Work Woes

Work has been pretty tough over the past few weeks.

Things are going pretty well for Eric - he recently got his first raise along with a holiday bonus.  He still likes his work, and only ever complains when he gets hurt.  Though it is a weekly occurence for him to get bumps, cuts, bruises, and strains.  Most recently, he slid on some ice on a cold morning, and fell out of his truck and bruised his bum - ow!

For me, I've just concluded that winter has hit the kids hard!  We lost 2 of our 3 paras within a week of each other at the end of November.  My students with behavior problems seem to be "flaring up" a little bit, and my students with academic struggles have had some slooooow progress lately.  The stress bar is raised a little higher when we've had 2 students with IEP's move into our school, 4 students referred to be evaluated for special education, and 2 IEP's allllll in the past month.  I love working with kids, but the paperwork side of the job is harder for me.

Then I've got my aggressive kiddos!  This is a glamour shot of a few minutes after a kindergartener head butted me in the jaw.  It was hard enough to get him crying, and to make me dizzy - yeowch!

Taking the Kids to the Zoo

Jen and I brought Cameron, Caleb, and Colin to the zoo today!  It wasn't too hot and the kids didn't get grouchy until the end of the day.  We had a really good time and the animals were really active.  I hadn't seen the orangutans out playing all summer, and Cameron really liked finding the stuff people had lost on the sky ride... including a backpack.

   

The kids with the giant polar bear.

 Sleepy red pandas.

 

The kids with the dino egg.

Jen and the boys on the sky ride.

Me and Camerson on the sky ride.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

St. Thomas ReNew VBS

I received a call over the weekend from Emily Barnes, a woman Eric and I talked to at the "new member's" dinner at Father Gar's house a few days ago.  She was looking for volunteers for St. Thomas's Vacation Bible School, and I ended up committing to two nights.  Their theme this year is "ReNew" and focuses on reusing and recycling, and how that brings us closer to God's creations.  Youth events used to totally be my thing, but I was nervous to be joining a whole new group of people.

On Monday and Wednesday, I helped a lady named Ashley at her station, and we had a great time!  On the first night, we took the kids on a nature walk and talked about what "community" means, and how we can be a good part of our community.  Tonight, we reused items that might have been recycled or thrown away, and turned them into music instruments!  All in all, it was awesome getting to know some more people at St. Thomas, and really cool seeing a new generation of kids singing the songs that fill me with reminiscent joy.

I also found out that all of Jen's kids are going to a VBS in Lawrence this week.  Even though it is a different denomination, they sing a lot of the same songs that I know from youth events.  I talked to Jen and suggested that if I end up as a counselor at Camp Wood next summer, we may have to see if Cameron (her oldest) would like to come with me.  The boys won't be old enough yet, but I feel like she would really enjoy it.  Plus, I love Jen's kids and it would be so cool to spend a week with Cameron!

One of my young friends turned this pie tin into a drum with some tape, yarn, and markers!

Day 364: Kid Camping

We slept off the wine party, and narrowly avoided hangovers.  I drove home in the crazy pouring rain last night because I deemed Eric one drink too many, or more so I had just not had a drink in an hour and a half and he had one right before we left.

This morning we took our time getting ready for an awesome day of camping.  This is our third camping trip this summer, and we're hoping to go again at least one more time.  This round was "kid camping" because Jen brought her kids along.  Cameron, Caleb, and Colin hit every mark on the fun scale from crying and pouting to giggling and playing.  Campers included Brian, Jen, Cameron, Caleb, Colin, Heather, Seth, Phil, Eric, and me, and camping *visitors* included Hackey, Paul & Deb :p  We'll get them on an overnight camp trip eventually!

Activities included swimming in the lake, sitting in the poison ivy conversing, and cooking steaks, potatoes, corn, brats, hot dogs, burgers, and tons of marshmallows.  After the kids went to bed and Paul & Deb went home, the rest of sat around the campfire discussing A..., B...., Cars, Dogs/Divorce, Eggs/Eves, Fantasy/Fiction, Gambling, Hell, Ice cream, Jokes, Kites, and Leprechauns!  Eric and I missed the A and B topic starters.

All day today the weather app said we had a 40% chance of rain on the hourly forecast.  There wasn't a cloud in the sky until after the sun went down, then we started feeling a few minor sprinkles as we were cleaning up before bed.  As soon as we got into our tent, the sky split in two and dumped torrential rain on the campsite until nearly 5am.  Luckily, our tent held up really well and we were totally dry!

The boys took up wood chopping as a hobby.

Hackey speared his steak on a stick he cut off of a tree, then cooked it medium-rare on the fire!  What a man!

Eric and I shared a HUGE (and delicious) steak

And baked potatoes!

Caleb, Colin, and Cameron roasting marshmallows - and I finally know all of their names and can tell them apart without thinking about it, haha!

Awe!

Swimming at the lake - totally dirty water, but fun.  Cameron kept finding tiny snails and floated them around on her floaty ring.

Caleb was enthralled with the Jiffy Pop - he probably ate half of the bag.

Day 360: Pizza Party!

Darn, I should have gotten a picture of everyone tonight!  Mom and Alan took Ashley, Eric, and me out to D'Bronx for pizza because we helped them clean up the house for the party on Friday.  I invited Alison, Zach, and Kristie along to spend some time with us.  D'Bronx has delicious and GIANT pizzas.

Zach got a hunk of pizza dough to entertain himself...it worked!

Ashley is a pizza hamster!

This is Zach's directions home because he wanted to leave before we were done.  I told him no getting in vans, and no nuts/eggs/bananas/tree nuts!

Zach was pouty because I wanted a picture of him with his dinner, toys, and directions - he stuck out the BIG lip!

Day 354: A Playdate!

I had Chase and Zayne, my cousins, to tag along after this morning and afternoon, as well as Jack.  We had a good time playing video games and eating lunch at McDonald's.  I don't get to see these guys a lot, so it was a fun afternoon!  When Jack came to Zayne's house in the afternoon, they played Wii games together and then we all made Shrinky-Dinks, yea!  We also wrote a stack of letters to Connor, Emma, Matt, and Ashley at Camp wood - Kiss! The Fish!  Kiss, Kiss the fish, uh!

They wouldn't let me get a picture of them both drinking out of their straws, it was pretty funny though!

Before and after sized Shrinky-Dinks.

On my way home, I stopped at Mom & Alan's house and caught this picture of Chaos and Cora.

Day 349: Trains & Fire

The highlight of this work day was taking my nanny kids and Andrew to see Thomas the Train with Mom and Papa.  Unfortunately Eric was at work for this, and had to miss chasing kids in 95 degree weather, haha!  Bryson didn't have much fun, until we got to a table where he could color.  Jack and Andrew seemed to love it all.  And the grown ups, well, we enjoyed seeing the kids have fun.

Then after Eric got off work, we picked the motorcycle up from Mom & Alan's house and rushed home to pack for camping.  I added Eric to the insurance today, and he raised it from $148 to $300/year (almost $100 of that because of his speeding ticket in August).  We packed my car with the camping gear, and then we drove out to Clinton Lake separately so he could ride the bike.

It was an interesting night - cooking and conversations around the fire, partially clothed swim in the lake (others were in various stages of dress, Eric and I remained clothed!), and the annual burning of confidential school documents!  This was a really fun event with Steven and Leslie last year, and this year our crowd was kind of a buzz kill about it.  The burn didn't exactly go smoothly, and instead of having fun with it, they just called us various names and moved to the other fire pit.  Lame x a really big number.  We headed to bed, and spent some time looking at the starts and using a sky map app to help us find constellations - very cool.

Andrew with my stuffed hippo - Mippo.

Andrew, Me, Bryson, Sit Toppemhat, and Andrew.

Bryson, Me, and Andrew on the train!

Jack, Mom, and Andrew on the train!

Bryson, Me, and Papa on the Thomas train!

Finally, something Bryson enjoyed!

Andrew's first (?) time in a bounce house, he loved it!

Mom and Andrew going down the slide.

A year of work up in flames!

Oops...it fell over...

Burn, baby, burn!

The papers were so scrunched together, it took forever to burn through.

Very cool to watch it burn!

Day 323: Happy Mothers Day!

This morning we rode the motorcycle out to the Topeka Zoo - where we met Paul, Deb, my mom, Brian, Jen, Rose, Cameron, Caleb, Colin, and Kris.  Did I get everyone?  It was a nice hot day and most of the animals were being more active than usual.  We got to see bears fighting with each other, a giraffe who couldnt quite reach the leaves, and some fish that werent hungry at all.

After leaving the zoo, we waited in line for awhile and rode the train around the park.  Cameron demanded to sit with me, which was pretty cool.  Jens kids are some awesome little people.

When we finally got back to Olathe, Eric and I went to Paul & Deb's house to have dinner with them and to work on Eric's graduation announcements.  This ended up taking a great deal longer than we'd hoped, but we got all of the pieces ready to put together!

We were at a stop light, don't worry!

The giraffes at the Topeka Zoo.

These two bears were chasing each other around and kept boxing on their hind legs - very cool to watch!

After their play fighting, this bear went to chill in his pond.

Up close an personal with sleeping flamingos.

Caleb and Cameron hesitantly checking out the flamingos.

The super cute, and soft looking, otters!

A very pretty macaw.

The giraffe was reeeeeeaaaaching for that branch with his tongue.

Bored hippo is bored.

Time to feed the giraffe!

Munch munch munch!

The "Addy" lemur.

Cameron and Colin trailing the fence.

Caleb was the professional photographer all day.

Complacent orangutan is complacent.

Eric became an exhibit.  It worked out because we couldn't find the sloth!

Pondering gorilla is pondering.

Cameron has got quite a bit of catching up to do if she wants to be an ape when she grows up!

"No Cash Value" :)

"Good for one ride"!  Haha!

Monkey boy.

(Most) everyone on the train.  In the back is Rose (Jen is hidden), then some strangers, then Colin and Brian, Paul and Deb, and Eric, Cameron, and Me!  I'm not sure where Caleb landed.  Mom is taking the picture and Kris is standing with her!

Eric, Me, and Cameron.