Fantastic Family Featuring: Anna and the Princess

My family is quite spectacular really. I'm pretty sure all 7 of us kids placed in the top 10% of our graduating HS class, and most were in the top 10 people. But did we stop with academics? Heck no. We have an award winning seamstress, pianists, orator, debater, vocalists, cellists, guitarist, bassist, and (for a time) a flautist. We had a scholarship pageant winner and runners-up, a published author, a garage band creator, teachers, marathon runner, amateur gourmet chefs, a business tycoon, and a tenured NYU professor (who also taught at Harvard).

I am just beginning, though I'll move onto my next point.

Throw the spouses in the mix and you have a whole new ballgame. An Oxford graduate, forest ranger/ avid hunter and fisher, computer software, social worker extraordinaire, ophthalmologist, amateur photographers, etc.

In the words of one of my brothers-in-law, "I believe that people who are smart, successful, and good looking should reproduce a lot." Because when you have two extraordinary people combining their genes, you'll get extra-extraordinary offspring. Especially when you're as good of parents as my siblings and their spouses are.

That really is holding true in my family. I have 15 amazing nieces and nephews. Here are a few examples of recent achievements:

1. One of my nieces (who was in first grade at the time) had read and re-read every Harry Potter available by herself. Including the 600+ pagers. I asked her if she knew at what level she read. Her response was, "Well, I really don't know. The tests I've taken only go up to an eighth grade reading level. So something above that." This is not an uncommon phenomenon among my nieces and nephews.
   
2. A different niece was just awarded an mp3 player for being the top AR reader in her whole school.
3. One of my brother's kids can name the people featured on every type of US currency. Can you do that? They were very excited to each receive a "Benjamin" for Christmas last year.
   
4. While playing the piano, my sister was practicing a song that had a really fast, hard part in it. Her son was close by, so she told him to watch her fingers, thinking it would inspire him to practice more or something. well, as soon as she started playing, he looked at her hands and started yelling, "CURVED FINGERS!!! CURVED FINGERS!!!" She stopped and he said, "Well, that's what you do to me when you are watching ME practice." HAHAHAHA.
5. One of my nieces got to do a runway gig with a clothed dog on Good Morning America.
   
6. Ok. ok. I could go on forever. So I'll skip now to the title of my post.

Anna and the Princess
Recently my niece Anna was chosen to represent her school at a region-wide art exhibit in NYC. She is an incredibly talented budding artist among other amazing things. Now, the fact that she was chosen as her school's rep. was awesome on its own. But it was trumped last week by another art accomplishment of hers.

"More than 100 entries submitted from across the United States were received in this special art contest for children aged 8 to 12 who were invited to create a 9” by 12” piece of artwork on the subject of how Princess Grace [Grace Kelly--Princess of Monaco] inspires them. The Grand Prize winner is Anna [my niece], aged 12 [who just turned 13], from New York City whose brilliant combination black-and-white pencil etching with colored-pen drawing juxtaposes a young Grace Kelly on the film set of Dial M For Murder with a regal Princess Grace in a formal, official setting.

Anna, a 7th grade student, wins a trip to the Principality of Monaco [France!!!] with a parent or legal guardian to view this summer’s The Grace Kelly Years exhibition at the Grimaldi Forum Monaco (open from July 12 - September 23). They will fly courtesy of SWISS International Air Lines and stay for three nights at the four-star deluxe Fairmont Monte Carlo."

Now that is pretty cool. Congrats Anna!!