The Blizzard of 2010

Apparently yesterday's snowfall amounts put it as #5 as biggest snowstorms since 1891. We got about 15 inches or so in Apple Valley. Lots of shoveling. The drifts along the driveway are many feet high already and it's only mid-December. Although hunched over in the photo, keep in mind that Ray is 6 ft 2 inches tall!

Ready for Advent

Advent is already here! Wow, time sure flies! Liam is ready with his chain although I helped him make it as you can tell. Connell is still trying to perfect his.

Time gets away from me....

Sorry I haven't posted in ages. Time just flies by without anything too exciting to report. I've been very stressed at school with the end of the trimester being a week from today. Everyone is scrounging to get make-up work in and I am busy creating final exams and getting everything ready for grade reporting. I did have a 3 week stint with a cold and laryngitis and so I am glad to be over that. I did not miss any school -- I simply loaded up on cough drops and Kleenex and tried to relax every evening. But I have also realized that I talk too loud and strain my voice and will constantly have the voice issues regardless of illness. I am trying to drink plenty of water and save my voice whenever possible. It's hard with some of the chatty classes of 39 students when it's so tempting to shout. But it's hard to believe that the school year is about 1/3 done already!

My school year has been challenging in other ways as well. 1/3 of the students in one of my first year Spanish classes are special education students. Unfortunately I don't get any help a special ed teacher since I am an elective class (i.e. in the core subjects, a special ed teacher will co-teach the class with the regular ed teacher when there is a large number of special ed students in the same class). So I am struggling with these 11 kids many who struggle with English skills (reading, writing, spelling, comprehension, recall issues, etc.) in trying to teach them another language. So I have had lots of concerned parents and special ed teachers and have been having to have constant communication with all parties involved in addition to all my other duties.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

School Pic '10-'11

Of course every year at school we get our pictures taken for free by Lifetouch and we get the most basic package to keep. This year's photo turned out pretty well. In fact I was very impressed by how the lighting did not make my hair look as grey as it is in real life. I have kept an example from all the years that I have been teaching and so they span 17 years now although I don't have one for the years of the extensive maternity break. It was fun to show the boys the pix in order though and see how I've aged :-)

Happy Halloween!

This is the first year that the boys' costumes do not go together. But I did sew and craft them from thrift store finds once again.

Mid-October

Well, not a lot of news to report mid-October. Everyone is looking forward to MEA -- although I am not sure that I will actually enjoy two full days home with the boys now that I am used to not having to entertain them for very long! It's almost mid-term at school and so parents and students are starting to be concerned about their grades. Conferences are only 2 weeks away and so the end of October will be busy when you combine that with Halloween.

Connell has been a part of the "run club" at school which means that certain days of the week during recess, instead of playing on the equipment, he can opt to run around the field a number of times in order to get punches on his punch card. This past week he hit the 10 mile mark and said that according to the chart, he was the first 1st grader to hit that mark -- and there are well over 100 in the grade. Of course not all are so goal-oriented and so most have chosen to just play on the play equipment and hang out with friends instead of continually run. But we are happy that Connell has been getting the exercise while the weather is nice!

Life in general

Life is going well. The boys are adjusting to school/daycare and I am as well. I have gotten quite used to all the new equipment in my classroom.

I did have a week filled with ups and downs as my ceiling mounted projector quit working in the middle of the day on Monday. Since everything (worksheets, presenting of information, correcting sheets, etc.) is reliant on the projector, I had to improvise for the rest of the day. Then I created a Tuesday lesson plan that avoided its use. By Wednesday I had been able to secure a traveling projector on a cart to hook up and use. Unfortunately I didn't realize that I needed to change the settings on my laptop to use it (mirror imagining or something?!?!) and so I needed the IT lady to bail me out in the middle of the first hour I attempted to use it. Later that same day, the AV guy came and changed the bulb in the original ceiling-mounted projector and so I was back to the old one. He suspects that there is a mechanical problem with the projector and that within a month it will go out again prompting its removal for weeks (shipping it off for repair). So I am holding my breath every day hoping that it won't happen. One day at a time...

Boys

My mom had been asking for an updated photo of the boys. I realized that the last cute one I had taken was from May 2009 and so I attempted to take one yesterday. This was the best shot of them.

Tiger Scout

Connell recently joined Cub Scouts and therefore is a Tiger Scout. Here he is in his uniform that I helped with (sewing on the patches!) So he and Ray have been busy going to den and pack meetings and other activities planned by the group. He also is taking part in his first popcorn/wreath fundraiser.

Wedding

This weekend we made the drive up to Villard for Ray's cousin Wyatt's wedding. The boys were NOT on their best behavior to say the least. It was a beautiful day -- crisp and yet sunny. We drove up and back the same day and so at least spending 5 hours in the car allowed us to check out the beautiful Minnesota trees as they change color.

Back to a crazy lifestyle...

Just finished the first week WITH students and it has been crazy. I am been busy using technology (like creating PowerPoint presentations for the kids, introducing them to international songs/videos on YouTube, learning all about my InterWrite board, posting things to Moodle) and getting to know the students while diving into the material in the texts as well. Add in the work at home (picking out outfits and cooking and cleaning) and things are just wild! Since I have three different things I am teaching and they are all brand new to me (as far as the new curriculum is concerned) and span two different languages, I barely know which language I am supposed to be speaking each hour. I can't get ahead of the game and don't expect to for quite some time. But I do like being back and it almost feels like I never left. Kids are kids and they haven't changed although most of the ones I have now were only in 2nd grade when I had Connell and was last working in the school system! Wow - time sure does go by quickly.

So it's time to pick the kids up at daycare -- Connell got a cold the second day of school and has been snorting and sniffling and miserable ever since. Time to load up on rest and vitamins and hope for a healthy year because it will be VERY hard to do sub plans since the sub doesn't have the use of any of the technology (except for a DVD player) and will be doing 3 different levels and languages.

Back to real life

It's Friday of the first week back at work for me. Actually I only had to work mornings this week (new teacher workshops) and although I spent many more hours fixing up my classroom, I did get some time to relax without the boys. The boys spent each day this week 7-4 at their new daycare. They seemed to do fairly well, except yesterday Liam's teacher said that he spent the morning being very sad and missing mommy. We think it was simply because the thrill and newness finally wore off and he realized that he would be going there every day. I think he eats very little there simply because he is fussy and stubborn and so that plays into his mood. Both boys are ravenous when they get home and so our food schedule is very off! Next week I will be working M-Th 7-3 and so my days will be pretty full, so I hope they do well. Then school starts, Connell will only go to daycare for an hour before and after school and I will pray for a healthy year for everyone! (fingers crossed)

As far as my work is concerned...I am slowly readjusting. My classroom is shaping up, I am starting to figure out some of the computer programs and my colleague Tracy came in for a few hours specifically to help me out. I have some good workshops on my schedule for next week and am especially looking forward to the Interwrite training (that is the version of a Smartboard that I have in my room and have no idea how to use!) We also are being trained on Moodle -- and I'm not even sure what that is. I'm planning on using a forum for my pen pal project and combined with everything "going through the computer" (no overhead transparencies) I expect to be pretty tech savvy soon!

The time has come...

It's been more than 2260 days that I have been home -- out of the teaching realm -- mostly taking care of the boys. It all comes to an end tomorrow as I go back to work. New teacher workshops begin and the boys will spend their first day at New Horizons. We're all a little nervous about everything coming together, but I'm sure it will. Correcting papers, creating lesson plans, packing lunches, making supper, etc. etc. etc. For the first two weeks while workshops are taking place, things will be a little relaxed so I am glad that I get the chance to ease back into the teaching world. Will keep you posted. I suspect that my blog posts will be "fewer and farther between" since I won't have as many "noteworthy" things to report.

Birthday and Reunion Weekend

Friday the 13th started off with a bang! Liam was up much of the night vomiting (a stomach bug?) and there was a terrible storm. We lost power for an hour which is the first time since we have lived here (9 1/2 yrs). So we all had little sleep and so I spent the day watching Liam sleeping on the couch!

After taking Connell to his 1st grade assessment, I headed to Owatonna for my 20 yr class reunion. I went out with a few classmates first and then off to the Eagles. There were about 75-80 classmates total (and then many brought guests) but even though I had stayed until 11:30pm, I still missed 2 classmates that didn't show up until after I left! The music was way too loud and people were having way too much to drink and so it wasn't exactly my favorite reunion gathering. But it was nice catching up with some people I hadn't seen in many years.

Today I have an informal meeting with the other Spanish teachers at school while neighbor Sara takes the boys for me. Next week I start in with new teacher workshops (since I still need to learn all the computer programs and get all updated information about everything). The following week is regular workshops. So the countdown is on...

Dressed to impress...

Ray and I went to the wedding of a former co-worker of his last Saturday while Ray's mom babysat the boys. Here is a photo of Ray and I all dressed up for the occasion. We rarely dress up, so we figured it was "blog-worthy".

Connell's 6th Birthday

Friday we celebrated Connell's 6th birthday. Ray took off at noon from work and we went mini golfing in Bloomington. It was fun. Then we grabbed a bite at Burger King and had cake at home. Connell received all Pokemon cards for his birthday -- so he was thrilled since it is still his latest obsession. I even bought Pokemon wrapping paper to use for the gifts and then Pokemon plates/napkins/party hats and cake picks as well! We kept it pretty simple as we always do for birthdays.

Busy week...

Last week was zoo camp for both boys every morning and since they had different drop-off times, I was at the zoo three times every morning! Liam loved it; Connell was indifferent. Both studied ocean life in their respective classes. For some reason their behavior each afternoon was awful -- both inside and out. There were lots of fights, broken items, headaches, etc. Luckily, by Friday it seemed to get better in time for the weekend.

This week Connell has a morning chess camp. I was able to get into the district office to get my ID, paperwork filled out and to get an idea of my transition back to work. There isn't much I can do until the week of August 23rd when I will be given my keys and computer, etc. and can actually attend some informational workshops and work on preparing my classroom.

I also volunteered to compile an updated list of OHS class of 1990 alumni and so currently I am organizing their whereabouts and combining to distribute. Hopefully we have a good participation rate in providing information. Next weekend (the 13th/14th) is the reunion and so I hope to get it out to everyone before the festivities.

Time for an accent wall...

After a few weeks of hemming and hawing over Liam's newly painted room, I decided to paint an accent wall. I made the final decision after the neighbor ladies wanted a tour of the house (we all visited the other neighbors' houses!) and while in Liam's newly light gray painted room, the comments came back as "well, at least it looks fresh and clean!" So I decided we needed a bolder wall and so I chose a darker shade of gray. I also changed the placement of his bed to a better location given that there was now an accent wall in the room. Voila! (to put the colors into into perspective...the ceiling is pure white, the left wall is light gray like the other 2 walls not pictured and the back accent wall is dark gray)

St. Mary's Class Reunion

For the first time since we left back in 1986, we had a St. Mary's class reunion on Saturday eve. It was Lam's idea and then I did research to find everyone (28 grads and some that joined us through 6th grade only) and then we relayed the info on to them (back in the spring). Kelli offered her lake house for the gathering (north of Faribault). Some classmates never responded at all and others had conflicting plans, but we managed to get 13 together for the gathering. One came from NY and another from TX and then 3 from Owatonna, 2 from north of Faribault and the other 6 of us are in the Cities. Here are some photos...


The entire 13 that came.


Dan Matejcek & Lam Nguyen



Dan Matejcek, Dave (Katie's husband), Andrea Lehrer Lembke, Katie Walerius Stenzel & myself on a pontoon ride.



Beth Regan Berry, me, Andrea Lehrer Lembke & Emily Thurnau Wannarka



Emily Thurnau Wannarka & Angie Barry Faith



The hostess, Kelli Wencl.



Craig and Randy Adams catch up after all these years.


Katie Walerius Stenzel, Phuong Stephanie Do Nesbitt & Andrea Lehrer Lembke

French party

Friday evening we had a party of 19 people to welcome Francoise and her husband and daughter to Minnesota. She is the French woman with which I set up the French III pen pal project with 9 years ago and we have continued ever since (with Cristina, my colleague continuing in my absence). Cristina and family hosted the Leluc family for the weekend, but we felt compelled to have a party for them. It was fun to hang out, speak a little French and enjoy the weather telling stories about life in Minnesota. You can see Francoise in the center of the photo with Cristina on her other side.

B.H.H.S. 20th Class Reunion

We ventured to Central Minnesota for the weekend for Ray's 20th. Ray organized the class reunion from the Cities and did a great job getting everything taken care of. 18 of the classmates made it to the reunion although Ray did see a few others at a bonfire the night prior (there were 42 back then of which 4 were foreign exchange students and then 3 are "missing" and so of the 35 accounted for 18 came). We stayed with Ray's sister Christine for the night and went to the Bertha parade in the morning which was fun. The boys met a lot of other boys at the reunion and especially enjoyed having a water balloon fight outside the Hewitt Community Center.

BEFORE and AFTER patio pix...

Hooray -- Aaron finished our new patio yesterday! After the first rainfall, he will come back and put more sand in between the pavers since it will settle quite a bit, but we will enjoy it until then. I'm not quite sure that this will be the furniture that we will use on there either -- I'm still looking at other possibilities. But you get the effect. It's really beautiful! And since Ray had to cut the landscaping back quite a bit in order to give space for Aaron to work, it doesn't look as "full" in the new pictures, but it will grow back! And Ray will have to put some grass seed along where the patio meets the grass as there is still some dirt along the perimeter. What do you think?

BEFORE...



AFTER...

A work in progress...

Here are a few shots from this past weekend. Ray was working hard at digging out the old patio and making sure there was 6 inches dug down which Aaron required for the new patio. I took a photo of the sand -- this was when Ray was about 60% done so picture about another 40% added to the pile. To get the full effect, look at the boys' sandbox in the background and how it is dwarfed by the tarp of sand. Ugh!

Liam's New Bedroom

So here are a few shots of Liam's new bedroom. The coloring in these photos is really poor (the bottom two photos have the best coloring -- the top looks yellowish), but you can see that there isn't a lot of true gray color on the walls. The pictures are the comic book superhero pix that I framed and the lamp shades are my own artistic designs :-) I do like the combo of the black and gray with the lime green and royal blue accents that I came up with. Sharp and fresh!

Goofy Boys

We did have a chance to run the sprinkler one day last week and I tried to take some photos of the boys. Aren't these cute?

The Last Two Weeks

Where has the summer gone? Well, I guess it's only turning into July tomorrow, but still. I'll try to summarize the last few weeks.

Connell went to a camp called Camp Invention from 9 am until 3:30 pm every day last week. Since it was about a 15 minute drive each direction, Liam and I spent 1 hour in the car every day just dropping him off and picking him up. We did have time to just hang out, run errands and do some other things (saw a movie and had John Henry over) while Connell was gone.

After Ray saw the beautiful patio that our neighbor's boyfriend put in for her, he hired the guy to redo ours. So Ray spent last weekend (in the terrible humidity) digging out the old patio. It was long and tedious work, but he did a great job. Now we've been advertising free landscaping sand/fill and free old pavers, etc. on craigslist trying to get rid of all the old stuff. We did pay a hefty amount for one large tarp of it to be taken away and we had a guy in Rosemount take three truckloads of the sandy fill and we had a couple in North St. Paul take all the pavers that hadn't been broken. So we are making headway, but we still have lots to dispose of. Aaron has started working on the new patio and will have it done before this weekend (which is perfect timing since we host the annual Wacek/Waldrop/Mathot/Boyce family 4th of July bash. There will be 17 this year as my uncle Paul has to work, so hopefully everyone will get to enjoy the new patio. I will post photos of the "before and after" when it's completed.

In addition to the above craigslist listings, I have also been using it to get rid of other things -- clothing, old computer, etc. I'm really good at getting people to take things for free, but not so good at selling on there. We really don't have high-quality stuff to begin with (since most are hand-me-downs or thrift store finds) and so better to give away than sell. But you can tell that I have been doing a lot of craiglist transactions when the lady yesterday stopped by and I couldn't remember what she was coming to get until she reminded me! Oops!

Oh, and I got the notion to paint Liam's room. We had never painted that room -- it was white with scuffs. And although there are several parts of our house that have never been painted (like the entire area as you walk in -- front room, dining, up the stairs and upper hallway -- when it has to be done, we will need to hire someone since it is a BIG job and very high and dangerous), I thought that Liam's room would be a "tolerable" job. Well, silly me. I decided to have that done before the 4th of July as well and so it ended up having to be last weekend -- which coincided with Ray's patio removal project. Somehow we thought the boys would just love to stay out and watch daddy. Nope. They would help him, get their shoes muddy from the digging and then walk into the house and up the stairs to tell me something! So mud was all over my house and I was nearly in tears from the sad situation. Painting for the first time in 2 years, I was reminded that I despise painting and how I really am terrible at it. Ray did try to tell me that but of course I had already bought the paint and was determined to do it regardless. Well, in the end I looked at the light gray color that I chose and realized that you can hardly tell that it is a color at all and so I am disappointed that I didn't go with a nice, deep, bold gray instead. Grrrr! So all the painting work, muddy carpets, screaming at kids and you can hardly tell that I did any work at all in there. My neighbor had the idea that I buy some darker gray and do an accent wall and yet that would mean more taping, painting and heartache and so I am not sure I want to undertake that. At any rate, it feels cleaner (less scuffs at this moment) and looks fresher, so I guess I will have to look at those things as positives. Oh, and Liam wanted to change from a sports theme to superhero theme so we gave away all his sports stuff and I framed a bunch of comic books for his walls. Combined with the painting of the frames and lamps (just basic craftsy things that I love to do) that part looks cute. Will take photos when I get the throw pillows made, etc.

That's basically the update. Consumed with painting, patio stuff, getting rid of stuff and oh, trying to keep an eye on the boys as well! Put in a few doctor and dentist appointments in there and you have an idea of the last 2 weeks.

Camping and Floors

Well, the boys did it. They managed to spend their first night away from their beds since '05 and '06 (Connell was 10 1/2 months and Liam was 4 months their last time away from home). Ray went camping with them at Lake Elmo Park Reserve along with the Schultz/Tong and Hoffman families. They (the Hagens) made it one night in threatening weather but came home during the downpour the following afternoon. They slept in sleeping bags in a simple tent -- no camper, no cots, nothing. The campers on the next site were uncouth to say the least and had their radio on all night long. Ray got very little sleep although the boys were pretty knocked out.

I joined the group from about 9:30 am until 2 pm on Saturday but the rain put a damper on any fun outside activities for most of the afternoon. It was freezing cold (about 60 degrees and windy and rainy) and so not the best weather conditions for June 11th-12th.

Since camping is not my cup of tea, I stayed back Friday eve. While they were gone, I worked on a long overdue project. I stripped the vinyl kitchen floor. We knew for a while that it needed to be done as patches of light were peeking out from under the build-up. You can see in the photo how dingy they had gotten over the 5 years and what an improvement I made. I figured no one would notice the difference once the entire floor was done, so I had to take photos as I moved along the kitchen floor to prove it! Isn't the difference amazing? That is build-up that the regular cleaners never got off over the years and made the floors dark and dingy. Now they look fresh and clean -- for a while at least. I used professional strength stripper and it took a lot to get through all the grime that we had! I really do love the vinyl flooring that we picked out 5 years ago when we redid our kitchen -- it just has a slight marble look to it which I like so I would like them to last a few more years.

Does this stuff look important to you?

Well, I am once again getting sick of all the paperwork scattered all around the house. I collected about 100 pages and many of them look like this. My best guess is that they are related to Pokemon since that is Connell's latest obsession. They appear to be "fake" game score sheets or something -- for Connell, Aaron and Jake. Not sure -- but they all got put in the recycle bin this morning while Connell was at school. These sorts of papers are almost always scattered all over the basement, first level and Connell's bedroom. Only our bedroom and Liam's bedroom (and the bathrooms) remain free of them. Ugh!

Liam turned 4!

A superhero themed birthday celebration for Liam this year. I combined DC and Marvel comics much to Ray's dismay because Liam just wanted everything "superhero"! You can see how Batman, Spiderman, Ironman and others came together for the affair. We got Liam a little Spiderman car and some Ironman coloring pages and tattoos and Connell got him a Batman action figure and a pack of Spiderman trading cards. Liam used a little of his birthday money to buy the Ironman thing on his arm and then the rest of the money he got will go in the bank.

After spending the morning at his friend John Henry's house (a last-minute invitation), I took the boys to the Mall of America to each spend $5. in tokens at the arcade. We had Liam's choice of mac and cheese for supper at home followed by cake. Liam was tickled after all was said and done and is already planning for his "next birthday".