The Mountains

We took a quick trip to the mountains a couple of weeks ago as well, hoping to see the leaves changing. Unfortunately, the news had exaggerated the color change to that point, and the leaves were still mostly green with some beginning signs of color change. It was still beautiful.

And here are some more, if you want to take a look:

Visiting

I have been sick now pretty much since August (although, there was almost a week when I felt pretty good!), so please forgive my lack of posting recently. I finally went to the doctor the beginning of last week, and after yet more antibiotics, I am feeling a bit better. I have hopes that I am beginning to kick this sinus thing that has been plaguing me for way too long, and I actually plan to mow the grass this afternoon after homework time!

A couple of weeks ago, we had Courtney and Billy over for dinner. While it was great to see them, and we enjoyed spending time with them (as we always do!), I'm afraid we were a sad bunch. As I said, I was sick, Courtney and Jackson were sick and Billy was recovering from being sick. I guess my kids were feeling OK, but they had also been sick that week and were not in top form either.

Nevertheless, we had a good time just hanging out, cooing over baby Jackson, eating pizza and chatting. I was able to get a few good pictures, but my mind was not exactly in top form, so I didn't really get in there for the good shots - definitely not like these 2!

And how beautiful is this?

Nothing compares to uncle Billy!

And of course Kathryn had to get her hands on Jackson, I think she has the same baby-craziness that I have. He is almost as big as she is!

Julian in T&T

Check out Julian's new T&T badge. To earn this, he had to complete his start zone and 1 discovery in his book. He completed the 2nd discovery last week, so he has 2 stickers on the badge now. In short, he had to learn and recite a lot of scripture and answer a lot of questions!

Thank you, Emileigh

In the process of cleaning out her room, Emileigh sent these things Kathryn's way. Now Kathryn truly has a princess bed. I'm sure I did not put the canopy up correctly; really I just stuck it up with a push pin until I had more time to think about what to do with it! And Kathryn loves her Hello Kitty sheets. So, thanks Emileigh!

6 random things...

Well, when I got on here last night, I saw that Jeana had tagged me to play a game, and I'm always up for a game! Here's how it works: I am to post 6 random things about myself and then tag 6 other people to do the same on their blogs. So here goes, 6 random things about me:

1. The town I grew up in had less than 200 people.

2. I love watching science and nature documentaries - and occasionally one about social issues (but they generally just make me sad or mad for the injustice being documented, so I only do that every now and then...)

3. When choosing names for Julian, we chose Julian because of John Lennon's son, Julian. He's not named after him at all in any commemorative way, but we liked the name and decided to use it.

4. I got married wearing my mom's wedding dress.

5. I love playing clarinet. I have no time for it and have not even put it together in almost a year, but when I do have time, I love it.

6. Someday (post retirement, most likely, so many, many years from now...) I'd like to live in a different country, on a different continent, maybe in Ireland...or France ... or Germany. Who knows?!

Ok, so now to pass it on... I am tagging these 6 people to tell us 6 random things about themselves, so be sure to take a look at their blogs to see if they play!

1) Ronda
2) Courtney
3) Randy and Emily
4) Sherri
5) Andy
6) Heath

What a face

The last of this years' roses

This is not the most attractive rose in the world, but it smells amazing, and I'm fairly sure it is the last one I'll get from my one rose bush this year. Amazingly, grass hoppers eat roses; did you know? I found a grass hopper in this rose yesterday, and now there are holes in the petals (or maybe I'm jumping to conclusions??). This year was a hard year for my roses with beetles, aphids and some kind of white stuff growing on the leaves?? I already miss all my flowers....

A great surprise

I just checked my grades and I did really well on both test I took yesterday. I felt good about the biology test, but not the religion test...what a nice surprise!

Today

Man, today was a long day.

Do you ever feel like you just can't give anything else in a day?

I got up early after not sleeping well, got the kids ready and got them to school (on time! woohoo!), came home, checked in at work and edited a few shops, went to biology where I had an exam on cellular respiration (which I had really been studying all weekend). Then to public speaking, then research during my break, then Spanish where we learned something new that is really hard! So, home again for at least a few minutes - home to eat a bite, work a few minutes then off to get the kids. The kids' homework took forever today, but I supervised homework, worked for a few more minutes, then on to making dinner, studying my note cards for my "Intro to the Old Testament" exam (which I fear I did not do well on) for about 5 minutes (which is why I don't think I did well), off to class, take the exam, read (research) for my next speech during one of my breaks, finally home to watch Heroes (and play around on the computer for a few minutes)!

The highlights of my day were seeing Julian and Jason playing ball while I made dinner - awesome! I heard a great sermon on the way home by Alistair Begg - it so encouraged me about the Word of God, which I tend to need after my religion class. And the moon tonight was beautiful - did you see it?

I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

This week

Unfortunately, I have no real news to report, but I realized it had been almost a week since I have posted anything, so I wanted to check in.

As usual, our week has been busy but good. I have started a new sticker chart for the kids; they earn stickers for doing the things they are supposed to do, and doing it joyfully! We are still working on the "joyfully" part, especially the things that happen first thing in the morning and last thing at night (i.e. getting ready for school and bedtime). Last week was our first week, and Kathryn earned all her stickers, but Julian was 3 short. Kathryn got a roll of bubble tape as a reward. Julian had asked for computer time as his reward, so unfortunately he didn't get that last week. He is on track to earn it this week! So, hopefully, he'll get his first 30 minute chunk of computer time in months tomorrow. (as a side note, we've had many conversations recently about trust and computer time and earning things like that back - we'll see how he does).

I did warn them this morning that the 2 week trial period is over now and starting Monday, I need to see JOYFUL (really just not grumpy) or they don't get the sticker. Who knows if this will work, but I was getting desperate with a few specific times of the day that one or both of them were not cooperating. I am hoping offering the reward for something they have to do anyway will make it more appealing to do it without arguing. I'd love to see "joyful", but will definitely settle for "no backtalk/arguing". So now we've got our system worked out, our stickers are printed out and cut, and we're ready to see how it works in practice. It's so fun experimenting on my kids :)

Both children are doing well in school. Kathryn is making great progress in learning the function of letters and quasi-reading. At this point, the books she reads are mostly about deciphering the content and decoding the symbols (words). She can "read" the words because she can "read" the picture on the page. So, of course, the next step to help her realize the same word is always (or mostly) used for the same picture - a tree is always "tree", a dog is always "dog". She is a quick learner, so I am sure she will take to this quickly. Julian is also doing wonderfully. He has been reading a book about the human body the last 2 weeks (we forgot to put it back in his bookbag for library day this week). His homework has been to read aloud to me for 20 minutes, and I love hearing it; it definitely does not sound like the average 8 year old reading. He has almost no trouble with pronunciation; there are only a few words here and there I have to help him pronounce correctly. He took his Cognitive Aptitude (CogAp) test last week, so we have not gotten the result of that yet. I have a conference with his teacher in a couple of weeks, so hopefully we'll have the results by then.

Jason has been back to work for 5 weeks now, and seems to be adjusting fairly well. There is a lot of soreness in his back, and he has had a lot of neck-headaches, but that is to be expected, I guess. He has also started exercising to get back in pre-surgery shape.

And now me - I have been pretty occupied with research the last week or so. I have several speeches coming up, and I have been spending a good chunk of time finding books and finding what I need from the books, making notes and trying to decide what I'll say about all of it. It is very time consuming! I have a demonstration speech next week - I will show my classmates how to fold fancy dinner napkins... Then 2 weeks later I have a group presentation about Martin Luther King Jr. Shortly after that, I will give an informative speech on the local impact of global warming. Again, shortly after that comes my persuasive speech, in which I will try to persuade my classmates to be more eco-conscious. Finally, I have a tribute speech, which I have not actually chosen a subject for - yet. On top of that, I have a paper to write for my religion class, and I don't care for any of the 6 subjects I was given to chose from. My most pressing concern now is my biology test coming up this Monday, where I'll have to draw, label and explain cellular respiration. It is a lot to remember! There is a lot going on, but I enjoy the learning and enjoy proving to myself that I can do well...

So, those are the goings-on in our household. Hopefully, I'll see something interesting this weekend that I will be able to share.