. We stayed there for another hour. It was so amazing to watch them and be that close. We watched them cross the road and we even got to see a couople of them jump the fence! We had so much fun. Once they all got to the other side of the road we finally had to leave because it was getting dark. But it was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. I wish everyone could see that once in their life. It was awesome.

Petroglyphs

So after we got dont at Goosenecks Point, we went to this other place where there were all these cool petroglyphs that the indians had drawn on the canyon wall. It was way cool. There were all these boardwalks just going along the face of the cliff so you could just walk along looking at all the pictures. It was amazing to look at. It was also a fun place to take pictures :). We saw this wierd tree that we called the "Weed Tower" haha because that's what it looks like. Lol.

Loa

So this weekend I went to my cousins house in Loa, Utah. out in the middle of nowhere haha. Today after we went to church, we went on a drive out to Capital Reef National Park. My cousins, grandma and grandpa, and mom and sister went.
We went to this place called "Gooseneck Point." It was this overlook out over the coolest canyon covered in snow. There were so many cool rock formations there so we took a ton of cool pictures. It is so cool out here. The landscape is so pretty. It is red rock and sage brush one second and fruit tree orchards with yellow grass the next. It was so beautiful I just wanted to stay out there all day.