Quiet Evening at Home

Ahhh...a quiet evening at home...our only one for a while.

I'll grade some essays, make a lesson plan for tomorrow, do some reading in my next book for the PSU class (Twain's "Roughing It.")

Polly & Eric are coming down tomorrow after she finishes her sub job. They'll stay in the Jenson's guest room at night, but I imagine they'll be here quite a bit during the day. We'll celebrate Katie's birthday while they're here, and they'll head home sometime on Sunday.

Sure it will be fun, but I do treasure these quiet evenings!

Here are some fun pictures of Kaitlyn and Maddy on Julia's lap last weekend.

They both got dressed in polka-dot jammies.

Kaitlyn likes to give kisses.

Maddy's not so sure about that!

Kaitlyn doesn't give up, Maddy decides to kiss her, too.

Smiling for the camera.

Cheese!

Oony-koony-chah

Do you remember singing "A-oony-koony-chah-a-oonie" at Camp Natoma? There are hand/arm motions where the left arm/hand is held out straight in front while the right hand pats the left wrist - elbow - upper arm, and then the right arm goes out and the left hand pats, and then back and forth and so on.

This morning Kat told me she had been learning some Indian dances, and I asked her to show them to me. One of them was the arm-hand-patting thing, and I said, "Oh, that looks like Oony-koony-chah," and she said yes, that's what it was, but she didn't know the song.

So I sang Oony-koony-chah while I was standing in the kitchen making my lunch and she did the arm-hand motions, and we had a great time. It was so fun to have her know about the song. A substitute teacher taught it to her class.

How fun to have an old Camp Natoma song come into my life this morning!

Cute babies

Julia has posted a bunch of cute photos of Maddie and Kaitlyn on her blog. You'll enjoy them!

(11 people in the house for a few days! ....  )

Maddy & Kaitlyn enjoying an "early literacy" experience. :)

Uh-oh...looks like Maddy is discovering the stairs!

This Class is Going to Kill Me Off!

Oh my - started my PSU class Monday night, and it's a doozy. I'm sure I will learn many things from it, but it may kill me off in the process. We have to read 10 books in 12 weeks (nonfiction), and write a 3,000 word midterm paper and a 5,000 word final paper. Yikes! I'm scrambling to get to page 80 of "Walden" by tonight.

On a lighter note, Mark and I started a yoga class through community ed last night - it's held over at Mt. Pleasant School. The class is very good. One hour long, a good teacher, mostly women but one other guy in the class. The yoga poses were challenging but not impossible - we felt like our bodies were s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g and working hard. During the "relaxation pose" at the end, I fell completely asleep. And oh, how I slept last night! Deep and peaceful sleep, better than I've had in months, maybe years.

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Back to Work

7:00 am - heading out the door. Got up at 5:15 this morning to go down to Curves for a workout. Gosh, it was a treat to sleep in for two weeks! But it will be good to get back into our routine and doing the good work of teaching.

Yesterday at church they announced that next Sunday we'll divide the 4 Oregon City wards into 5 wards. Wow! When I moved here 30 years ago there were only 2 wards. Lots of changes...new callings, new people to associate with at church, new bishop, maybe even a new meetinghouse (there are 2 in Oregon City now).

It's rainy outside but I feel sunny inside.

January Play Day

Today was our Play Day for January, but we didn't feel like a huge outing because 1) we've actually had a play WEEK, and 2) Mark has a cold, so we didn't want to go hiking because 3) it's rainy out. So we rode the MAX train into Portland and went to the Portland Art Museum. They have an exhibit called "China Design," which I thought sounded kind of boring, but it was actually interesting. China is such a big country and I never think about it. There are those millions (billions?) of people doing things every day, and I never once give a thought to that whole huge majority of humanity. I just go along in my own little world, as if I were the center of it.

Anyway, the exhibit was some of the graphic design and architectural design trends in China today, and it was very interesting. Afterwards, we walked around downtown a little and got a sandwich for lunch, and then we rode the MAX back home.

I really need to stop procrastinating some things...like the pile of essays that I was going to get to the whole vacation, and they're still sitting there. I need to give them back to the kids on Tuesday or Wednesday, so I need to get busy. I also need to make some plans for cub scouts on Tuesday afternoon...I guess this vacation really is just about over.

Here are some photos from Arora's birthday party yesterday. She is such a cutie.

She couldn't get the hang of how to blow her candles out. Holly had to help her. Holly made cute cupcakes decorated as owls, Arora's favorite bird.

Arora opening up her gift from me and Mark - the "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" DVD. Arora calls it "Boom Boom." Seriously, David and Holly may hate me for this. The song really gets stuck in your head. Arora loves it and can watch it over and over and over and over and over...you get the idea!

PS - I updated your blog list on the side. I took off the ones that are blocked, and I added a new one for Hillary Haynie and also "The Skinny" - the diet blog by me and Katie.