By the way, the ABBA cd got the biggest reaction. She asked for a signed guitar from ABBA, but Santa couldn't get his hands on one. Darn Mama Mia movie...
I know I have been slacking.... Sorry!
This posting is not about my kids, but my nephew, Kyler. He can be quite the handful. My sister has resorted to the form of discipline that all parents resort to at this time of year, "Santa's watching." Now, this worked for a while, but Kyler like all 4 year olds can only be good for so long. Even when he was honery, Santa watching was always in his mind.
This evening was a fun-filled night with a losing basketball game and then heading over for a chorus concert. But can a concert really be called a concert when there is only 2 songs (one of which was previous sung by a chipmunk)?
Well, I am just about recovered from my 4 days at the NSTA conference in Cincinnati. My friend Susan was in charge of the field trips for the attendees, and I was in charge of Susan. Both were more than a full time job. Mine was a job I enjoyed!
to spend 4 days talking about science with some of the top science educators in the state. I was able to meet and talk with two of my favorite authors. The best part was, I got to do all of this with a great friend! As you can see from the pics, we had a great time! Now, if we can stay out of trouble when we go to New Orleans in March...
We just spent more than 3 hours tonight playing Apples to Apples. Even thought the game says it is for ages 9 and above, I will have you know Gracie won both of our games tonight. The brilliance of the game is its simplicity. The green cards have adjectives on them like smelly, kind, gorgeous, etc. The dealer puts a green card in the middle. Each player has 5 random nouns in their hand. Each player picks which card they want to put with the adjective. It could be funny, opposite, whatever floats the dealers boat! Whoever's card is chosen gets the point. All 5 of us played tonight and all 5 of us had a great time! We also bought the grown up version which we will be inflicting on our family next weekend at Alex's birthday party. It is fast-paced and fun. I highly recommend this for everyone's Christmas list!
NO, this is not a new look we are trying out on Gracie. We spent our morning going from our pediatrician to Children's Hospital getting tested for whooping cough. Gracie has not been feeling well and started with little coughing fits yesterday. And as luck would have it, we seem to have the beginning of a whooping cough epidemic in our school. You know it is bad when we walk into Children's and the girl behind the desk says,
Today Jaimie and I, being the great science teachers that we are, decided to get these little turtles for our classrooms. The lighter turtle, Rio, is a Rio Grande Red Ear Slider. The darker turtle, Flo, is a Florida red bellied
turtle. The turtles will spend the weekdays at school and the weekends at home. The kids already love them. Alex was the only one a little weirded out about touching them and he quickly got over it. Jaimie bought 2 turtles also, one of them a more exotic brands. We are not sure that one is still alive. I bought the more "hearty" species that will do well with the young kids. We will update on sizes.
Last night we went to the most creative and fun wedding reception last night. Chris's lovely cousin Meghan got married last week to a great guy in a beach ceremony in Naples Florida. The reception was last night at the Red's Great American Ball Park. The evening was spectacular from start to finish. We got off the elevator to the Club Lounge and their initials were projected on to t
he wall. The tables were decorated with little chocolate baseballs, Cracker Jack boxes, and hand decorated sugar cookies (all hand made by the mother of the bride). The food was all Cincinnati food, cheese coneys, Montgomery Inn sandwiches and chips, LaRosa's pizza, and great cheeses and meats. The happy couples initials were also projected onto center field. The wedding video and the proposal video (remember from a previous post he proposed on Fountain Square) were playing on the club t.v.'s. After appetizers we moved to a 2nd lounge where a live band was playing and dessert was set 
up. Here is a great picture of Meghan with my father in law and her very favorite (and only) uncle. 
Today Spahr's Stars walked for a cure. By this morning we had 130 people on our team and have raised over $4,200. I know lots of people came with donated 
money, so I am sure we met our $5,ooo goal. Although the race is very uplifting, for us it was bitter sweet. I was very torn up at the end when the survivors walked through their own finish. I was wishing Charleen was able to walk through.
I am so thrilled to be going to my oldest and dearest friend Kelley's wedding reception tomorrow. She and her lovely husband Kevin were married in a private ceremony in the Bahamas last month. After seeing her be soo lonely these last few years, I am so happy to see her married to her soulmate. I have always said she should never pick her own men! Match.com did just as good as a job as I would have done (even though you could have been a Zanchetti). I have never seen her so happy and at peace (except maybe when we were 19 and ruled the world). So I can not wait to celebrate with them tomorrow!
Our friend Charleen lost her battle with breast cancer yesterday. This comes less than one month from diagnosis. It was a very hard, emotional day for us all at school. Mixed in with our grief are feelings of being angry with Charleen for not getting her regular mammograms and taking better care of herself. For those who do not know her, she is the kind of person who would never let us get away with not taking care of herself. These next few days will be very hard on all of us big kids who will miss our school mom and her wonderful baked goods she would make to show us her love!
Yesterday Alex had his first cross country meet. I could not believe how many kids were there. There must have been nearly 1,000 kids from grades 7-12. I was VERY proud of Alex. He has only been running for 2 weeks and he finished the race (7-8 kids dropped out half way). He was very happy he was not the last one to finish (there was one kid behind him). I think by watching the other races Alex learned that he should maybe be pushing himself a little harder. Regardless, I was SOOO proud of him!
Abby got her new glasses today. This came just in time for her to get her braces off her teeth next week. She is amazed by how crisp and clear things are around her. This year she is in middle school and has been put in a class that will be a challenge for her. This is the 5th day of school and she has already forgotten 2 of her homework assignments as school. She looks good, though! It is always the teacher's kids!
I am finally starting to recover from our great vacation last week. We spent a day in Fort Lauderdale on the beach before heading out on a 5 night cruise to Key West, Cozumel, and Belize. We traveled in a group of 31 people (we tend to travel in packs). We had an awesome day in Fort Lauderdale. Our hotel was right on the beach. We spent the afternoon splashing in the waves and lying on the beach. We closed out the evening with a great dinner at a local Italian restaurant.
was in Key West. Jaimie joined us for a trip to the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum. Chris and the kids had their fill of the heat, so headed back to the ship. Jaimie and I explored the town a little more before heading back to the ship. This was our formal night, so we all got dressed up and got our pictures taken. Gracie started making a habit of taking her naps at the dinner table. We ended our evening with a big group of us getting up and singing "We Are Family" during karaoke.
them went back after a few minutes. I ended up walking around the town with our friend Connie. We went off the main road and look around in some smaller shops. I bought a dress for Gracie from a shop that had a pet monkey whose hand I held. I wish we would have gone to the beach here because the water was so beautiful. The heat got to me before I could do too much shopping and we headed back. We closed out this evening playing a crazy game called "Quest." We worked in teams and the cruise director would ask for things like a woman from the team holding a man's watch. Teams that got there first got the most points. By the end of the game, my husband had taken off his pants, Sam had ripped off Joey's pants, and Joey was in drag.
ut this small country. The people that we met were so amazing and happy to have us there. I am so glad Abby was able to see what it was like to live in a country not as fortunate as our own. Alex on the other hand had quite a different experience. He went zip lining and cave tubing in the rain forest with some of our friends. Apparently he had the time of his life. That was the great thing about going with such a large group. There was always someone to hang out with. I could h
ave spent all day on the air boat. The area we explored was so beautiful. We saw baby crocodiles and exotic birds. But most fun was riding around at top speeds on the air boat!! This night we were treated to a dance from our waiters in the dining room. My son decided to join them. He proceeded to dance around the large dining room with them in front of over 1,000 people. I wonder where he gets it? My other star made her debut that night for the Pirate Night performance. She was a shy, but VERY cute pirate up on stage.
e player was a great guy who invited people to come up and sing and play with him. He came out into the audience and gave my mom the opportunity to do what it was she had been wanting to do all week, sing into a microphone. It was a wonderful ending to a great trip spent with people that we love. We we got home yesterday and finally settled, it felt good to be home. This last picture of Gracie and Rosie I think tells it all!
More info later after my house quits rocking like a cruise ship!
The second part of our day was spent at the Knox Family Reunion. The Knox family is Chris's mom's side of the family. We had a wonderful afternoon visiting with our family. We had water balloons, kiddie pool, and lots of great food. We celebrated Chris's Aunt Mary's 60th birthday today as well. These would be the great-grandchildren of Raymond and Gloria. Although we are VERY done adding to this group, I know a few of the cousins are going to add a few more to this group! We look forward to seeing everyone at Christmas time!
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