By popular demand.

Andrew at Bodega Bay in Northern California

Andrew kitty.








Andrew on his 4th birthday with his friends. (Andrew is in the middle)

Is it summer yet?

I am so ready for summer. As you can see in this old picture of me skating at the beach. Today, and this past weekend were perfect beach weather. So much for that idea, but Andrew and I did go into the jacuzzi for a good hour on Saturday. Now I am sure you are thinking somewhere along the lines about how a jacuzzi is not a cool thought on a hot day. The advantage of having your own jacuzzi is that I can heat as little or as much as I want. In this case, the water was about 85 and the outside temperature was about 100 as it has been for the past 3 days. It does get that warm here on occasion, but not too often. Someone was mentioning that South Dakota had snow this weekend. I can't even imagine snow, let alone snow the last week in April. It was a cool thought though. Besides the jacuzzi, we also have central air. That is essential in a climate that can get to 100 before the month of May. Granted, it still gets down to 65 at night; unlike Pheonix. Another thing we do to stay cool is have ice cream. Andrew loves vanilla ice cream cones. Yum. I hear that we are supposed to cool of to the mid sixty's by Wedneday. It keeps life interesting and our electric bill down.

Happy Birthday!

April is a very busy month in our home. 2 of the 3 of us have April birthday's. Husband is April 14 and child is April 23. For Carl's birthday, he wanted to spend the weekend Contradancing with a bunch of people at Mt. Baldy. I couldn't and had no desire to spend the entire weekend in the mountains. Late Saturday morning, Andrew and I got into the car and drove up to the mountains. I am so glad we went, because the weather down below was in the upper 90's. I got a massage and Carl got to hang with us. Sunday afternoon, my son and I went to the dance after naptime which just so happened to be the break. I presented Carl with a cake. He was surprised.

(Picture: Carl and I at dinner on Sat. night)

For Andrew's 4th birthday, we did a party at McDonalds. I know, some of you are thinking about how horrible it is nutritionally and taste wise. Well, for your average 3 or 4 year old it was the perfect choice. First, the kids all played on the playground. Then, they had happy meals. Now, I know for a fact that McDonald's puts something in the cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets to make kids eat them. As soon as they ate, which was after about 5 minutes. The kids were off to the playground. The hostess did Bingo and Hot Potato for the kids games. I am not sure how much they got it, but they had fun. Then we had cake and gifts. Any calories eaten were quickly burned off on the playground. Since I am working full time, it made things real easy. Easy is a good thing.

My first blog entry/ state testing

This is my very first blog entry. I know blogging has been around for a while. There is so much happening that it is hard to narrow it down.

State Testing

Ok, I am a special education teacher. This time of year is so crazy, that I kind of dread it. It is time for state testing. Now, I agree that no child should be left behind. However, not all children can keep up with the tough standards the state has imposed. My poor little special ed students are in that group. They spend their lives constantly struggling. The one part of the day they like and actually get what is happening is during RSP time. Then once a year, they have to take a state test. Like we need to know that they are still behind. They look at the long passages they are forced to try to read and usually just bubble in a nice design. Even the students who excel at math, get frustrated with all the words. Then to be told that they will not go on to the next grade if they don't pass this test. I am all for No Child Left Behind, however not every child learns at the same rate or has the same intelligance. If all the special education students were at grade level, they would not need me. So here we go again with the yearly state testing.