New Chairs!

Luca is settled.  His classes are working out and he has made the swim team.  He has had no problem making friends.  He is participating in the youth group at church and has made friends.  He seems happy and is very nice to be around.

Luca, Ken, and I

We drove to the city to pick up our new chairs.  (Thanks, Ann for giving Luca a ride home.  I am sure he enjoyed that a whole lot more than going to the furniture store.) They are much bigger than we realized.  Yikes!  They sprayed them with a protection of some sort and they are to damp to even sit in.  That is the PITTS!  When you pick out material from a 12 x 12" swatch it looks different on a big chair.  I thought the colors were much more vivid.  I hope they will look different on the new carpet.  The fabric has a tan, deep brown, rust, and a steel blue gray colors in it.  I am now on the lookout for steel blue gray material to recover some pillows and the window seat.  I also want some accent pieces in the same color.  The new carpet will pull out the colors more I hope.  Right now they just look dull.

The new chairs!

Close-up of the fabric

My classroom is put together and we have been in school for 3 and a half weeks.  All my 22 kids are jelling.  I have a pretty good group of kids.  I am doing two letters a week with lots of sounds thrown in around the letter writing.  We are also working on two sight words a week.  Then, don't forget the Saxon phonics, which adds another letter!  My hope is to cover the letter recognition, letter writing, and letter sounds in 13 weeks.  I hope we will have done so much with them that they will know all the uppercase and lowercase letters by the end of the 13 weeks.  Then we will be able to move on.  I screened the kids a couple of weeks ago, I think I will see if I can get that screened again, maybe I will see improvement.

Big News!

Big news!  Ken and I have a foreign exchange student as a guest in our house until June 2013.  We are very excited.  He arrived on Tuesday night, but his luggage went to Montana!  His name is Luca, he is 16, and he is from Germany.  We got up this morning and Bryn and Vicki had arrived.  We all went to breakfast together.  Luca is very friendly.  He speaks English, but some of our words are not known to him, so we explain some things.  Then we took Luca to the high school and got him enrolled.  He will start school tomorrow.  He is a sophmore and he is taking some hard classes.

We are studying the letters D & P this week.  We are making the cutest peacocks on Friday.  Last week we studied E & F and we made jointed frogs.  The kids just laughed at the long legs and all the positions they could put them in.

Tomorrow is old man night and we are having a big dinner with Kevin, Nichole, Bryn, Vicki, Aunt Cleo, Grandpa, and Trina's kids.  Ken has not decided what he is cooking, but it will be good!

A New Year!

I made it through the first week of school.  Yahoo!  Today we started the second week of school.  I am teaching totally different this year.  I am going to go through the alphabet in 13 weeks.  We will do two letters a week and learn both the uppercase and lowercase letters.  My hope is we will know how to recognize the letters, write the letters, and hopefully the letter sounds.  My goal is that all the students will know all the letters and sounds by the end of the first semester.  Then we will really have fun the second semester!
Ken and I are venturing on a new adventure.  We don't know anything for sure, but we think it is possible we will have a foreign exchange student before long.  We finished the last of the paperwork tonight.  Exciting!
My mom and Bob got here on Friday.  They drove down from Minnesota on their way back to Arizona.  My sister got here on Saturday about noon.  Mom and I went to the casino two times.  My mom, sister, and I went to Kohl's.  We all came out with more than we thought we were going to get when we went in!  My sister is my current inspiration.  She has lost 45 pounds.  I started going back to Weight Watchers AGAIN!  I am down 14.8 pounds.  She is sizes smaller than me and I am benefiting from her losses.  She had her knee fixed combined with the weight loss she was able to play tennis twice last week without pain.  She so loves to play tennis! So Hooray!

The contract has started!

Here it is August 6th.  First contract day.  I am soon to be headed off to meetings for the day.  We will start with a district wide meeting then finish the day with meetings at our building.  Then if you are still able you can work in your room.  By the looks of my room, I need to still be able!  Tuesday is building day and Tuesday night is orientation where the students will find out who their teacher is and bring in supplies.  That is always an eye opener! 
Mom and Bob should be leaving MN tomorrow.  They got the go ahead from the doctor last Friday that Bob can drive and travel.  They are very hopeful he will be able to play golf.  I think the doctor is happy how he healed.  So what a blessing.  They will see my aunt on the way and should roll in sometime Friday.  (I said to her make after lunch so the cleaning ladies will be done!)  My sister is going to come up on Saturday morning to see them.  So, I am excited.  It will be nice to have them both here.
Update:  The pantry should be finished and the downstairs shower is finished.  Good news there.  I even hear there is a chance my wonderful husband will start on the sewing room next week.  Things are progressing.
My sewing machine is still with Johnathon.  He found an issue that needed a part.  It was a week last Saturday.  The part must be hard to get.  I will have to drive to Moore to pick it up as soon as it is ready to finish Macie Jane's pillow for her birthday.  Lucky the birthday was delayed a week, well the party, the birthday is actually the same as before. 
I am presenting today the changes in technology for the district.  I have my hand out and I am ready as I can be.  Still, I am a little nervous.  I hope I am able to answer the questions.  I will say a prayer for guidance and composure and it will be what it is.  Here is to a good day!