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Sun, 17 Oct 2010

This autumn has been beautiful and the nice days just keep coming. It has been really nice. I think that I already mentioned that I've been working with Thomas' scout group. Yesterday we went on a hike. I made my whole family join me, not just Thomas. The weather was brisk at 9:00 in the morning, but warmed up quickly. We hiked about four miles along the Castlewood loop of the Chubb trail. This made a loop along some bottomlands by the Meremac River. So it was mostly level. At one point we saw two bald eagles circling over the river. I guess these are two permanent residents because it is too early (and too far south) for the winter visitors that we get along the Mississippi.

After the hike we walked to the nearby World Bird Sanctuary and walked their trails. They were having an open house and so we got to see various animals and displays. My favorite was the new armadillo. Usually, these are just seen on the side of the road after they've been hit by cars. They're cuter when they are alive. Bryan enjoyed talking to someone that was selling things he'd made on his wood lathe. He showed Bryan how he made boxes. On our way home we drove through Lone Elk Park and saw a one large male elk and a few females. 

We made it home with a little time to rest before going to the church for a baked potato bar and root beer floats. Then we had the traditional trunk or treat. I finally finished Melody's costume after promising her a Renaissance dress for over a year. Thomas has had his "struck by lightening" costume idea for a couple of months and has been growing his hair out in anticipation.

Bryan has had the hardest time he's ever had coming up with an idea. He finally dressed as a character from  a TV show we like (Firefly) but since it is an obscure show he knew he'd be explaining his costume all night. He plans to come up with something different for next week's youth dance.

This week was Conference Meet for cross-country. It was another beautiful day. Melody went with me to watch. She played on the playground while Bryan ran past.

This has been hard work for Bryan and a good way to get in shape, but I will be glad to see him have a little more free time when this is over.  Although since he finished his lifeguard training, he will start working some when all his paperwork finally gets approved. 

Thomas asked last weekend to bake some cookies. Usually Melody is my baking buddy, but Thomas asked, and he did a really good job. These were some of the best Mrs. Field's cookies I've tasted in a long time. Not that good for those trying to cut calories though. But look, we are serving them with ice cream!

Melody called me the other day from a friend's house. Her friend had some extra goldfish she was trying to give away. She said, "I know we already have a cat, but I'd sure like a fish also." I gave her all the reasons why I thought that she didn't want a fish, such as that the bowl is icky to clean; goldfish are boring;she'd have to keep it on a high shelf, away from the cat… But in the end, I said it was her decision because she would be doing it all herself and so I felt she was old enough to decide for herself. Of course, I was influenced by the fact that goldfish don't generally live too long, so it's not the major decision that getting a cat is (or having a child). I was disappointed though, when she came home that afternoon with a fish in a bag. She set up a home for "Frank" in her room. We even had leftover fish food in the cupboard from when we had fish in our pond outside (they froze several winters ago). It was kind of sad, (but also funny) when Melody came to me the next morning to let me know that she wouldn't have clean a goldfish bowl after all. Alas, poor Frank lived in our house for less that 24 hours. He was a good pet.

Speaking of dead, I sure have been having a hard time staying awake for movies these days. I fell asleep for the end of another one last night and Marc took a picture of me. He said the cat had been sitting on top of me for about a half an hour when he went to get the camera. 

 I guess that's all that's been going on around here.

posted at: 15:20 | permanent link to this entry

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Wed, 29 Sep 2010

September continued

So I uploaded a few pictures from the 27th. Here is Melody with her traditional stack of loot. 

Here are the people besides the photographer who came to her "family party."

So, what has Thomas been up to since school started? I've been impressed at the way he's handled middle school so far. He's getting up and ready without nagging. He's pretty organized. He has all his work in and is getting involved in after-school activities. Fantastic! 

Last week he finished up intramural flag football. He was on the sixth grade winning team. I think he'll be playing soccer next.

One of the things that we've done together is scouts. I'm now working as the eleven-year-old scout leader. Or would that be more correctly said, the leader for the eleven-year-old scouts? Anyway, it's been fun so far. There are only three boys and they've all shown great enthusiasm. We had a campout with the boys and their dads a few weekends ago. I didn't have to plan this, just went and taught first-aid at one station. The  boys did all the cooking and Marc had to eat it. Thomas and Marc stayed in a tent (although Thomas reportedly was only in the tent for three hours that night… none of the boys slept much, so neither did their dads). They also did a BSA swim test and got lots of other requirements passed off. We went on a long, hot hike. The boys did fire building, and totin' chip. It was a lot of fun and will make my job as leader easier since the boys did a lot of required stuff. Here are some pictures.

 

 

 

 

 I plan to try to go on about a hike a month all winter. That will give me an excuse to make our family do something outdoors together. We'll see how that goes, but I bought a book that lists local hikes in it, so I should be able to come up with a few places to go.

Thomas' favorite class in school is his GATE class. They are doing a photography unit and he's been taking  pictures with a pinhole camera. They have even got to develop them. He's having a great time planning pictures to take. I look forward to seeing his work.

Let's see, he's also been playing cello in orchestra. I think he enjoys that. He sounds real good when he practices, I just wish that were more often.

It's not a lot of information for a month and a half of not writing, but that's what happens when I wait to write; I forget about things. So that is what the kids have been up to.

Marc is still working at Wells Fargo and now he has started classes to work on an MBA. That will keep him out of trouble.

I am still working part-time at Del Mar Gardens. I'm having fun working with the scouts. My quilt has been stalled now for about the same  length of time as my blog. I gotta get busy on lots of things. But doing laundry is always so distracting… Anyway, that's our lives right now. I'll try to write more regularly.

 

posted at: 22:46 | permanent link to this entry

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More about September

Melody has been busy at school also. She likes her classes and stays after school to do art club and various school-spirit types of activities (tutoring others, planning activities… She spends a lot of her time on homework, but also has been preoccupied lately about turning thirteen. As a birthday present, Marc and I got her braces.

She didn't think that was a sufficient way to celebrate, so after much deliberation,  she decided to invite a few friends to spend the night with her and go to the City Museum. Here is the before picture:

And after five hours of playing hard:

The weather turned out perfect for playing outside and I think everyone had fun. We made it home by 1:30 AM to have cake and open a few presents. I think they slept well when they finally got to go to bed.

Then we celebrated the actual day of her birthday two days later as a family and ate more cake and opened a mound of presents. Her birthday dinner of choice was BLT sandwiches. She was concerned that she wouldn't be able to eat them with her new braces, but after a week of soft food while she had spacers and then almost a week of braces, she is nearly able to eat normally again (except for all the forbidden foods). I guess I haven't taken the pix of her actual birthday off my camera yet, so will have to add them to my next post (where I will also tell you about what exciting things our third child has been up to and maybe a word about Marc and I) Stay tuned…

posted at: 19:47 | permanent link to this entry

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First month of school

Thought I'd get back to the habit of writing regularly now that school is in session, but it hasn't happened yet. Things have gone well, but we've all been busy. Here are some of the things we are doing.

First, of course, school has started. Here is a picture of the first day of school for Melody and Thomas. It is nice for them to be at the same school. Melody is in eighth grade and Thomas in sixth. They wait for the bus across the street from out house, along with their friend, Alysha. She is in seventh grade. Most mornings I see them off to school after making lunches, etc. On the mornings when I am still at work, they are able to get themselves off and that happens occasionally. 

Bryan is a senior this year. I often see him as I head out the door to walk in the mornings. He is going to seminary at a different building than last year, so we don't go to seminary together any more. I usually just say good morning and goodbye to him. Unless I am working and then I don't see him at all in the morning. 

He is busy after school as well because he decided to run cross country this year. I've enjoyed that because I used to enjoy running, so it brings back fun memories. Except that his coach had a family event to kick off the year. We had a family race. It was only a mile long and so I encouraged Melody and Thomas to race with me in the hopes that they might enjoy it.Several things resulted from this race. First, I learned how old and out of shape I am. It nearly killed me. Granted, it was a really hot day with high humidity…But I was embarrassed that I had to stop and walk so much. I did beat the lady with the stroller though. Second, instead of inspiring Mel and Thomas, I'm sure Melody will never even consider running in high school now. She hated it. Thomas beat us both so maybe there's hope for him. Third, I gained empathy for the runners through my suffering. That was the coaches' intent. Now when I watch them run, I feel their pain. 

  Cross country is very different than I remember it a thousand years ago. All of the meets Bryan has been to have been huge. This one was at Forest Park in St. Louis. There were about 350 runners in his division. It would be easy to get trampled in this crowd, especially at the turns. This race was memorable because of the mud. It had rained very hard the night before and the course turned into a giant mud pit. I saw one runner go by with only one shoe. Here's the start.

  Here's Bryan in the middle.

  And this is at the end.

 So this has taken a lot of time after school and a few Saturdays. The other things that has taken a lot of Bryan's time is his new job. He got a job as a lifeguard at the YMCA. I think it will be a great job. Right now he is still in the middle of training. You will be pleased to know that the Y lifeguards are very thoroughly trained.

Of course, he is still busy with school and starting to get ready to apply to colleges and apply for scholarships. We we proud to learn that Bryan is a National Merit Scholarship semifinalist.It took awhile for him to write the required essay and get this scholarship application in. Hopefully it will help him (and us) afford college. Speaking of Bryan, he needs to borrow my computer to do some online training for the YMCA so I will end this and do a further update to this blog entry later.

posted at: 16:57 | permanent link to this entry

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Sun, 15 Aug 2010

End of Summer

Since school starts this week(!) I think I'd better finish up writing about the things we did this summer.  Soon after we got back from our trip to California, Melody and I went to Girls' Camp the same week that Bryan went to Boy Scout Camp. Both camps were, coincidentally, at different parts of the same Boy Scout facility. We went to S-F Camp in south central Missouri, about two hours from here. Bryan was at Famous Eagle and Melody and I were at Swift. Bryan has gone to Swift before. It is supposed to be the best of the camps around. We were very lucky to go there. The Boy Scouts own the whole lake that the camps are on and have developed some really nice facilities. 

Anyway, the girls had a great week. I was a little nervous about dealing with all the "wildlife" that Missouri has to offer, namely: ticks, chiggers, snakes, spiders…Mostly these things don't bother me much, but  the quantities that I'd heard about along with the no air conditioning just didn't sound that fun. Last year when Bryan came home from camp he went in the shower and came out and said something icky like, "Well I removed twenty-six ticks from just one leg…" Do you see why I was a little reluctant about the "opportunity" to go to camp? 

So we went and had a great time. All the girls were troopers. The put up with bugs and heat and had fun doing it. It was very hot, but we were lucky to not get rained on (much). We were grateful for the waterfront so we could cool down, but we managed to do other activities away from the water, including a six mile enforced march through the forest. Here are some activities we did:

swimming,

 games,

 archery,

horseback riding,

 

worshiping the electric fans,

 

gearing up for the ropes course (which had to be stopped in the middle because of lightning) ,

and rappelling.

 

  I don't have pictures of many of the coolest things we did. Mainly, because they were in the water and I didn't want to get my camera wet or I was having too much fun to go and get the camera. Melody and I went sailing together. We went tubing and also went to Huck's Cove, which is the scout "waterpark" where there were slides and zip lines and other water toys. It was a blast. The whole experience was so much fun and the ticks and chigger bites were minimal.  Meanwhile…

During the same week, Bryan was on the other side of the lake. He left a day earlier, so he was there for the storm that hit before we arrived. Additionally, he participated in the Ranger program so he was roughing it for the whole week, eating dry food, sleeping in self-built shelters, and hiking from place to place to learn mountain man skills. I don't know if it was "fun", but I'm sure he finished with a great sense of accomplishment.If he'd write in his own blog, you'd know more about it.

Putting up with pain served Bryan well the next week when he got his wisdom teeth out. He was fine for the first few days, then developed a complication called "dry socket." He was quite miserable for another week. And so were the rest of us. 

Let's see, I guess before that ordeal, we all enjoyed seeing Wicked at the Fabulous Fox theater. 

And we've had "fun" school shopping and sitting around. We're watching Buffy on Netflix…

I've been working on a quilt and Bryan has made himself a bag for his new laptop. (How many 17-year-olds that you know could design and sew their own padded laptop bag?  It's pretty fancy.

So, it's been an exciting summer and a boring one. I guess we're ready for school to start again. 

posted at: 19:41 | permanent link to this entry

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Tue, 03 Aug 2010

Summer

This summer has gone so fast! I haven't written about anything that we've done, and now it is almost time for school to start. I don't know where all the time went.

Right after school was out, the kids and I left to drive to California. I wanted to spend some time being a tourist on the way, but the kids were anxious to visit with grandparents and cousins. We did stop for a little while at Arches NP, but only stayed a short time. It was so hot!

When we finally got to Fresno we got to see my niece, Lara's HS graduation.  We visited with my mom. Here we are making strawberry jam at her house.

We went with Mom to San Francisco and Marin, so enjoyed Golden Gate Park and Rodeo beach. The weather was beautiful in Fresno and the Bay Area. We had a great time.

Then we got to spend some time in Coloma with the Bennetts. We enjoyed seeing them and had fun visiting our old neighborhoods. We miss that area. The weather was too cold and the water too high, though, to do the kayaking on the American River that we had planned. We enjoyed Placerville instead.

Then on to Sacramento to visit with Marc's family. Again, we had a great time seeing everyone. Marc flew in and we were glad to see him also.

Then we drove to Lake Tahoe to spend a few more days visiting at Kith and Kin. The weather was unusually cold for Tahoe this time of year and so we spent more time than usual inside visiting and playing games.

 

We did venture forth once to kayak on the lake. It was beautiful, but no one wanted to get wet. 

 

After seeing Marc off at the Reno airport, we stayed a couple of days in Gardnerville, then headed across the desert to arrive in Idaho for another reunion. First, the kids and I went to Yellowstone for a day.

 

Then we had a reunion in Rigby with the extended Hall clan. We saw people we hadn't seen in a long time. It was also lots of fun to visit and play games.After the reunion, we "gave" Thomas to his grandparents to keep for a couple of weeks. I think he's written about part of that trip in his blog.

 

And we arrived home in time to celebrate Marc's birthday. We ate lasagna, opened presents, and ate ice cream.

 

We've done a few more things this summer, but I'll write about them in another entry. 

posted at: 16:31 | permanent link to this entry

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Fri, 09 Jul 2010

Bryan’s Eagle Project

The day after Thomas' birthday, was the day Bryan had planned to work on his Eagle Scout Project. Once again, since my camera broke the day before, I had to take pictures with my video camera. This is the camera that I used most of the vacation also, but Panasonic sent me a replacement camera so I was able to use the new one for the last of vacation. Now that we're home, I've finally got all of the pictures on to the computer. 

 So, Bryan worked with the city to plan some horseshoe pits for the park near our house. The plans went through many revisions, but finally were ready to be implemented. The wooden boxes were built in our garage on a Saturday, and then dug into their spots the next Wednesday. A fence was also built on Wednesday. It all went mostly smoothly. I provided pizza on Saturday and BBQ hot dogs on Wednesday night. That kept me from having to do much digging.

We left a few days after this for our month long vacation. I checked on the pits this morning and they still look good. The grass has recovered. Now Bryan just needs to do his write-up and I need to straighten out his paperwork. We hope to have this all done before school starts. 

posted at: 13:30 | permanent link to this entry

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Thomas turns Eleven

My camera broke the day before Thomas' birthday, so my blog entries are a little (OK, lots) late. Thomas has his birthday at the end of the school year so it is often a hectic time, but on the positive side, he often gets to have fun times at school on his birthday. This year was the fifth grade Spring Fling. They got to leave school and walk to the Rec-Plex for ice skating, swimming, and other fun. Here is Thomas with his class on that day. I didn't take these pictures, other moms did that for me.

In the evening we celebrated his birthday as a family. We ate his special birthday dinner of stuffed shells and then he opened a pile of presents. We gave him a camera and he was pretty happy with it. Then we sang and ate the ship ice cream cake that he'd wanted.  Wow. Thomas is eleven. Happy Birthday to our youngest-but-not-so-young-anymore.

posted at: 13:09 | permanent link to this entry

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Thu, 13 May 2010

Another busy week

Last week was cinco de Mayo and Bryan's Spanish teacher celebrated by assigning a cooking project so that the class could have a party. Last year Bryan made mole, which was rather difficult and not real popular, so this year he decided to go for a dessert. He made alfajores, a cookie from Argentina. They were filled with dulce de leche. They were fun to make, but I think they were a little dry.

Thomas' school project for the week was an extension of a unit in JET on inventing. Each student had to  actually invent something. They couldn't make anything that already existed. So Thomas made a prototype of an"air bed." This is a bed with a fan underneath and nozzles of air that you can aim at yourself when you are sleeping. He had to design it, do research, apply for a patent, build a prototype, and present the idea to the class.

Melody had another choir concert,

and then on Friday she had Medieval Day at school. She wore a costume that we borrowed from a friend of mine, and had a fun day. Tomorrow I get to go with the seventh grade to the local Renaissance Fair. 

 

Bryan had his last track meet of the season. He ran the 800 meter. He hasn't run the hurdles since he hurt his arm. He's talking about staying in shape this summer and then running cross-country in the fall, so that would be something new for him.

 

We had pretty nice weather for the week and Marc took a day off and we went to the zoo together. We had a fun time even though there were a lot of school kids having end of the year activities at the zoo.

I love the zoo! Let's see…last weekend was also Mother's Day. I had to work, but came home to cards and presents, and flowers. Nice huh? Melody and Thomas also cooked dinner and I didn't have to. I always enjoy food that I didn't have to cook!

This week, we've had two big events so far. Wednesday was Bryan's seventeenth birthday! How did he get to be so old? His requested birthday dinner this year was BBQ chicken kabobs and couscous. His ice cream cake was lemon and vanilla. That was a first. I'm calling the cake "The Blob" because I rushed when putting it together and the whole think slumped into a big yellow blob. It sure tasted good though. I made lemon pie filling for the top. 

 

  Bryan's presents look pretty tiny, but we did manage to get a guitar into one of those little boxes…

 

And the other big event this week was Thomas' Fifth Grade Review, a singing and dancing extravaganza that celebrates the end of elementary school. Thomas had a dancing part and the whole fifth grade has been practicing a lot for this. They did a great job. Thomas will remember being in this show for a long time. 

Wow, next year, I'll have two kids in middle school! 

posted at: 20:59 | permanent link to this entry

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Tue, 04 May 2010

sunshine and music
Since it is the last month of school, there are a lot of end of the year concerts, shows, parties, projects, field trips, etc. This week was no exception. Thomas had an orchestra concert. It was fun to listen to his fifth grade group, but also fun to see the progression of improvement through sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. I hope Thomas will stick with this. He sounds pretty good already. The orchestra teacher does a great job. Thomas will have him next year also at the middle school. 

  Thomas' musical skills are very good. I must question his reading skills though. On the night of the piano recital,he wanted to have a friend over. I asked him to go and double check the flyer for the exact time of the recital. "Is it at 6 or 7?" I trustingly ask. Now, in retrospect I should have known better, but I am a trusting soul, and I guess too lazy to walk to the other room to see the flyer for myself. Thomas got to have a friend over and as we sat down to dinner at 6:00 (in plenty of time to arrive early for the recital at 7:00) Marc's Palm beeped, indicating that he was supposed to be somewhere. Yes, it was the recital, which started at 6! So, a beautiful dinner wasted, we got to the recital at 6:20, in time for Melody and Thomas to do their parts, but the evening was not as fun as we'd planned! Here are Melody and Thomas with their teacher, who is smiling even though we came late.

Thomas' orchestra teacher (who also teaches orchestra at the middle school) and the choir teacher were in charge of the musical that Melody was in at the middle school. She was a choir member for "School House Rock Live" It had all kinds of good music in it, things I remember form the old television show, and many I don't remember. Remember "Conjunction, junction, what's your function?" It was very well done. All did an excellent job with some very difficult music. It was fun to watch. Melody is on the risers, upper left. It must have been a fun play to be in, and besides, they've had TWO cast parties now. Go figure.

 

I titled this sunshine and music, because I was thinking of the beautiful sunshine we've had the last couple of days, but last week was actually rainy. Bryan got to go to Six Flags for Physics Day on Friday and they probably had the nicest weather of the whole week. They had thunderstorms predicted, but I don't think it ever rained. They even had sunshine most of the day. I think he had a fun day there. Otherwise, he's been pretty busy also.  We've all just been counting down until school is over, but haven't gotten too far at making summer plans.

posted at: 15:17 | permanent link to this entry

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Fri, 23 Apr 2010

We still like spring

OK, I haven't written again for two weeks. I kept meaning to write last weekend, but I never got around to it. So, I have two exciting weeks to tell about. There have been several track meets. I got a really good picture of Bryan in one, but well, I cut off the top of his head…He is blurry in this one, but is all there. This is while running the 4X800 relay.

I had to leave before he ran the 300 hurdles, but he called me afterward to have me pick him up because the team trainer thought that he'd broken his arm during a rather spectacular fall. I'm glad I wasn't watching. Turned out that his arm wasn't broken after all, but it made for a long evening and a painful few days. 

Maybe Bryan just wanted an excuse to "delegate" his Eagle project. He's started marking the grass to start his project at the local park. We all went to the park to help him last weekend. I took pictures. Marc and Bryan measured and painted lines. Thomas went off and played. Melody quickly got bored and wanted to go home. OK, Melody only got bored at the end, but I liked this picture because it is so typical of sibling supporting one another…I will probably get in trouble for posting it, but since no one ever looks at this…

Melody has been busy most nights with practice for her school play. They are doing School House Rock and she is in the chorus. That will be next week. In the meanwhile, she was inducted into the National Junior Honor Society. That is her reward for all those long hours spent doing her homework so carefully. She didn't pause so I could take a good picture of her receiving her certificate. 

  She and Thomas did agree to pose with the snake that they found in our back yard. When we first moved in, we used to see a black rat snake like this one (only much bigger)but we haven't seen one in years. So we were excited to see this one. I want him to eat all the moles and gophers. Does he look big enough?

In other wildlife news, we've been watching this mother robin on a nest in the front yard, but I haven't seen her for a couple of days. I hope something hasn't happened to her. 

Thomas has been borrowing my camera a lot. He likes to take pictures. He took this one of a double rainbow. 

And I took this one when he got home from school one day because I still think it is funny to see him wearing his cello on his back. 

Today was Colonial Day for the fifth grade at Thomas' school. Here he is dressed up. He had to go to school early this morning because he has a dancing part in the fifth grade review. That will be performed next week. I'm looking forward to seeing that. I hope all the colonial children will have fun today.

posted at: 12:46 | permanent link to this entry

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Sun, 11 Apr 2010

Hunting for eggs

I posted pictures last week before we had our egg hunt. Even though Bryan is nearly seventeen (!) I felt that we ought to have an egg hunt. It was so beautiful outside and everyone needed an opportunity to enjoy the backyard and earn some chocolate. Although I suspect that they just wanted the candy, everyone humored me and participated. I had to laugh, though, at Bryan. Melody was the first to find her allotted number of eggs. And then I realized why Bryan was behind. He was checking inside the eggs first to see if they contained chocolate, or some less desirable candy before "finding" them! So maybe he is too old for an egg hunt after all. 

 

  Marc was in Tennessee this week, and with two track meets and a choir festival, the week went quickly. I still have been unable to take a decent picture of Bryan running. Even though I've put the camera on "burst" I still get him just before or just after a hurdle. I'll try again next meet.

Melody's choir did an excellent job at their festival. They are a small group, but sound great.  I had trouble with my photography here also, because I didn't want to stand up, but this guy's head was really in the way. Their performance was short (only three songs) so this was all I got. Melody is in the front row, third from the left.

Thomas stayed home sick on Monday, but felt better Tuesday. Good thing, 'cause this week was standardized testing.Thomas does not enjoy being dragged along to track meets. He says that watching them is boring. He sat and read a book at this one on Saturday, but refused to let me take his picture. Just as predicted, we went from freezing in the bleachers one week to roasting the next. Ah, the joys of track.

Thomas did let me take his picture halfway though his new haircut.

Melody was glad for the opportunity to watch our neighbor's dog this weekend. She also babysat on Friday and is grateful for both opportunities to earn money for girls' camp this summer. 

 

A last note. With the changing weather, Melody and I made homemade Popsicles. We made pudding pops and regular ones of Kool-aid. Yum. Have a great week,  we plan to. This spring weather is wonderful.

 

posted at: 16:09 | permanent link to this entry

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Sun, 04 Apr 2010

spring

We've had a beautiful warm week. The flowers are blooming. On Wednesday I went outside to take pictures of the daffodils in the backyard and while there I took a picture to show that the pear tree was about to bloom. By Saturday it was in full bloom! The redbud in the front is my favorite, but it hasn't bloomed all the way so we still have that to look forward to. The birds have returned. I watched a robin build a nest yesterday in the birch tree by my bedroom window. Maybe we will get to see eggs and babies soon. 

On Wednesday…

 

On Sunday…

We started off the week with my birthday. It wasn't my best birthday ever because I worked the night before and the night after. Marc and the kids gave me cards and presents and we ate lots of ice cream to celebrate. Then I went off to work. I slept when I got home and then was sick for two days. bummer. Yesterday, Thomas came down with whatever it was. Hopefully everyone else will stay healthy.

Especially Marc who is taking off to drive to Tennessee tomorrow. I haven't mentioned before, but Marc and St. Anthony's have parted ways. Marc was very unhappy there. He is hoping to do some contract work while we evaluate options. Tomorrow he will start a very short term job (one week) in Tennessee. We will miss him. 

Meanwhile, we have all enjoyed the nice weather and the days off that the kids got for Easter. Melody sewed herself some new pajama bottoms yesterday.  Here she is modeling them.

 

Everyone enjoyed some tome to relax and spend time with friends. Thomas and friends had fun throwing stuffies down the stairs, (a game that used to be popular when they were younger… ). The stuffie friend collection has grown big enough to hide people in it. Maybe it's time to get rid of some toys…

 

Melody made Easter pancakes for us this morning. We will eat cinnamon rolls later during conference. Then have an Easter egg hunt, and later a ham and mashed potato dinner. It will be a nice day. I really like spring, and eating I guess.

 

 

posted at: 12:02 | permanent link to this entry

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Sat, 27 Mar 2010

Back to reality

Another busy week, but I can't think what's been going on. I guess it's just the shock of getting back to school and work after a week of relaxing. My work was particularly difficult because there was some kind of virus going around at work. Both staff and patients were getting sick. I used my hand sanitizer faithfully and no one here seems to have caught it. 

 Thomas had an orchestra concert on Tuesday. This was all the string students from all thirteen elementary schools in the district. It was impressive how well they played together (with only an hour practice together) and what a nice big sound they got with this many students. I was expecting cacophony and they really sounded good! Thomas sounds good by himself, but all those screechy violins…they did great.

 

Bryan had his first track meet this morning and it was freezing. We huddled in the bleachers and were really glad that we didn't have to run in shorts. Once again, I didn't get pictures of Bryan going over the hurdles. My photography skills are pretty weak in the area of action shots. I will work on that this track season. 

 

Final picture, since I didn't get any others of Melody. She got to go to a sleepover this weekend and had an end of quarter party for getting 100% of her assignments in, but I didn't get any pictures of those events. This is from last weekend, when Melody and Thomas were playing Monopoly together.

 

posted at: 21:12 | permanent link to this entry

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Sun, 21 Mar 2010

VACATION!

What can one say about vacation? I love vacations. Long ago, we reserved a week at our timeshare in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. I was a little nervous about driving that far in the middle of winter, but we had beautiful weather all week. Even with the good weather, we drove about fifteen hours to get to our condo. It is three mountainous hours away from Denver. We were in the mood for winter sports after watching the Olympics just a few weeks ago, so we rented cross country skis for the week. Just to let you know, we are not really Olympic level skiers. None of us has been skiing (other than around the school field) in the five years we've lived in Missouri. Last time we went to Spooner Lake in Nevada, Thomas was in a trailer we pulled behind us…Also, Colorado people take their skiing seriously. We were directed to several "moderate" trails, but we found them to be fairly challenging.

 

 

When I asked where flatter trails were, I was told that Colorado doesn't do flat. So we struggled up and down the slopes. This trail on the second day did have a nice long trail along a ridge.

 

The locals also apologized to us about the poor quality of snow. I guess it's been a low snow year as well as quite awhile since new snow. It seemed pretty typical of snow I've been used to in California.

 

The last day we were in the mood for some easier skiing so we drove about an hour away to get to an easier trail around Steamboat Lake.

We took a day in the middle of the week to hike to a nearby waterfall. It was really pretty. We met some people coming down the trail who'd climbed the waterfall, but since we didn't have crampons or ice axes, we had to be content with admiring from below. 

 

We also spent one day downhill skiing. We didn't go to the big Steamboat Springs resort, but to the smaller Howelson Hill where the locals go (and where the Olympic athletes train). A family lift ticket for the whole season here is only $350!  Kids here learn to ski about the same time they learn to walk. And then they start jumping. We were there on a day that they had the last jumping competition of the season. We watched three year olds "bump-jumping" It was just like T-ball or junior soccer. As we headed up the hill, we could also watch the bigger kids jumping. It was pretty cool. Annoying were the little ones that clogged the lift lines and got underfoot. They may have been annoyed also by us. Thomas took out several when he was unable to stop himself from sliding down backward while waiting in the lift line. Sorry about that.This first picture is at Howelson, looking to the lodge, over the town, and to the bigger resort across the valley.

  The little kid with the big skis in front of Melody is a jumper.

  This is not anyone in our family.

In addition to skiing, we did a lot of swimming at the indoor pool at our condo. We also tried out the sauna, and found the jacuzzi a great way to soothe those sore underused skiing muscles.

 

Years ago, we found the tradition of keeping board games at the front desk a good one. We haven't used them in awhile, but played cards, twister, and trouble this time.

The only problem with our condo was that we didn't get the usual twin beds in the second bedroom. Thomas ended up sleeping on the window seat. He won't be able to do that for much longer, but it worked fine for this trip. 

Our drive home was long, and we did it at night again in order to leave and stay ahead of a predicted storm. We arrived home to find all well here. After a rest, we were able to attend Melody's camp certification meeting and Bryan's robotics competition on Saturday.  Ahh, reality. Vacation is so much more fun…

 

 

 

posted at: 15:54 | permanent link to this entry

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Sun, 07 Mar 2010

Two weeks!

It has been two weeks AGAIN since I've written. This is getting bad. So I got up early before church and will try to write something quick. I haven't taken many pictures either, which is my way of remembering what has gone on in my life. I have a picture of Melody's science project, which reminds me that last weekend I spent judging the tri-county science fair. It was fun. I got to be in a group that judged third grade projects. Melody did not win anything in the seventh grade division. 

Bryan started track for real. They've been having pre-season practices, but on the first day of "real " track, he came home saying he couldn't start until he got a physical. We should have known this, but missed the notice somehow, so we went racing off to see how quickly we could get him a physical. Needless to say, "urgent"care is never really that quick in spite of the name, but we had his physical by 5:00, in time for him to attend the second day of track practice.

We went to Thomas' school to watch him dance the Troika and see the work he's done on researching the Republic of Georgia. They do a big culture unit every year. This year they ate all kinds of unusual things. They even got to taste caviar. Thomas performed a shadow puppet play for us, and did a reading of his radio script. His teacher says he needs to slow down when speaking in public. Imagine that. 

I'm really enjoying my job, in spite of the adjustments in my sleep schedule. A couple of days ago however, our nurses' station ceiling was painted in the middle of the night. I was impressed with what a quick job they made of it, and kept thinking that I've been meaning to paint my kitchen ceiling for quite a while. So yesterday, just before noon, I decided to go for it. How hard could it be? Bryan had come home from track practice, but decided to help me.  Just like any house project I ever do, I was sorry I started. We started with the idea of giving the ceiling a quick coat of paint, but ended up scraping off the "popcorn" ceiling stuff, then had to sand a section that had been patched a while back when we had a pipe leak. That put plaster dust all over everything. Then we finally painted. Then we had a huge mess to clean up. I was so tired last night. But the ceiling does look better that it did. 

 

Now for the weather report. Yesterday and the day before, we had sunshine and warm weather! It really feels like spring. In fact, when Melody had a friend over yesterday, they rode bikes to the park and played tennis. And the crocuses are blooming. I hope the weather lasts through our spring break which is in a week. We are planning a drive to Colorado to play in the snow. I don't want to have to put chains on to get there. If we hit a storm it's going to be a long drive…

posted at: 08:28 | permanent link to this entry

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Sun, 21 Feb 2010

Valentine’s Day

I've been finding it hard to keep my blog updated lately. I already said because my Sunday morning schedule has changed. I haven't yet found a regular time to write, but I need to.

Anyway, the week of Valentine's day we were pretty busy with holiday related activities. This year was a little different because instead of chocolate (well, there was that also… there were service-related activities. Thomas went with the Primary to sing and give out Valentine's to a nearby long-term care center.

Bryan sold singing Valentine's with the Rising Generation Youth Chorus and then spent two days delivering those. I drove them around the afternoon of the thirteenth. I was very impressed with how good they sounded. They looked pretty sharp also, but I didn't get any good pictures of them.I wish I'd been able to record them because they sounded really good. Hey, I don't sing and am always impressed with musical talent. 

If the intended recipient wasn't home, they did phone calls and left a message on the answering machine. That is what they are doing here.

Then Bryan went out to a Valentine's dance at school. He was on the committee to decorate for it also. 

The other thing that was popular before Valentine's, is that both Melody and Bryan got involved in learning to decorate cakes. They had fun doing it at home and church both. We got a little sick of eating too much cake and frosting around here. 

 

 

Marc and I celebrated Valentine's Day by going to a dance. We've been taking a ballroom dance class. In addition to the class, the teachers have an "extra-curricular" dance every two weeks. This is the first one we've attended. It was pretty fun. We now can dance the foxtrot, waltz, rumba, and swing. We need to practice a lot more though. 

We had a little snow, but it is all melted now, in fact, we've had rain this weekend.

We had two days off school before the real snow got here, then the biggest snowy day was for President's Day, which the kids got off school anyway.  We hear about huge snowfalls everywhere else in the country, but we've had a very mild winter. Just today, I heard that Reno got almost a foot, and we know the Eastern Coast has had several feet. We're planning to go to Colorado for Spring Break (if the weather cooperates) so we can see enough snow to actually play in. 

Did I mention that I took a job? I decided that I needed to work a little so as not to have gone to school for nothing. I'm working at a long-term care/rehab facility and liking it a lot. I like the night hours because they don't interfere with anything else. I'm working just two days a week. But I did happen to work the night after we got out snowfall. It was a long drive to work, and pretty busy because not everyone could make it in. 

Also this week, Thomas turned in his research paper and project on the Republic of Georgia. Melody turned in her science fair project (remember the bananas?) and found out that it will be one of the ones to represent the school in the regional contest next weekend. I'd already signed up to help judge at the regional contest so now will have to tell them I can't judge seventh grade. 

Things are staying busy around here and we are all staying out of trouble. Winter is speeding by. We are looking forward to spring break and making summer plans. Call me if you'd like to go camping or backpacking with us…

 

posted at: 23:24 | permanent link to this entry

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Sat, 06 Feb 2010

Talent Show

I neglected to mention that last week Thomas had his DARE graduation. It's a pretty big deal in this district. Here is Thomas shaking the superintendent's hand. His principal is on the left.

Last week we also learned that there was to be a talent show in Young Men's and Young Women's. That only gave the kids one week to put together a talent. Melody planned right away with a friend that they were going to sing. She and her friend got together on the weekend to practice "Beauty and the Beast." Her friend, Stacy, played the piano and Melody was going to sing. The day of the show they included two other beehives and they all sounded pretty good.

 

Bryan didn't say he was planning anything, but the day before the show said that he and a friend were thinking of doing a skit together. They went to the thrift store and bought suits to be Abbott and Costello. I don't know when they practiced, and I have to admit that I was a little worried about going and seeing my son embarrass himself, but they did "Who's on First" and did a really good job of it. It was very funny.

 

The judges liked both acts also, and they ended up in a tie for second place overall. I was impressed with the talent of both of my children. They both have more talent than their mom. Thomas too, but he didn't perform at this talent show. He mostly read his book while the acts were going on.

 

On Thursday, I'd scheduled a class to renew my CPR certificate, and it turned out to be the blue and gold dinner for cub scouts. It was our last one with a cub scout and I missed it! I was sorry to miss it, but Marc and Melody went and had a good time eating spaghetti and seeing Thomas get an award. 

One of the pins that Thomas was working on, was the Scientist. He had to grow crystals for that. This is the first time that we've ever got sugar crystals to grow without molding first. Thomas enjoyed eating them. 

 Speaking of sugar, Thomas also made sugar mice last week. It was also for a school assignment. He had to make something and write the steps in a how-to paper. For some reason, he enjoys making and eating these disgustingly sweet concoctions. I remember when I liked sweet things like that, but not anymore.

 

A last picture that I liked this week was this one of Thomas and Marc playing chess. 

 

posted at: 14:00 | permanent link to this entry

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Sat, 23 Jan 2010

Basketball

I haven't written in a couple weeks. I think that getting used to the new chuch schedule is difficult for me. When we went to church in the afternoon, I had time in the morning to write. But now we get up and go to church and the afternoons just get taken up with other things. 

Of course, there hasn't been that much to write about either. Melody has been playing church basketball on Saturdays. Now that Bryan is no longer working at Subway, he will have time for basketball also. Today we all went and watched both Bryan and Melody play. Both games were exciting. 

 

We are mostly done with science projects. Melody still has a display to make and it's due in a couple weeks. We just learned today that the pinewood derby has been postponed for a month. That means Thomas has more time to work on his car. Good thing, since he hasn't started yet. 

Marc and I started a ballroom dance class together. The first class was fun. This is the same class that Bryan and I took together last semester. Marc and I even practiced together once this week. Casa Loma Ballroom here we come…

I just can't think of anything that is exciting going on around here. All the pictures on my camera are of ripening bananas.  By the way, Melody seems to have determined that ripening fruit in a paper bag is a good thing, but that it does not help to put already ripe fruit in the bag to speed things along.  

Thomas had his middle school orientation this week. He is excited about middle school but can't decide whether he wants to take orchestra or choir for his elective. I'm not even sure which I'm rooting for. I wish he could take both. I'll just be happy to have kids at only two schools instead of three.

I guess I'll end there and go see what's going on with the rest of the family.

posted at: 16:54 | permanent link to this entry

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Thu, 07 Jan 2010

snow

We waited for snow all of Christmas vacation and only got an inch or so. Never enough to play in. So the kids headed back to school yesterday, and it snowed about five inches last night. Today school was canceled. I think it's kind of poor timing. Thomas is out playing in it, but would have preferred to go to school because Thursdays are his favorite day of school. That's the day he gets to take a special class at a different school.

 

Bryan is bummed because today is supposed to be the Missouri State Thespian Conference in St. Louis. He's been looking forward to going for months. He even payed quite a bit of his own money to go. We still don't know if the conference will be postponed or if his school just isn't willing to send a bus. I hope he gets to go.

Marc actually headed to work but turned around after traveling about a mile on the freeway. He said there were wrecks all over the place and it wasn't worth it to try to get there. He can work from home thanks to the wonders of the Internet.

Meanwhile, an extra day of vacation. Good thing we got lots of books for Christmas.

posted at: 10:14 | permanent link to this entry

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Sun, 03 Jan 2010

Happy New Year

Our vacation has been quiet.Marc and Bryan working a lot. All of us relaxing and reading books and watching movies when we can. Otherwise, Melody and Thomas both had science projects to do. Grumble, grumble. As much as I like science projects, I don't like having homework to do over vacation. It defeats the purpose of vacation. Anyway, we've been watching bananas ripen for Melody's project.

Thomas and I built some bridges to test the structures of various trusses. Just a hint for anyone contemplating this as a science fair project. Don't do it. We tried popsicle sticks at first and there was too much variation in the different sticks to make a fair test. So Marc suggested straws and pins. These were such a pain to build with also. We planned to build nine bridges (three designs, three trials each) but we ended up only building three total. I ended up with super glue all over and pin pokes in my fingers. After these horrible, dangerous bridges were built, we got our revenge by hanging weights from them until they collapsed. Now we only have to write up the project and make a display. Meanwhile, Melody's bananas are still ripening. But at least they weren't dangerous like the bridges. 

Yesterday, we decided to get out of the house, so we all went to Forest Park. The weather was COLD and so we didn't go to the zoo. We went to the art museum (here Thomas is contemplating the picture "Man with Earmuffs"

and the Science Center. At the science center, Melody found out how much it would cost to send her into space. We're starting a collection if anyone would like to contribute to the "Send Melody to space" fund. Maybe that's why Bryan has been working so hard at Subway…

We wish you all a Happy New Year.

posted at: 14:36 | permanent link to this entry

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Jan Dill Hall St. Peters, Missouri 

Page created: 09 November 2008
Page modified: 31 December 2009