Happy Easter!

I hope you are having a relaxing Easter day. I'm SO glad you didn't have to into work today!

We will watch general conference again here at home on our computers. We'll probably take a short walk around the block, eat turkey leftovers with Koponicks (Julia cooked the turkey yesterday), call kids, write lesson plans in the afternoon.

Mark is feeling better, but still not back to his full health. I'm really glad he has had the weekend to continue to mend.

Dorothy and I had a wonderful training walk yesterday. We ended up walking 9 miles in 3 hours! Neither of us is very stiff & sore this morning, so I guess we're in pretty good shape for being a couple of 55-year-old grandmas. We got rained on a little bit for the first 1/2 hour of our walk, but then the sun came out for a while and we got too warm. Then it was clouds again, and an occasional brief, light sprinkle, but not even enough to pull my hood back up. Dorothy took lots of pictures; I took a few but then my camera battery ran out. I think she'll be posting a bunch of the pictures next week on her "Walking in Circles" post on The Skinny. She has a really nice camera that she bought last month, takes excellent photos.

In addition to the great exercise, we had a nice, long chat, which we haven't had for a very long time. It was a treat to spend 3 hours together.

Polly has a really nice Easter video link posted on her blog. It's one of the Church videos about Christ and his role as our Savior. I think you'd enjoy it.

I did some more work last night on my NBCT (National Board Certified Teacher) recertification portfolio. It's coming along, and even with a busy month ahead, I think I'll be able to have it put together by the deadline (April 30).

Happy Easter! Thank you for telling me about the emails you have been sending to the kids. You are a force of love and unity in our family. I love you!

Friday Update

Mark is on the mend. He is back to work today, although he's still feeling a little weak. He just has to teach his two morning classes, and then he has a student teacher taking over in the afternoon. Also good that he just teaches today, and then will have the weekend to really rest some more.

On a fun note, I've been linked to a couple of craft blogs that get lots of traffic. You might have seen the "Feeling Famous" post I put up yesterday, but then today I heard from another big craft blog that I was linked to them, too. I've had over 200 visitors to my blog in the last couple of days. I guess if I'm really looking for fame, I ought to do more crafts!

Here are the two links:

Wow, I got linked to the "One Pretty Thing" blog! Rachel liked my tutorial about making fabric balls. She has a wonderful blog, with many new links to fun projects every day. Check her out here!

Friday update:

And today I got linked here! Wow - lots of visitors to my blog today. :)

Poor Mark...

...is really sick. He might have caught the crud from Angela's kids, or maybe from someone around here. He's had a cold ever since Saturday night, but by last night he was shivering uncontrollably and felt awful. For once, he didn't hem and haw about calling in for a sub. He stayed home and rested all day today, and tonight he feels better, but he still has a headache and is tired, so he'll be staying home again tomorrow, too. Hopefully he'll be back on his feet after another day of rest.

Julia went to the doctor today, and she has bronchitis. She actually seems to have more energy than Mark, but maybe she's been sleeping a lot. I was off working all day, so I don't know!  :)

I'm fine. Thanks for the good genes, Mom.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Back to Work We Go

Spring Break has flown by. I'm still trying to get my head around the reality of returning to work tomorrow, to all new students and a new term. I have a lesson plan for tomorrow, and I'll make more plans once I meet my students and get a sense of where they are at as writers. No doubt it will be the usual mixture of strong writers and students (seniors!!) who still struggle to write more than a paragraph in one sitting. Makes me sad, but at least they all show improvement by the time they finish my class.

I have lots of photos from spring break posted on my main blog, so I thought I'd revisit a few years in the past to finish out tonight's post.

Spring Break 2009 - I bought a new pair of hiking boots! I have yet to use them on a really long trip, but Mark and I sure had fun with them last summer, backpacking with the grandkids, and then on our trip by ourselves to Jefferson Park in August.

And tried to get the lawns under control...there's a never-ending story.

Spring Break 2008 I hiked to Tunnel Falls on the Eagle Creek trail (12 miles roundtrip) by myself. It gave me courage to tackle the Goat Mountain Gallop that year, and to pursue my dream of the 50-mile solo backpack trip later that summer.

It was a rainy hike, and I was wearing a stupid plastic poncho that ripped. After I got home, I bought a good poncho and light-weight rain jacket from REI - some of the good equipment I took with me on my 50-mile hike.

Spring Break 2007 Mark and I were tackling a bunch of landscaping projects - this was the start of our "shade/evergreen garden" out in the corner of the front yard.

And Spring Break 2006 Mark traveled to San Francisco to help Angela and Tim out with the new babies, while I stayed in Oregon City and did the scoring for the state writing test.

I'm sure glad I married this guy! Hope you have a wonderful week.

Headed for Washington

We're leaving OC about 9:30 to head to Polly & Eric's for the day. We'll drive back this evening. Rainy out--it poured during the night--but it's just a little drippy now, so it should be an easy trip.

The orchard is in bloom - hope the bees can get out in between the raindrops! We're supposed to have nice weather tomorrow, and then rain again for several days.

I'll post pictures when we get home. Love you!

We're Home!

Had a beautiful trip home today. Long, of course, but the weather was a treat, very little construction, and the traffic was fine.

It is SO nice to be home!

Headed Home

I'm off to the Mill Valley Curves for a quick workout, and then Mark and I will hit the road - probably about 8:00 am. We had a good visit with Karen Kenny-Choy yesterday. We've had such a nice time here with Angela and Tim and kids. (Tim and the kids have been sick, though, so we're kind of glad to get out of germ city.)


Oregon, here we come!