Gift Wrap Dilemmas

Did you see this video on David's "Funny Clean Videos" blog? If not, I know you will enjoy it:




Speaking of gift wrap - thank you for sharing the extra rolls of wrapping paper with us!

Lights on Temple Square

When Mark and I went to Salt Lake to watch Angela dance in the special Christmas music program at the conference center, we got to see the lights at Temple Square for the first time. They are amazing!

You can click here to read about how they put up all those hundreds of thousands of lights, and see a little video about them.

End of the Term

Wow, we are 1/3 through the school year! We have half-day finals today and tomorrow, and then Friday is the grading day and work day to get ready for our next term. On Monday we'll have new students, new classes to teach. We'll have our new students for two weeks--just enough time to learn names--and then it's 2 weeks off.

Carol Holman Hill

Just wanted to let you know that I sent a packet of family history information (finally) to Carol Holman Hill.

Chores

I've been thinking about you shoveling snow. I wish I could help you with it, but I'm afraid it's something you're just going to have to go ahead and do. I know you'll be fine. When you get determined about something, it gets done. It made me think of when I first took over the lawn-mowing chore here at 916, when Joe and I separated in June 1993. I wrote about mowing the lawns for one of my thesis pages, and I thought you would enjoy reading it:

            The only time I had mowed a lawn before that summer was in the tiny yard of our last house in Los Angeles, during the summer of 1979, when I mowed our handkerchief-sized lawn a few times with the electric mower. From then until the summer of 1993, I had avoided mowing with the excuse that my duties with the children prevented me from tackling lawns.

            That summer, the grass kept growing, and I made it my personal mission to keep it under control. David was only 10, too young to carry the burden of nearly ½ acre of lawn, the girls were squeamish about mowing, and I couldn’t afford to pay someone for yard work.

            The yard had a lot more barriers in it then, and it took a good three hours to mow the entire property, so I generally undertook the chore in chunks: front yard, back yard, behind the barn, orchard. I was surprised to find that I actually enjoyed the mowing. Hiking snob that I was, mowing had seemed too mundane to capture my interest, but I found the chore’s rhythms soothing. There was a certain challenge to navigating all the crannies and bumps of my yard, and the exercise felt good. I took ownership of mowing my property that summer, a sense of title, which I have never entirely relinquished since.

            Oh, that mower. It has long since been retired, replaced with a self-propelled little hottie that whips around the yard, dragging me along behind. The mower of ’93, though, was a beast with a tendency to clog when the grass was long and damp. One had to push it, of course, but on the days when the dew still clung to the grass stems, a certain humping motion was required. Push the mower forward a foot or two, pause and lift the front two wheels by about six inches, like a bronco strutting his stuff, to encourage the sticky wet grass to whirl out to the side rather than clump around the blade, let the front wheels down again and push forward another foot or two. Sometimes it took a while to get even one section whacked back into submission.

            Zooming the mower towards clustered thickets of dandelions gave a particular rush of mingled pleasure and vengeance. Off with their heads! Their persistently cheerful presence in the lawn inspired both aggravation and admiration; dandelions dominated several of the poems I wrote that summer.

            Prior to taking over the mowing of my own yard, I had not known the meditative qualities of mowing. During every other chore I performed, indoors or out, I was available to the children. Mowing enveloped me in a bubble of noise and flying, stinging grass: I was unapproachable. A child could snag my attention by standing outside the range of grass flying from the mower’s blades, dancing and waving until I turned the mower off; in the sudden silence I would realize that they had been yelling, too, futile above the mower’s roar, but that was rare; they generally took phone messages for me and settled their own squabbles until I had come back inside, sweaty and tired and ready to be a mom again. The children were intimidated by the mower’s risk and roar, but I, alone inside that throaty, whirling grassy vortex, could think and wonder for a while; the stresses and tensions inside the house would have to wait, and they did.

            The summer of 1993, I didn’t miss Joe, but I did miss the intimacy of a man in my life. Mowing took on a certain sensuality; it had always been a man’s labor before, but now I owned the task, began to actually anticipate the surrender to the sweat and sound and scent and hard push of the muscles working to control, wresting the machine’s power, the vibrations carrying the pulse of the engine deep within me. On hot summer afternoons when the orchard beckoned—after all, it was at the back of the property, and ringed by unruly blackberry vines along the chain-link fence—I yanked the mower to life half naked, clothed in only a bathing suit.

Bring a Torch

Mom, I thought you would enjoy this Christmas song by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir:




They recorded this in 2006, when Angela and Tim lived in Salt Lake City for his internship, and she is one of the dancers in this video. She's wearing  a blue dress - hard to tell which one she is for sure, but it's sure fun to watch and listen to.

Mark and I were in the audience one of the nights. It was wonderful!

And here's a photo of Angela and Tim with Audrey and Sam that Christmas.

Keep Your Feet Above Your Head, Granddad

Dear Great-Granddad,

We know you get bored easily, and you'd like to be sitting up and having more fun...

...but you need to keep your feet higher than your heart--like this--if you want the swelling in that leg to heal!

Or if you really want to speed up the healing...

Try a headstand or two!

We love you! Get well soon! Love Josh, Kat, and Sarah

Man Cold

Here's the link to Bridgette's blog, with the video near the bottom about "The Man Cold." Be sure to read the little explanation beneath the video, which explains a couple of the lines that are hard to understand. I think you and Dad will get a kick out of it.

A Nice Recognition

The principal asked me to go to the school board meeting this evening, so they could publicly recognize me  for the National Board Certified Teacher re-certification.

It was a nice meeting. The principal gave me a very complementary introduction, and then they gave me an opportunity to say a little something, so I told the school board that the work we are doing now in the district with Professional Learning Teams (we meet every Wednesday for an hour in teaching teams) and other interventions really goes hand-in-hand with National Board Certification.

Mark came along to give me moral support, and it was a little date for us. We went to Shari's afterwards and had a piece of pie. Now we're back home and I need to get my lesson planned for tomorrow.

Another thought...

Gosh, it was so nice to have the world be lighter this morning on the way to work! That's one of the advantages of coming off Daylight Savings Time, although it certainly got dark early this afternoon. :)

I'm still a little tired from the time switch. My body clock says it's later than the wall clock says. I'm sure I'll adjust in a day or so.

Out of the Mouths of Babes...

Tonight, in their family prayer before the kids left to go back home, Joshua prayed that "Granddad would heal and have patience."

Haha! A good prayer.

Good wishes from Jill Foge Barnier

This came in an email today:

Hi Kathy ~

     I just read on your blog (which I'm still enjoying regularly!) about your dad's open heart surgery. Please give my "other father" of high school years my love and best wishes. I hope all has gone well!

Jill

Prayer Roll

Mom and Dad, I called and put both your names on the prayer roll at the temple this evening. Now you have a couple of weeks of several thousand Mormon prayers for health and strength according to your needs. Just so you know.

Halloween Fun

Josh, Sarah, and Kat had fun at the "Trunk or Treat" last night.

I'm not sure what their costumes were, but they were having fun.

The kids came with Max and Maleena. Maleena shared with us that she is pregnant, due in June.

Max had his little dog "Buddy" with him.

We had our goofy traditional dinner tonight, and a handful of trick-or-treaters.

Happy Halloween! I'm thinking of you both with Dad's appointment tomorrow.

Patty Cake Cats

Click here to watch a funny kitty-cat video - I think you will like it.

Makes me think of your cats, and also Mom teaching the kids "I Am a Funny Little Dutch Girl."

You will love this

Click here to read something so nice about your beautiful daughter. :)

Miss Maddy

Michael sent this short video clip of Maddy:

Happy Birthday Dad

Dear Dad...in honor of your 78th birthday...thought you might get a kick out of this:



Don't worry...I mailed a present...should be there soon!

How to Park a (Matchbox) Car

Polly made these cute fabric "parking lots" for Seth and Charlie with their much-loved matchbox cars.

The boys love to match up the correct color car with the correct color parking space.

Only one problem...Polly used some pink-and-white fabric for 2 of the spaces. The boys don't have any pink cars, and the matchbox company doesn't make any that we could find.

So...I made some pink-and-white cars for the boys.

Take a white car, add some pink fingernail polish, and...voila! I am looking forward to hearing what the boys think. I just put them in the mail this week.

Wrinkled Ladies

Here's a wake-up song to make you laugh. It's a spoof on a hit song called "The Single Ladies."

This one is "The Wrinkled Ladies."

This Busy Week

Oh, what a week. I'm not complaining!! I just thought you'd like to know.

Monday:
8:30 am - Attend hearing at the courthouse. Mark will cover my 1st period class. (It's his prep period.)
12:30 pm - Attend monthly meeting for TOSAs (Teachers on Special Assignment, like me) at the district office
3:30-6:30 pm - Present 3-hour training on reading work samples to the staff of another school

Tuesday:
10:15 am - Attend bi-monthly meeting with the principal and the math coach
1:30 pm - Attend training on how to upload my documents to the district web site
3:30 pm - Annual physical at the doctor's office
6:00 pm - Yoga class
OR
7:00 pm - Ward temple night - we haven't decided which one we're going to yet

Wednesday:
7:30 am-11:30 am - Run the state reading test (online) for 75 juniors and seniors. This is the first day that the online test is open, so we hope the state has all the bugs worked out, and it works ok for us. I'll be doing this with the math coach and our testing coordinator.

Thursday:
12:00-3:00 pm - Attend regional meeting of the Literacy Coach Network for the Portland area (in Portland)
3:30-4:30 pm - Conduct the first meeting of the OCHS Literacy Council - includes me leading the discussion of the 1st chapter of our book study for the year.
5:45-8:30 pm - Babysit Arora

Friday:
Happy Birthday Dad!!
7:45-8:35 am - Teach in-service session on how to proctor the state reading test online
7:45-9:35 am - Mark will teach 2 in-service sessions on how to use the updated online grading program.
9:45-10:35 am - Teach in-service session on how to ask more in-depth questions on reading passages in all classes
10:45-11:35 am - Teach in-service session on how to use "grammar codes" on student papers to help the kids get better at writing with correct spelling, punctuation, grammar
1:00-3:00 pm - Turn in progress-report grades for the first 6 weeks of school.

Saturday:
8:30 am - Talk with MOM!!!

Sure do love you guys. Have a great week. I'll be thinking of you lots, with Dad's appointments.

Homecoming Parade

Tonight was the OCHS Homecoming parade. It goes down Linn Avenue, not far from the house, so we always go to watch and cheer the kids on. This year Mark stayed home, since he wasn't feeling so good, but Julia and I went to enjoy the show. Josh was in it with the Mt. Pleasant kids. It was a great parade!

JROTC led the way with the flags.

We had the mayor...

...and the principal! She was Oregon's Principal of the Year this year. That's her husband driving.

You know she's good, because her name is Nancy. :)

Then the big JROTC group marched by.

The band looked really sharp and sounded good.

The classes had some great floats.

That's "Pioneer Pete" sitting next to the giraffe.

Remember the camel that was in the news because he was stuck in a sink hole? He had to be rescued in the middle of the night by the firemen.

Well, he was in the parade, too!

Here's Josh with the Mt. Pleasant kids.

And the equestrian team brought up the rear.

Too bad they didn't ride their horses.

Go Pioneers!

Good Medicine

Thank you so much for calling this evening. I really appreciate the update on Dad's health. It sounds like you are working with some very good doctors, and I sure want to hear how Friday's appointment goes. I've put it on my calendar, and you will be in my thoughts and prayers for a good doctor and accurate information.

Mark and Julia both had aches, sniffles, sore throat, etc. last week. I was nice about it, but felt smug, as usual, because I was feeling just fine. Thanks for the good genes, Mom! Then today after work, I noticed that my throat was starting to hurt. A lot. Rats.

Mark had to run another errand, so I went over to Freddies and stocked up on my favorite remedies. Zinc lozenges for sore throat, echinacea tablets (boost the immune system) to take twice a day, and Theraflu sinus and cold medicine.

And the most important medicine--a bag of Hershey's Nuggets. Hahaha! Remember how we used to stop for "medicine" on the way home from school, stopping at the little store in Avila?

I've "dosed" myself, and I'm heading off to bed early tonight. I had planned to grade papers, but they can wait another day.

Have fun at the "meeting" on Wednesday!

Relief Society Conference

Went over to the church to watch the women's session of General Conference last night. It was really wonderful. There was a beautiful spirit, and I loved President Monson's message. If you'd like to see it online, the link is here. The rest of General Conference will be next weekend. I'm not sure what time it will be on the BYU channel - if it will be local time (9:00-11:00 AM and 1:00-3:00 PM), or if it will be Utah time (8:00-10:00 AM and 12:00-2:00 PM). If you can catch the conference, I know you will enjoy the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and the messages are always so good and uplifting.

Before the broadcast at the church, we had a soup dinner at church. It was fun to sit and visit with the sisters and catch the spirit of the evening.

Friday night we went out to dinner with David and Holly, for a late anniversary outing. We had a fun evening at Gustav's, a German food restaurant over by the intersection of I-205 and Sunnyside Road. Arora and Ender were very well behaved.

This evening Josh, Sarah, and Kat are here at the house for a visit. Since Mark and I aren't (yet) allowed to "supervise" Julia's visits, we have a family friend, who is an elementary school principal, over for the evening while the kids are here. The judge set it up that Julia has parenting time with the kids on Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday. Ironically, Julia can't be on her own with the kids, but she's the one who has to set up who is supervising. I am so grateful for our good friends who are willing to give up their time to help out, so that Julia can have time with her children.

I still don't have a lesson plan ready for tomorrow, so I should sign off and get some planning done. I'll be thinking of you tomorrow with Dad's appointment, and look forward to any updates. Love you!

The time is too short

We'll be putting Mike and Maddy on the plane tonight. We are treasuring every moment with Maddy and Mike while they are here today.

Julia and Maddy "dancing" to "Soul Sister," one of Maddy's favorite songs, on the computer.

Hold a Good Thought

I'll be heading off to DHS this morning after my 1st period class, to attend a meeting with Mike (came into town late last night), Julia, and Jayesh. Hoping to make some progress in the overall situation. I keep reminding myself that baby steps are ok, too. Not my preferred speed, but I'm not in charge here. Hold a good thought for us!

Recent Maddy Photos

Mark and I were able to spend a whole hour with Maddy and Julia last Tuesday. Here are some photos.

Yummy Garden

Mark and I had a delicious dinner the other night. The highlight was roasted beets. Have you ever tried them? I washed and peeled them. First I quartered them, then tossed them with a little olive oil and salt. Then I roasted them in the oven for about an hour. They are SO GOOD that way!!! I never knew how much I loved beets before!

Our whole meal was from our garden! Clockwise from the beets:
Roasted beets, cherry tomatoes and pear tomatoes, stuffed green pepper (you can barely seen any pepper under the chicken stuffing), sauteed chard, green beans. (OK, the chicken stuffing did not come from the garden. But everything else did.)

We felt so healthy and full after that dinner!

Worn Out

We had good visits with all the kids and grandkids, but I am worn out. Lots of little people, meals to fix, toys to put away, schedules that happened at the last minute and changed a few times along the way. I don't mean to complain, but I guess I'm doing it anyway. I know I need to be grateful for the precious times with the family--they are few and far between, for some of these family members--but having everyone at once gets overwhelming at times.

Here's a sweet moment with little JJ West and Arora Mayer. These are the kinds of images I want to remember!

Palshikar kids will be here soon for dinner, so I need to get that underway. It will be nice to have a couple more days off before we really have to go back to school!

Back in the routine

It's been nice to be back in our routine this week. We work with some really good people. The teachers are really getting on board with incorporating literacy in all parts of the curriculum. I sort of have lessons planned for the first couple of weeks. Classes are huge - I'm up to 40 kids in one period - yikes! Sad but true, I know some of them will begin dropping out after the first 3 or 4 weeks. I have juniors and seniors in Oregon Lit this term. It will be nice to teach that course again - it's been a couple of years since I've taught it.

Julia has volunteered to help the English teachers score writing papers this fall. I think it will be good for her to have a professional / volunteer connection along with everything else in her life. The English teachers will really love having the help.

Angela and Tim arrived about 3:30 am this morning. They slept here at our house for several hours, but they will be staying the rest of the time at a motel. Angela took the kids to the zoo, and Tim started his interviews with the other doctors in the clinic this afternoon. Tomorrow Mark and I are taking Angela and kids, and also the Palshikar kids, on a hike in the Columbia Gorge. We're calling it the "super twins hike." This may be the only time for these cousins to be together for quite a while. I'm sure the older kids will be a good help with their younger cousins.

Julia will be spending the weekend with a friend, and staying out of the family drama. Maddy finally got to see her primary care doctor yesterday, after 6 weeks, and sure enough, he confirmed that she has actually lost weight since she went into foster care. The DHS caseworker and the CARES doctor have been saying that she was gaining weight, but it isn't true. Their case is becoming more and more difficult to prove, as their "evidence" is largely based on hearsay and assumptions.

Polly and kids will come into town tomorrow afternoon or evening, and they will stay here at the house. Eric is staying home to get more lessons planned.

Joshua and Hillary will also come into town tomorrow - not sure what time. They will be staying with Nathan and Ashley.

Mark is taking the group on a canoe outing on Saturday - whee! I count 7 adults, 4 children, and 3 babies (too young to be in the canoes). They'll go for some low-key paddling at the Clackamette Cove - calm water, and nearby. That's too many people for our two canoes, which is just as well - adults will need to take turns waiting on shore with the little babies. Meanwhile, David invited me to go on a hike with him and Arora that morning, so I will be having a more peaceful experience. Mark is a little jealous. :)

Polly will head home on Sunday, and Mark's kids will be spending time with each other and their mom, so Sunday should be pretty normal for us. We're hoping to have the Palshikar kids over here for dinner. Angela and Tim head home first thing Monday morning, and Josh and Hillary leave on Monday or Tuesday, so we should be able to get some more work time in on Tuesday. With the leadership roles we have at school (me with literacy and Mark with technology) it's hard to get everything ready for our own classrooms on these work weeks. Everyone else needs us to help with things.

Wednesday will be just the freshmen, for their orientation day, so we really only have 2 days of school with students next week.

I'm thinking of you and Dad with his tests this week. Sure do love you!

Back to Work

First day back. Lots to do, but I've been doing this long enough that I'm just not getting all stressed about it. It will all get done, sooner or later. I didn't bring anything home with me to work on tonight. I'll do some grocery shopping, laundry, and spend some time with Mark for Family Home Evening.

I remember the first few years of teaching, I would go into school a couple of weeks early to get started on lesson plans and room arrangement, etc. Now I don't even have my own room. Since I only teach one class a day, I always share with someone else. The last couple of years I've had a permanent sharing arrangement, and shared with an English teacher. Other years I've been in math, Spanish, whatever kind of classroom. This term I'll be in an English classroom, but I don't know about the rest of the year yet.

Mark and I are both doing training with colleagues on Wednesday, so we spent some time getting that ready to go today. I sorted some writing papers from the 8th grade teachers - papers written last spring by our incoming freshmen - I'll give them out to the English 9 teachers on Thursday. Tomorrow we will be in training all day - long day of sitting - not my favorite!

I went to Goodwill last week and found a cute new blouse to wear for the first day of school. I'll have to post a picture when we get there! We don't have students until a week from Wednesday because of the budget cuts, so that's probably adding to my laissez-faire attitude. That and the not-so-restful summer!

But I don't mean to complain. I AM grateful for such a wonderful job, and I'm sure I'll hit my stride soon.

Clackamas County Fair

We took Julia and the kids to the fair last night. The rodeo was a bit of a dud, but it was fun to have the time on an outing together.

Kat, Julia, Josh, Sarah

Fun plans for the week

Mark and Julia and I have figured out the logistics for Mark and me to go hiking to Mount St. Helens this week. Our permits are for Tuesday, so we will drive to the trailhead on Monday afternoon and camp there overnight, to begin hiking at first light on Tuesday.

Wednesday we go on a short, easy hike with the 11-year-old girls at church. It will be a good stretch for our legs after Tuesday's climb.

Saturday we'll go out to the coast for the ward beach party.

This is our last week of vacation, so we're going to play as much as we can. We think that we don't have any court hearings to attend this week--if that turns out to be true, it will be the first time in about 5 weeks that we haven't been to the courthouse at least once.

Stay tuned for updates!

The Kids Are Home!!!

The hearing today went very well. The judge ruled in Julia's favor - their father no longer has temporary emergency custody. Josh, Sarah, and Kat are back with us. Hooray!! Hooray!!

Earlier in the week, in the other hearing, the decision was made that Maddy can be with Mike in New Jersey in about 3 weeks. She will stay in the foster care until then.

We went out for hamburgers and banana splits tonight, and now the kids are tucked into bed here at home, where they belong.

There are still more hearings ahead, more legal process, to finish everything out, but today was a good step in the right direction.

More on Sparks Lake

Be sure to check out Dorothy's new blog post about canoe camping at Sparks Lake. Of course, they were there for the whole week, and we were just there for the weekend, but she has included some photos of us that I don't have. There's a good one of me jumping off the high log into the lake.

Family Time

Even though the circumstances are not what we would like, it is good to have some family time. Mike arrived late Tuesday night to be here for the hearings this afternoon.

Julia and the kids are sure glad to have him here for a few days.

We got to spend some time with Maddy on Tuesday at the DHS office (supervised visit). They got to have 2 hours together.

She was thrilled to see her siblings again. We brought the kids over and visited with Maddy for the last 1/2 hour of Julia's visitation time.

And she remembers Mark and me - we were so glad to get a little time with her. She gave us lots of kisses.

But most of the time, of course, being Maddy, she just wanted to run around and play. We headed back inside to the playroom, where she had a good time with the toys, although the room was a little on the small side.

Playing with a dolly stroller.

Mike and Julia will get to see Maddy today - an extra visitation for Julia this week - because DHS made arrangements for an extra visit since Mike can only be in town for a short time.

Sparks Lake

Sorry I've been so bad about posting. You know...there has just been too much going on. But here are some of our photos from Sparks Lake. It was a wonderful getaway, and we are so glad we took the time away for our mini vacation.

Julia and me heading out for a little paddle. Look at the cool rainbow in the middle of the picture!

Amazing wildlife. We saw this eagle, plus an osprey, a couple of herons, and of course, too many chipmunks to count.

Headed across the lake. Mark liked my new hat--said it was very feminine.

Me getting ready for a swim. See the guy jumping off the log on the other side of the lagoon? Check out the next picture...

Will I get up enough nerve? What do you think? (Julia down below, watching.) That's not Mark helping me, it was a dad named "John" who was there helping his kids jump off the log.

Here I go! (Dorothy in the red canoe, taking pictures.)

And here goes Julia off the log (black shorts, yellow top).

Later that afternoon, here I go on my goal to swim across Sparks Lake. I did it! Swimming across the lake only took about 12 minutes, and it was easier than I had thought it would be, so I decided to turn around and swim  back again!

That looks like an otter out in the water, but it's actually Ken Jenson. He decided to swim with me.

Meanwhile, Mark and Dorothy were in the canoe, nearby in case we needed any help. Not that we did. It wasn't a difficult swim, and if we did get too tired, all we would have had to do was stand up. There was only a short distance that was over my head. However, just for the record, I did not stand up--I swam the whole way--with the doubled distance, plus swimming up the cove to our campsite, it turned out to be just under 1/2 mile, total.

Julia was our resident pyromaniac. She was cold a lot of the time, so she was happy to tend the campfire.

Beautiful dawn - Mount Bachelor in the background.

I love this photo - looking across the lake on Sunday morning.

Still tending the campfire...

Another beautiful photo of the lake. Mark took this on a morning hike that we took to the parking lot - heading into town to go to church Sunday morning.

Almost to the parking lot. Dorothy and Ken, Mark and me. We changed into church clothes on the restroom at the parking lot. The mountain in the background is South Sister.

Julia and Mark out for a little paddle.

Mark and me out on the lake.

Mark and Ken back at the dock. What a couple of wonderful guys. Our gear is loaded into the canoe - time to head back to our lives here in Oregon City.

Dorothy and me - goodbye to dear friends. The weekend went all too quickly. We got home about 7:00 pm Sunday evening, and had time to get things put away before climbing into our very comfortable bed.