Sophia's Birthday at Home

These photos are meant to be viewed quickly.

Spring Break

We decided to spend Spring Break in Saipan, 6 days. This trip should be interesting since we will be traveling with 3 other families. Each of the families has at least one parent that works at the school, this should be fun! . The hotel is a Pacific Island Club Resort.
The weather here has been floating around the 50's with the weather in Saipan in the 90's.

Haley being Haley...

I can't sleep

Lay in bed.. get up... wander around... lay back down... repeat the following steps 5x. Finally, plant it in front of the computer wander around the Internet and find three other women in the community who also blog, this is very exciting.

Today we had some mild excitement in the building, another fire alarm. One might ask themselves, "What is going on there?" I would reply, "I have no idea". Haley, Sophia and I were getting ready to pick up Izzy from rehearsal when the alarm began. Haley, Sophia and the dogs were already out the door as I was trying to grab my phone, keys and wallet. This all happened in less than 5 min (we have had plenty of practice in the last week). I was at the playground looking up at the building trying to figure out if there was an actual fire, while thinking to myself, "I have 20 min to get to SAS, the firetruck is blocking my car in and I didn't lock the front door". About 10 minutes later the firemen told us we could go back upstairs, the situation was not serious (I'm thinking burnt toast). The firetruck moved and off we were.


Ill try to go to sleep again, goodnight everyone.

Dangerous Minds

Yesterday was my first day at T.A.S as a substitute teacher. I was called in for Language Arts on Monday and Health & Algebra on Tuesday. I was thrilled!
Monday -Language Arts for 10th and 11th graders. Listening to the advice of other teachers made me nervous. I expected to break the yellow warning tape before entering and fight monsters with bad attitudes on the other side.
First class (10th grade), LOVED'em...Second Class (11th grade) Liked them, they could have been better... Third class (LOVED'em).
Yes, they are just kids and no they aren't just kids. These people have gone through more than the kids I knew in high school. They have experience and wisdom that some people never get. Someone give these people a little credit, they are far from kids! I would even say that most of these kids achieve more on a daily basis than the adults I know. It was very motivating. I had a blast getting to know these people. They had passion, opinion and motivation (I can see how someone might view that as intimidating). They were talking about their plans and then giving themselves high 5's, total motivation. These kids were excited, eager and wanted more...I LOVED IT!
The day ended with a pleasant surprise, Isabelle came by the class. Isabelle's school day was over and she was on her way to pick up Sophia, she stopped by to let me know where she was and that she would be back to pick me up. I'm a very lucky mom.
Tuesday - 7th grade health math. The topics in Health were, "self esteem" and "self concept". Conclusion: Twelve and thirteen is a tough age to be. There were times that I wanted to run up to the kids and give them a hug, tell them they were beautiful and this part of life isn't forever. Other times that I wanted to stomp my foot with frustration, their emotions were all over the map. I could understood the angst of this age group and I felt compassion.
Math...OMGsh, that was the longest 12 hours of my life (only 2 hrs). We worked on finding the area of complex figures and square roots. It was a challenge to effectively go over the review for an entire chapter, then try to help kids figure out what they don't understand when they haven't a clue. I walked out feeling dehydrated and tired. It was awesome and Id do it again!
Haley was in both the health and math class. I'm lucky, she is a great kid.

After school Monday were auditions for a children's play, "The Little Mermaid".
Sophia will be a seahorse and Isabelle will be a Scout. The part of the Scout requires Isabelle to practice every day this week, all Saturday with a performance Saturday night. I'm very excited to see the show.

First Extreme Yellow Dust Experience

When I left the house this morning it felt tight in my chest and throat, it was a little difficult to breathe. I didn't think anything about it but later a friend came over and told me that the yellow dust levels were above 800. When I checked the web page the levels were 1049 .
We are warned to stay indoors, the children at the school are not allowed to play outside and the people that you do see outside all have masks.
The weather has just started to warm up and normally I would open up the windows, not wear a coat and force the kids outside but this is not a normal situation.We have now started the "Yellow Dust" season. Here is a link for more information.
What it looks like; The air has a haze similar to smoke from a fire. I can see about a block ahead, but not much further. I could even feel a slight burn in my chest when breathing.
Chris usually walks to work and the girls walk to school. School isn't very far but I'm worried about Sophia, she had such a horrible reaction to this stuff. Last year her skin broke out and she had a cough that lasted for months and the levels weren't even close to this high. Chris wont be walking so I will either drive him or he will take the car. This is the only time I wish we had 2 cars.

Fund Raising Weekend

Friday night was prep time for our fundraiser. I made 6 dozen cupcakes, muffins, brownies and chili. We had enough supplies left over from Saturday that we decided to do it again on Sunday. We were out both days from 1030 to about 1300. The weather was great, no rain with a little breeze.
Saturday night Haley and Emily went to see "Fools Gold".
I did get some good news on Friday, as of Monday I am eligible to begin substituting at the kids school. This is pretty exciting.

Stop In The Name Of Love

They are so cute!

Black History Month

Sophia as Maggie Walker.

Kindergarten Valentine Dance

Sophia at her dance on Valentine's day.