Crazy hair day!

Jocelyn and Wesley look forward to some of the events at school.  This week they’re raising money for United Way.  They chose how they wanted their hair done and tomorrow they’ll be wearing pajamas to school!

Reading Door Contest

This week my school has been doing a focus on reading with D.E.A.R. time (drop everything and read) once a day planned by different levels, today we had a RIF (Reading Is Fundamental through our Rotary Club) reader come to our class and gave books to the students.  Another fun thing we did was a door contest.  My students narrowed down their choice to Captain Underpants and then we had everyone participating in some way to develop our door.  We didn’t win but we had a great time putting it together and working as a team!  Here’s a pic of our finished product.  Don’t you just love the colorful underwear?

u2 or bust!

Ken is a *HUGE* fan of U2 so when the news came out in summer that they were going to be performing in Norman, OK, it was a no-brainer that Ken was going to go.  He sent out a tweet on Twitter to round up a bunch of other friends and it came down to us two and four others.  We left Sunday afternoon and headed south on what should have been a 3-hour drive.  We stopped at the Rib Crib in Edmond for an early dinner and then drove the final leg of the journey.  Problem was, the traffic was extremely bad.  There was road construction and apparently a wreck of some kind that made us late for the opening act.  We paid $30 to park the van and headed to the OU arena.  We ran into another snag there – lack of signing for our section.  Even after asking 3 different times where our section was (even being told she wasn’t sure it even existed!?), it took us 45 minutes to find our seats.  Yup, Blackeyed Peas (the opening act) was now over.  That’s okay, we were mainly there for U2.  The concert was TOTALLY AWESOME and they obliged by coming out for two encores with a couple of songs each time.  There was probably about 50,000+ attendees that were flooding out of the stadium by that time.  It took us an hour just to get out of Norman and it took us another 3 hours to drive home.  We got home at 4am.  Ken had fortunately taken the day off work but I had an 8 am start time and so did some of the others in our group!

Our group: back row, Josh, Ken, Darrin and Sarah with me and Amy in the front.

The awesome stage with moving bridges, changing lights, and retractable high-def screen. Sweet!

end of season

Taylor valiantly completed his first cross country season this past week.  Despite the threat of bad weather, the morning of his meet turned out sunny but unfortunately the wind picked up.  The All-City meet is supposed to be the meet of the entire season.  Taylor not only placed 29th out of 100+ boys, he also earned a medal and a personal best time.  I am SO proud of him for doing so well this season, not only for trying cross country, but also doing his best on the team, on his soccer intramurals that coincided for two weeks during his season, AND keeping his grades up.  Way to go, Taylor!

Taylor shaking hands with one of the athletic head honchos from the school district while being awarded his medal.  Just about all of the 30 7th grade boy medalists.  Taylor came in 29th!

Proud (yet possessed looking) Taylor with his medal and special cross country t-shirt.

it’s been yucky

I feel that the past few weeks, no, probably the whole entire month of September and even into August has been a blur. Starting school and getting a routine down has been enough of a challenge while adjusting to a new team and a new class of students on top of it at work has been even harder.  And then my allergies kicked in. Yuck. Turns out my usual allergy medicine didn’t help so I was desperately trying new things to help me sleep and more importantly – breathe! Well, I managed to get a viral infection of some kind (not a big surprise, really, since my school ended up with the first “official” case of H1N1 flu) then went into a sinus infection. I eventually broke down and went to the doctor who prescribed antibiotics and gave me a steroid shot. On top of that I needed to do my neti pot sinus washes and take a nasal spray.  I am so incredibly worn down but I’m now looking forward to a great October with wonderfully cool fall weather. Ahhhh, take a deep breath. . .

taylor’s 1st meet

Taylor decided he wanted to run cross country this year now that he was in 7th grade.  Ken and I supported him wholeheartedly and Ken even changed his work schedule to get him to practice at 6am.  Today was his first meet.  Wow, did it ever bring back memories of running cross country in high school!  Taylor did well for his first meet.  The weather was perfect, cloudy and cool(ish).  He placed 23rd (too bad there were only 20 medals) and had ran his best time of 6:39 for the one mile.  I am so proud of him!  He’s excited for his next race next weekend!  (me too!)

Typical goofy Taylor!   ~~~ At the starting line.  It was a 1 mile race.

Nearly to the finish line!  ~~~ At the awards ceremony following the races.

august party #2

My nephew Liam turned 4 August 30th and celebrated his birthday at Chuck E. Cheese.  Taylor, Jocelyn, and Wesley loved it as they don’t ever get to go unless they’re attending a party.  There were smiles all around!

2 tables of hungry children from playing games!

David with Abbie.  ~~~  Cheri and Ali.

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, dear Liam. . .

These were too cute to not post! Jocelyn and Wesley each took turns posing in Chuck E.’s car. Much better than the black and white thermal paper prints that spit out when you put a token in!

August party #1

It was Mum’s birthday August 17th and I tried to plan a surprise birthday party for her.  Unfortunately, Zach got a case of the chicken pox and we had to postpone it! The weather was great for a bbq of burgers and hot dogs and the children loved playing on the trampoline, with the soccer balls, and the bubble machine.  Cheesecake, chocolate zucchini cake, and brownies were dessert.

Mum, Nancy with Abbie and Ali.  ~~  Abbie has learned to wave at everyone!

Ali adored the trampoline.   ~~~  Wesley and Zachary show no fear jumping high.

Ken, David and Mum enjoying the patio.  ~~~  Happy birthday to you, Mum!

another school year

This morning began extremely early.  Not only was it the first day of school for all three children but it was also Taylor’s first day of cross country practice.  He had to be at the school by 6am which meant getting up at 5am and leaving the house at 5:30am.  That is one early morning.  Only fortunately it was Ken taking Taylor to practice.  I couldn’t sleep so I got up anyway.  He wouldn’t oblige with pictures so early in the morning so I had to wait until tonight instead.  Taylor was very excited about practice although  not so much about school itself.  That changed as the day wore on.  Jocelyn was thrilled about going to 4th grade but not so much the teacher she was assigned to.  That also changed as the day wore on.  Wesley wasn’t thrilled about going back to school but had a good day and enjoyed his teacher.  My class?  We’ll see as the rest of the week wears on but I’m going to think positively about it being a great year!

another summer gone by

It is the eve of the day that I report back to work and I am reflecting back over the past weeks of summer.  How quickly they have flown by!  Did I get everything accomplished on my to-do list?  Nope.  Did I get the house cleaned? Yep, but you can’t tell by looking at it now!  Did we get to visit different places?  Yep.  Did we spend countless hours in the pool?  Yep.  Did we make lots of memories?  I hope so!

June started off quickly with both boys participating in a soccer camp.  Then Taylor went off to camp with his Uncle Keith.  The following week Jocelyn went to church camp.  We went to Colorado twice and visited Doug and Julie in Arkansas.  We had friends and family come and stay with us from Oklahoma and Topeka.  All three children spent a full week at Vacation Bible School.  All three of the children had their yearly medical checks, bi-annual dental checks, and vision checks and I had lots of dental work done as well as my eyes checked.  I reviewed my goals from the beginning of the year and am on track for the majority of them (whew!) including taking my test for my English as a Second Language (ESL) endorsement.  I am anxiously awaiting those results.  I know we didn’t get to the water parks at the Y or the free bowling at the local center but looking back at how packed our schedule really was, it was a fun summer.  And amazingly enough, no one killed each other although there were plenty of time outs and quiet times!  Now it’s time to shift gears and focus on a new school year.  Bring it on!