At Home in the Mountains

  Yes, I made it. Finals have been given, group grading gotten through, and final grades will soon be posted. If I could put my learning curve on some kind of graph I think it would be a vertical line shooting up exponentially through the course of the semester. I had NO idea what I was doing when I walked into the classroom my first day. All I could do was call on the small amount of poker playing skills I had and bluff my way through. I'm definitely still a novice but I have so many ideas for teaching. grading systems, student assignments, etc. next semester that I am  really excited to try out. But first, I am excited to have the summer off and take a break. The past school year  has been crazy with me finishing my masters and graduating and going straight into teaching two classes; my poor brain just needs a break. I am very proud to say, however, that ALL of my students passed the final. Unfortunately not all of them passed the class. :( And I had an incidence o...

Maddy in her Easter dress from Grams on Palm Sunday.  We had a long Easter season this year. We put Maddy in her Easter dress the Sunday before Easter since we weren't sure that she'd be able to go to church on Easter Sunday. Turns out she did so she got to do the egg hunt they had for the kids, but we did not put her in her Easter dress again as it was hot, she had her casts, and we hadn't gotten any sleep the night before. Maddy also got several Easter packages from various relatives and enjoyed opening all those. This Sunday we finally got around to dying eggs. I was glad we did it. I thought Maddy might be too young still but she was actually really interested and participated in the event and enjoyed it a lot. Now we've got a bunch of hard boiled eggs. What to do with them. Hmmmm...... Pretty girl. Opening her Easter package from Mema. She also got a card with some goodies from Granna and Grandad. Had to put the dress on right away. Looking at Eas...

 Maddy adopted a fuzzy caterpillar for awhile. We let him go because the jar was too small and too much of a pain to keep clean. dogs got their annual grooming cold while waiting on Maddy to get out of surgery  In the hospital. This picture is the evening after she got done with surgery.  Morning after surgery. Maddy had more energy than I did. To many nurses coming in and out during the night. playing with the blow by oxygen mask is fun!  Home sweet home!  Drinking water and watching a movie. What it's been doing here lately. Aaron sent out an email updating most on how the surgery went. We did not get as much extension on Maddy's knees as we'd hoped but she did get to between 15 to 20 degrees to straight. Something with the way her joints are in the knees is not allowing them to grow completely straight. She could grow out of this. If not, there is a surgery she can do when she is 5 or 6 that will put a metal plate on the knee joint to cause i...

I have shared the story before about how I and several other family members started practicing Lent. The abbreviated version is that it all started when we visited a Lutheran church in York one Sunday and the minister gave a sermon on Lent. Though intrigued by the idea, and deciding to put it into practice, I would venture to say that none of us, at the time, really understood the purpose or significance of Lent in the Easter season. Rather, we decided to do it as sort of a lark. What would it feel like to celebrated Lent? Could we meet the challenge of giving something up? This led to many years of uninformatively and imperfectly practicing the Lenten tradition of self denial. Many people who aren't raised practicing Lent seem to think that it is a waste of time. What possible good does it do God or anyone if I decide to give something up for 40 days straight? "I'm not Catholic" is the quote I've often heard when it comes to the Lenten season. Before I started ...

Headbands are back! The brighter the better. Sport one when working out or better yet, put it on for a quite read on the couch. head band: origin unknown pj's: origin unknown Who says you can't look like a princess while performing household tasks. Wear this poofy pink beauty while whipping up dinner and you'll never feel like cooking is a chore again! dress: Target $20 Mittens are no longer for snowy days only. Prettify your paws with these elegant accessories, even on a 90 degree day. Paci's are back! Sport them in bright colors and add a little bling with a lady bug paci clip. Don't forget to complement your outfit with a piece in animal print. mittens: Walmart $1 paci: Nuk, Walmart $3 paci clip: origin unknown giraffe: Kenya, Africa

 Maddy has been talking so much lately, and the more she talks, the funnier she gets. Tricia gave her this letter thing for her birthday. She loves it and any puzzle, book, or game with letters in general. When she plays with her letters she sings this little song to herself that sounds something like the following: "Lackalazy x! Lackalazy x!" We cannot figure out what she is singing.  As most of you know, dinner time is a constant struggle. Maddy usually ends up scattering and dropping about as much food as she eats. Or just making a duck bill out of a bite of burrito.  One day at lunch I gave her macaroni and banana. She love mac 'n' cheese and ate a lot of it but still managed to scatter a lot of it too. Then she looked at me and said, "Mac 'n' cheese EVERYWHERE!".  Maddy likes to try to help out with chores. One chore is cleaning animal hair off the furniture. But wait! Why mess around with that. Let's just go straight to the source. As y...

Maddy is still enjoying her princess crown and birthday cards. Maddy in her new pj's from Grams. She looks so cute and they fit great. This weekend we went to York. Aaron wanted to be on this President's Counsel thing that gives input for ideas for the school. So I got roped into it as well. I am not good when it comes to coming up with ideas so I was mostly just going along since I hadn't been back for 6 or 7 years. Tammy came as well since one of her friends was going to be there for the weekend. I did not take as many pictures as I wanted. :( We traveled on Friday, which was Aaron's birthday. We got out later than we planned so didn't get to York til about 8:30 Friday evening. Maddy was tired so we put her in bed and then Aaron ran over to The Kitchen (formerly known as Country Kitchen) and got carrot cake and fruits of the forest pie. It was yummy. The next morning we got up. Tam was going to meet her friends and we were going to have breakfast with Dr. R...