Woo hoo! A Friday Five!

1. What does it take to get you to grab the mic and sing in a karaoke room?

Not much. Me loves to sing. I probably would need a couple drinks to loosen up and some good friends egging me on.

2. What does it take to get you to give up a whole Saturday to hang out with people you don’t like?

Getting married did that. LOL!

3. What does it take to get you out of bed without your hitting the snooze button?

Hmmm - I am not sure that has ever happened.

4. What does it take to get you to take someone else’s turn at a really unpleasant task at work or home?

Not much. I pretty much do whatever I am asked at work. We are a team and a family so you help people out!

5. What does it take to get you to eat something you really dislike?

If I know I do not like it I will not eat it. Period.

Now, the way this works, is that you answer these questions on your own blog, facebook, twitter, journal or whatever. And, if you don’t have one, and you feel like it, put your answers in a comment here.

Built a Gingerbread House

Grammy and the kids built a gingerbread house for Christmas. It was out first one ever and it was a lot of fun.

Faculty Fun Day

So we had a fun Faculty Development Day for Winter. We did a scavenger hunt and then we rewrote the twelve days of Christmas to fit our jobs.

I need to post some pics from our photo scavenger hunt.

Another dance show is behind us . . .

Morgan's dance studio did their Christmas production on Sunday. We had been at dance rehearsal every day for the last two weeks. I was beginning to feel like I lived there. The show was fabulous. Everyone loved it and Morgan did an awesome job. I need to post pictures as soon as I get some. I have one I can post later today. Morgan had 4 parts.

So, now we are on the downhill slide til Christmas. I work thru the 22nd. The kids get out of school on the 19th. My mom and dad will be here on the 22nd.

Tonight, Mason has a band concert. He plays the french horn. I am really looking forward to hearing him play for the first time. I will post pics of him too.

Happy Tuesday!

Tag - I am it!

My sister tagged me with these Christmas questions . . .

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper
2. Real tree or Artificial? Artificial
3. When do you put up the tree? Friday after Thanksgiving
4. When do you take the tree down? The weekend after Christmas
5. Do you like eggnog? Love it.
6. Favorite gift received as a child? A dollhouse my parents had made for me
7. Hardest person to buy for? Sam and Royce
8. Easiest person to buy for? Mom
9. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes, Precious Moments and I leave it up year round
10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I really can’t think of anything.
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? The Year Without a Santa Claus, because I love the Snow Miser and the Heat Miser
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? No specific date but I am usually done by the end of November
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Yes in Secret Santa Exchanges
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Candy Cane Kisses
16. Lights on the tree? Multi-colored this year
17. Favorite Christmas song? I'll Be Home for Christmas
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Always stay home
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? I could but they already have names.
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? I usually have a bow but I have nothing this year.
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? We used to open one present from our grandparents on Christmas Eve, but now it is just everything on Christmas morning
22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? People get too worked up over "things" and forget to enjoy the family spirit surrounding the holiday.
23. Favorite ornament theme or color? I like traditional red/gold/green
24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? Turkey/Ham and the fixin’s
25. What do you want for Christmas? A red Nintendo DS

OK - I am not sure who to tag. If you read this, answer these questions yourselves.

Blogging again . . .

Just a quick note to say we are busy, busy, busy. This is the last week of the semester for me so i am gradng, grading, grading. Morgan is busy dancing and Mason is busy getting in trouble. He got detention for the first time. Woo hoo! Another milestone reached. Sam is just working and trying to recover from a back injury. We had a great, lazy Thanksgiving. That's all for now.

HOT! HOT! HOT!

So it is pretty sad when you live on a lake and it is too hot to go out and swim in it. I mean, really. It has been over 100 here and just walking from the back door to the lake is miserable. The kids and I swam on Saturday afternoon but we only stayed out like 30 mins. because it was not even refreshing.

In other news, Mason was bowler of the month for June in his league with his Dad. And they came in first place in their league. He is so excited. He loves bowling with Sam. It is a great father/son thing to do.

Morgan is ready for dance to start again. She can hardly wait. The kids are about to be finished with their church day camp. This is the last week. They are going out to one of the local retreats and doing a ropes course and swimming on their last day. I think they will be going to Ruidosa with the grandparents next week and then we plan on taking a little end of summer getaway to Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine.

That's all for now.

Morgan learned to ride her bike!

Yes, it is true! She finally got out there and buckled down and now she says "I want to ride my bike every day". Silly girl, we told you that all the time but you did not believe us.

Long Dry Spell

So it has been awhile since I blogged. You are probably wondering what's new with me?

I started a Facebook space. You can look me up and add me as a friend if you are on Facebook. It is a great way to talk to students.

Also, Mason and Morgan went to church camp. They had a great time and while they were there, Mason accepted Jesus Christ into his heart. He is so excited and I am so proud of him. This will affect everything in his life for as long as he lives.

Both kids are busy with camps and such this summer. We are taking a family vacation in August - just me, Sam and the kids. This has never happened before so I will let you know how it goes.

I spent all of last weekend packing my sister's apartment becuase she is moving to Florida and she needed adult supervision to be sure she was not taking too much (per my Dad's orders). I bet I went up and down her stairs 20 times. My legs hurt, my back hurts, my shoulder hurts. I am going to send my Dad the chiropractor bill - LOL!

Work is going great still! I love my job! and it keeps me so busy which is great.

Well, that is all for now, but I will try to be in touch more.

The Masonism Returns

Ok - so those of you who know what a Masonism is need no introduction, but if you do not let me fill you in. A Masonism is one of those wonderfully quirky things my son either does or says. He is totally unique and hilarious in his thought processes.

Yesterday, he made his father's day because he went fishing with him for 3 hours. And he had a blast. You would think this was no big deal because, well, boys fish. Not my boy, though. He has never fished more than 10 minutes without complaining and wanting to go home and being hot and being bored and generally ruining what could be a good time with his Dad.

He and Sam got out on the water around 5:00p. Mason was very reluctant to fish. He just kept saying he did not want to. Finally, Sam got him to give the whole reason and here it is . . .

he was afraid he would catch a really big fish and it would pull him off the boat and into the water.

Maintaining his composure, Sam convinced him that the fish in our lake were not that big and Mason proceeded to catch about 20 crappie and have a great time. We ate fish for dinner last night and now he cannot wait to fish again. Sam was grinning from ear to ear because he finally got his son to love something he loves and they can fish together.

Training - Webquest??

So we are in training at Western Texas College in Snyder, TX today. We are learning about developing online courses and how to make them more engaging. One of the tools they are suggesting we use is a blog. I am such a bad blogger obviously I could not use this tool for teaching - lol!

One of the other things we are learning is about a tool called "Webquests". I am not understanding this concept. There is no questing involved as far as I can tell. They do not have to search for the information you tell them exactly where to go to get the info. How is that a quest? Here is a link to a website about them: http://www.webquest.org/index.php

I am not sure this is really a student-guided learning activity - it is basically go here, do this, can you follow instructions? Just my opinion. Does anyone else know about these or used these?

Bastards

So we were finalists in the springboard challenge. Our business plan was outstanding. Trish gave a wonderful presentation and we won - nothing! Why? because we are not from ACU. All 14 winners in the competition were either ACU students or ACU faculty. Why invite other colleges to be part of your competition when you fully intend to award all of the prizes to your own students and faculty. How do I know this played a factor? They specifically asked Trish in the presentation what school she was affiliated with. So all I can say to them is . . .

BASTARDS!

Springboard Challenge

So, at work we had the opportunity to submit a business plan to this contest and possibly be awarded cash to begin our business. Trish and I have spent all day preparing and submitting our business plan. You can find out the details at www.springboardchallenge.com

We are of course submitted in the faculty division. Our business plan is for a pet boarding and training facility. We did hours of research on the web (Trish more than me) and I think we came up with a pretty convincing argument as to why our business will be a success. At worst I feel like we will receive one of the $1,000 prizes.

Only in Texas

My sister is always telling me I need to blog the dorky things I call and tell her so here goes . . .



When you go out to my house and turn on to the little Farm to Market road you take, there is a great big house on the left. Now, picture this because we are talking in the city limits less than a mile from the Super Wal-mart. The people have always had horses in their yard. And it is a rather large yard, maybe 2 acres. Well, they constructed a new very sturdy fence over the last couple of weeks and now that it is completed, they have put buffalo in there. Yes, buffalo in the front yard of their residential neighborhood home. Six buffalo to be exact. Crazy!



ONLY IN TEXAS.

People Irk Me

I was at Rosa's for lunch and the girl gave us our order and we asked for 4 more hot sauce. She gave me 3 because there was already one in the bag.

Me: could I have one more because there are 5 of us.
Worker Girl: I can only give 4.
Me: there are 5 of us and we all go to different offices when we get back which will make it hard to share - could I please have one more?
Worker girl rolls her eyes, reaches over and gives me one more and when she does she says "I guess I will just get in trouble" and then she shuts the drive thru window.

So I sat there and waved my hand and when she opened the window back up.
Me: is that your manager behind you?
Worker girl: yes
Me: can I speak with him for just a sec

So he comes to the window and
Me: I just wanted to tell you not to get her in trouble for giving me 5 hot sauces it is just that we have 5 people so I really needed them. And I wanted to make sure she did not get in trouble because I made her do it and when she gave me the fifth hot sauce she told me it would get her into trouble and I felt bad.

of course, Manager said: oh no she won't be in trouble it is no problem.
Me: thank you

and we drove away and I said to Holle, Shelli, Debbie and Sarah - "but now she will be in trouble!" HEHEHEHE

Of course this is after our visit to Kohl's where the salesgirl rang up 4 of my 6 items and then applied my $10 gift card. Then she realized I had two more items. She could not get them to add to my original total so I said I will just pay for this one and then you can ring the other two things up and I will pay for them. She said - oh no she needed to void that and ring the whole thing over so I would get my whole $10 off. I did not have the time nor the inclination to explain to her that $10 was $10 regardless of how much my purchase was - I was not going to save anymore.

Parade

Morgan marched in the fair parade today with her dance team. Her are some photos. She kept up and it was hot and a real long day.

Big Changes

So, last week on Thursday, I interviewed for a new job. The job is teaching on the college level. It is at a technical college and I would be teaching Accounting, Computer Applications, Microsoft Office. Friday, they called and offered me the job. Monday morning I started teaching. I love it so far. As a matter of fact, I am in class right now and my students are working on their assignments.

Monday night at 8:00p, Sam promoted to Lieutenant at the fire department. He will now be in charge of his own crew. More money, but unfortunately for Sam, more paperwork.

The kids went back to school on Monday. Mason to 5th grade and Morgan to 3rd.

It has been an exciting week!

Mason's Nightmare

So Mason woke up this morning crying because he had a bad dream. In his dream, he was at school. Cruella DeVil was the principal and he and two of his friends were in trouble. There was only one teacher who knew they did not do anything wrong. So he left school to come home to find me but he could not find the street he knew in front of school. He was lost and he was scared.

I hugged him and calmed him down when he got up but I almost laughed because it is a little funny.

More pictures

These pictures were taken at about noon. Fortunately the water went down about 2 to 3 inches overnight. However, there is a bunch more water coming through town right now and should start flowing into the lake in a couple of hours and crest in 3 to 4 hours. Some pictures are of Royce and Donna's back yard and dock. The water is about 2-1/2 to 3 ft. from being in our house. Royce's house is higher than our's so they should be okay. They are evacuating a whole lot of the northwest side of town as I type.

More flood photos