January 2009

January has already been an eventful month. Everyone is back to school. We all went back a day early thanks to Hurricane Ike. School will be over before we know it and we will be enjoying our summer.
In the meantime...we've managed to find time to have a little fun. We decided that we really needed to make more of an effort to use our camper. So, we have scheduled 5 trips over the next 6 months. Our first trip was over MLK weekend. It was a very cold weekend! We chose to go camping at Lake Livingston State Park. It was a great place to camp even though it was a bit chilly. Below are a few pictures from the trip. Next trip is scheduled for March during the first weekend of Spring Break.
This leads me to my next bit of excitement...over the last several months I have been fortunate enough to reconnect with several of my close girlfriends from High School. We have had a great time on Facebook exchanging messages, pictures, and memories. We have picked up right where we left off and it has been the best gift I could ever ask for. The most exciting part is that timing has fallen into place and we are all getting together for a weekend of fun in Hilton Head, SC in March. Sadly, I will be deserting the planned camping trip. BUT, I am so excited to see my friends. I know it will be a fast, fun weekend but I look forward to it. Good thing I will have the rest of the week off for Spring Break to recover!
The kids are still swimming. Blake is doing well in school and came out with all A's and B's for the first semester. Kendall still loves school. She just made straight A's for the second time this semester. They are both trying to avoid getting the flu that is going around. Hopefully, we avoid it at our house this year!

View of Lake Livingston just across from our site
Not sure what Kendall was doing...

Campfire

Blake has become quite helpful with setting things up

View of our "Second Home"

Merry Christmas 2008

Kendall and Kit in matching pjs
A new laptop from Santa

Blake with his new toy from Santa
Meredith, Nick, and the girls
Family photo
Blake loves Uncle Brett
Cousins

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Election Day

Last night was Kendall's 4th grade PE Program. They did several routines that I will post this week. I thought their final routine was an appropriate post for today.

"Proud to Be An American"

Cross Country Season

Getting ready to start the Final Race of the season and as an 8th Grader
**Note to Blake...DO NOT put Dawn in the dishwasher!!**

Third Meet of the season...headed to the Finish Line

Second Meet of the season

Beginning of the District Meet...aprox. 180 8th grade boys from the entire district ran this race tonight.

Midway through the race...the course was about 1.8 miles

Blake headed for the Finish Line...came in 87th. Not bad out of 180! His time was 11 minutes 30 seconds. I think it was his best time of the season. Now, he gets to decide whether or not to do this next year in High School.

September Update

Well, I had intended to add more to the blog this school year. I guess I am doing better than last year. Hurricane Ike kind of threw everyone's plans off kilter.

We survived Ike a few weeks ago. We had little damage to our house. A few shingles lost, lost of leaves and branches in the yard and a little water leaked in through the attic onto the living room ceiling. Listening to the storm was a little scary. It started getting really windy around midnight and just picked up from there. The kids ended up sleeping downstairs in our closet that night. We lost power for just under 2 days. It was good that the neighbors had a generator and we were able to save our frozen meat. For several days, we had cookouts with the neighbors. We ended up being out of school for 7 school days. Now, we get the luxury of making up at least 3 of those missed days. It has been almost like starting the year all over again.

The kids have been busy this year. Blake has had lots more homework and is learning he has to actually study. I think he takes after me...I never studied and made it through. I have had to really go back and refresh my memory with Algebra I. Spanish...he's on his own! Those are both high school credit classes. He is also running cross country again this year. He was torn between that or football. He has done pretty well at the meets...coming in in the 30s out of 100+ runners. They have 2 more meets to go.

Kendall has also been busy this year in 4th grade. She does her homework without a fight. She is finally learning to like reading for fun now too. This is also the year of having to learn all of those dreaded states and capitals. The projects have already begun! Both kids have started swimming lessons to prepare them for swim team. Kendall's coach has already asked her to please join swim team. This place is pretty hard-core about their swimming so I know once we sign her up, we will live to swim. Maybe this will be her thing though. She refuses to play a sport involving a ball unless it's golf!

The First Day of School

Kendall ready for 4th grade!
Kristin and Kendall on the first day of school
Blake and Kendall and that's the dog peeking out through the curtains

Blake ready to go to the bus stop
Kristin and Blake ready for school (I cheated and stood on the step...really he is as tall as I am)

Well, we all survived the first day of school.

Blake started 8th grade. He has a full load of classes this year. Two classes are high school credit classes...Spanish I and Algebra I. He is also in athletics. Tonight, I was informed that he has decided to run cross country and play football. These sports run in the same season here. This means going to one meet and one game per week. These are spread throughout the district as well. Lots and lots of driving! He at least enjoys all of his classes so far. Of course, homework has not begun yet...

Kendall started 4th grade today. She has 3 teachers again this year. One of them is Blake's favorite teacher from when he was in elementary. Kendall was just excited to see her friends and how the boys had all grown out their hair. I'm sure she will have a good year. She likes school and does whatever they tell her. She also started after school care at our church. She is with all of her good friends so that helps. She looked really tired tonight! I know she will pass out on Friday when we get home.

I had a good day today also. Since I am in a different role this year as an at-risk teacher, I don't have a homeroom or full class. I spent the day calling parents of the kids who were unsure of how they were getting home. It was entertaining to say the least. I get to do it all over again tomorrow. Hopefully, by Wednesday, I will be able to start working on my schedule so I can start pulling kids in 3rd thru 5th grade. The new school is beautiful and they finished so much over the last week. We did have lots of district people and the news crews show up. It was a little chaotic. Hopefully, they won't all be there tomorrow.

I'm trying to make an effort to post more. I was lazy this summer...