Memorial Day
No School for Eagle County Public Schools, visit www.eagleschools.net

Mother's Day is an annual holiday that recognizes mothers, motherhood and maternal bonds in general, as well the positive contributions that they make to society. In the United States, it is celebrated on the second Sunday in May

Early "Mother's Day" was mostly marked by women's peace groups.[1] A common early activity was the meeting of groups of mothers whose sons had fought or died on opposite sides of the American Civil War.

In 1868 Ann Jarvis created a committee to establish a "Mother's Friendship Day" whose purpose was "to reunite families that had been divided during the Civil War", and she wanted to expand it into an annual memorial for mothers, but she died in 1905 before the celebration became popular.[2]

In New York City, Julia Ward Howe led a "Mother's Day" anti-war observance in 1872[1][3], which was accompanied by a Mother's Day Proclamation. The observance continued in Boston for about 10 years under Howe's personal sponsorship, then died out.[4]

Several years later, a Mother's Day observance on May 13, 1877 was held in Albion, Michigan, over a dispute related to the temperance movement.[5] According to local legend, Albion pioneer, Juliet Calhoun Blakeley, stepped up to complete the sermon of the Rev. Myron Daughterty, who was distraught because an anti-temperance group had forced his son and two other temperance advocates to spend the night in a saloon and become publicly drunk. In the pulpit, Blakeley called on other mothers to join her. Blakeley's two sons, both traveling salesmen, were so moved that they vowed to return each year to pay tribute to her and embarked on a campaign to urge their business contacts to do likewise. At their urging, in the early 1880s, the Methodist Episcopal Church in Albion set aside the second Sunday in May to recognize the special contributions of mothers.

No School for Eagle County
Public Schools,
visit www.eagleschools.net

Earth Day is celebrated in the US on April 22 and is a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's environment. It was founded by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-Wisconsin) as an environmental teach-in in 1970 and is celebrated in many countries every year. This date is Spring in the Northern Hemisphere and Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day

Passover starts at sunset
visit www.bnaivail.org

March 20-28             
Spring Break for Eagle County Public Schools
Visit www.eagleschools.net

17              St. Patrick’s Day
Saint Patrick's Day (Irish: Lá ’le Pádraig or Lá Fhéile Pádraig), colloquially St. Paddy's Day or simply Paddy's Day, is an annual feast day which celebrates Saint Patrick (circa AD 385–461), the most commonly recognised of the patron saints of Ireland, and is generally celebrated on 17th of March.

The day is a national holiday of Ireland: it is a bank holiday in Northern Ireland and a public holiday in the Republic of Ireland. It is also a public holiday in Montserrat. In Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, the United States, Argentina and New Zealand, it is widely celebrated but is not an official holiday.[1]

St. Patrick's feast day was placed on the universal liturgical calendar in the Catholic Church due to the influence of the Waterford-born Franciscan scholar Luke Wadding[2] in the early part of the 17th century, although the feast day was celebrated in the local Irish church from a much earlier date. St. Patrick's Day is a holy day of obligation for Roman Catholics in Ireland. The feast day usually falls during Lent; if it falls on a Friday of Lent, the obligation to abstain from eating meat can be lifted by the local bishop. The church calendar avoids the observance of saints' feasts during certain solemnities, moving the saint's day to a time outside those periods. St. Patricks Day is very occasionally affected by this requirement. Thus when 17th of March falls during Holy Week, as in 1940 when St. Patrick's Day was observed on 3 April in order to avoid it coinciding with Palm Sunday, and again in 2008, having been observed on 15 March. St. Patrick's Day will not fall within Holy Week again until 2160 - when it will fall on the Monday before Easter.[3][4]

 Daylight Savings Time begins

Daylight saving time (DST; also summer time in British English—see Terminology) is the practice of advancing clocks so that afternoons have more daylight and mornings have less. Typically clocks are adjusted forward one hour near the start of spring and are adjusted backward in autumn.[1] Modern DST was first proposed in 1895 by George Vernon Hudson, a New Zealand entomologist.[2] Many countries have used it since then; details vary by location and change occasionally.

The practice is controversial.[1] Adding daylight to afternoons benefits retailing, sports, and other activities that exploit sunlight after working hours,[3] but causes problems for farming, evening entertainment and other occupations tied to the sun.[4][5] Traffic fatalities are reduced when there is extra afternoon daylight;[6] its effect on health and crime is less clear. Although an early goal of DST was to reduce evening usage of incandescent lighting, formerly a primary use of electricity,[7] modern heating and cooling usage patterns differ greatly, and research about how DST currently affects energy use is limited and often contradictory.[8]

DST's occasional clock shifts present other challenges. They complicate timekeeping, and can disrupt meetings, travel, billing, recordkeeping, medical devices, heavy equipment,[9] and sleep patterns.[10] Often, software can adjust computer clocks automatically, but this can be limited and error-prone, particularly when DST rules change.

In the Western Christian calendar, Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent and occurs forty-six days (forty days not counting Sundays) before Easter. It is a moveable feast, falling on a different date each year because it is dependent on the date of Easter. It can occur as early as 4 February or as late as 10 March.

Ash Wednesday gets its name from the practice of placing ashes on the foreheads of the faithful as a sign of repentance. The ashes used are gathered after the Palm Crosses from the previous year's Palm Sunday are burned. In the liturgical practice of some churches, the ashes are mixed with the Oil of the Catechumens[1] (one of the sacred oils used to anoint those about to be baptized), though some churches use ordinary oil. This paste is used by the minister who presides at the service to make the sign of the cross, first upon his or her own forehead and then on those of congregants. The minister recites the words: "Remember (O man) that you are dust, and to dust you shall return", or "Repent, and believe the Gospel."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_Wednesday

President’s Day
No School for Eagle County Public Schools, visit www.eagleschools.net.

Valentine's Day or Saint Valentine's Day is a holiday celebrated on February 14 by many people throughout the world. In the English-speaking countries, it is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other by sending Valentine's cards, presenting flowers, or offering confectionery. The holiday is named after two among the numerous Early Christian martyrs named Valentine. The day became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished.

The day is most closely associated with the mutual exchange of love notes in the form of "valentines". Modern Valentine symbols include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten notes have largely given way to mass-produced greeting cards.  The sending of Valentines was a fashion in nineteenth-century Great Britain, and, in 1847, Esther Howland developed a successful business in her Worcester, Massachusetts home with hand-made Valentine cards based on British models. The popularity of Valentine cards in 19th century America, where many Valentine cards are now general greeting cards rather than declarations of love, was a harbinger of the future commercialization of holidays in the United States. It's considered one of the Hallmark holidays.

The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately one billion valentines are sent each year worldwide, making the day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year, behind Christmas. The association estimates that, in the US, men spend on average twice as much money as women.

Groundhog Day is an annual holiday celebrated on February 2 in the United States and Canada. According to folklore, if a groundhog emerging from its burrow on this day fails to see its shadow, it will leave the burrow, signifying that winter will soon end. If on the other hand, the groundhog sees its shadow, the groundhog will supposedly retreat into its burrow, and winter will continue for six more weeks. The holiday, which began as a Pennsylvania German custom in southeastern and central Pennsylvania in the 18th and 19th centuries, has its origins in ancient European weather lore, wherein a badger or sacred bear is the prognosticator as opposed to a groundhog. The holiday also bears some similarities to the medieval Catholic holiday of Candlemas It also bears similarities to the Pagan festival of Imbolc, the seasonal turning point of the Celtic calendar, which is celebrated on February 1 and also involves weather prognostication.

Martin Luther King Day
No School for Eagle County
Public Schools, except ECCA,
visit www.eagleschools.net.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Dec. 19 - Jan. 3, 2010 - Returning on January 4th

Winter Break
Vail Mountain School
& Eagle County Public Schools

Dec. 19 - Jan. 3, 2010 - Returning on January 4th

             
Winter Break
Vail Mountain School
& Eagle County Public Schools

Welcome to the updated website for The Parents Handbook to Summit County, Colorado and our sister publication, The Parents Handbook to the Vail Valley. We have worked hard over the years to create a resource for parents, grand-parents and care-givers that makes it easy to answer the question " What are we going to do with the kids today?" With our website, we now have the ability update our calendar of events and discount coupons, use blogs to communicate new or improved activities and create a new kids section( in the works).

Please help us! I'd love hear from you with any suggestions to make the web-site or our publications better.

Respectfully-

Alan M. Sandberg
Publisher
alan@valuemediaco.com

10% OFF any purchase

Click Image to View/Print

Mommy & Me

20% OFF on any purchase

Click Image to View/Print

The Book Worm

20% OFF any one item at either store

Click Image to View/Print

Alpine Ambiance

10% OFF on Bowling and Shoe rental

Click Image to View/Print

THE BACK BOWL

15% OFF on Food Bill

Click Image to View/Print

The Tap Room