Back to school and other news

The kids are back to school. They started August 11, went one day, then went back Monday- Thursday and then this week only went two days because they have literacy testing. Jessie is in kindergarten half day. They are offering full day with a tuition price, but we do not have the money and I don't think it is worth it for maybe an extra two hours of class time. She goes from 8:00 to 11:30 and Brandon, who is in third grade this year, goes from 8:00-3:30. Because of the buses, Jess gets home anywhere from 12 to 12:30 and Brandon gets home between 4 and 4:30. They both seem to like it so far. I worked with Brandon all summer a little each day, so hopefully that helped him. He likes his teacher and isn't giving me too much trouble about going to school so far. Jessie I knew wouldn't be a problem. I haven't gotten their results back from the testing but I think they did well. This was the first year Brandon finished his testing on time so I take that as a good sign. I think the teachers were impressed by what Jessie knew but that doesn't surprise me since she has been watching Brandon do his homework since he started school. They are already hitting us up for money. First with school supplies, which ends up being about $20- $30 per kid depending on how cheap you can go, then you have to pay a craft fee of $15 per child and then school pictures and fundraisers are the first part of September. Oh joy! Jessie's teacher said that the teachers have to supply all the classroom stuff like decorations and books out of their own pocket. So where exactly is all the education money going to? Anyway hopefully this will be a good year for all the kids in our families.

Onto other news: Chris is doing well in his job. His bosses are sending him to different plants to observe and they trade ideas about how to run the plants more efficiently. He just went on a quick trip to Nebraska with four of his bosses in a car to check out one of the plants. He wasn't exactly looking forward to being stuck in a car with his bosses for 8 hours both ways but he sees this as a good sign that they aren't looking to let him go anytime soon. He was even offered an opportunity to travel the world for 6 months visiting other plants but he had to turn that down since he is married now. Then in September he flies to Florida for 5 days to do more of the same.

Grandma was in the hospital for a few days this weekend after my birthday party. She was having trouble with some new medication so the doctor switched it but her blood pressure started spiking and going all over the place. Mom took her to the emergency room on Sunday evening and they kept her there for a few days to figure out what was going on. In the end they think the medicine that she was allergic to was not out of her system before she started taking the new meds plus her neuropathy is starting to spread to more than just her feet. The hypertension is messing up her kidneys a little so she has to go on a low sodium diet. I guess her age is finally starting to catch up on her body a little. She is doing much better now though and is back home. Nobody at the hospital could believe she was 96, they kept checking her records and asking her if she was sure she is 96? That made her feel pretty good.

Brandon Birthday

Mom took her vacation the week of Brandon's birthday so he got extra fun, plus Aunt Pat and Uncle Jim coming out, so he also had extra family. We had some coupons from the kid's summer reading program so we were using up some of them up. We went to Bingo Burger for lunch. We had never been there before. It was kind of expensive but the hamburgers were made from grass fed cattle from Colorado and the fries were homemade so I guess that helps. Then we went to the children's museum. The kids have fun but I would not go unless I had the free coupons for the kids. It is a lot of craft making stuff which we can do at home for much cheaper but the kids enjoy doing something different so they liked it. On Thursday we went to the zoo and spent most of the day there and then Scott and Dad got back that afternoon. On Friday, Scott's family came over to give Brandon his gifts and then we ordered pizza for dinner since mom and dad went out to eat with Aunt Pat and Uncle Jim. We had Brandon's birthday dinner on Saturday and he wanted silly string so we had a silly string fight after dinner. Everyone got into it except GG and Rachel. Rachel doesn't like the smell so she volunteered to do the picture taking. We would have stayed out longer and did the presents outside but the mosquitoes were eating us alive so we had to go in. He had a great birthday. I will send pictures later. Sunday we went to the Riverwalk to see Grandpa's name on the veteran's bridge but it wasn't there yet. At least Pat and Jim and GG got to see what it looked like and what the tag will say and they got to see the awesome Indian bronze statue that looks like it has a real blanket. It was so hot that we didn't stay very long. We went to dinner at Chris' house for our final family dinner. I swear every time I go over there he has more statues, plants etc. in his yard. It was really fun getting to see Pat and Jim again. I wish we could see them more often but at least we get to see them once a year. So that was that week and only a few more weeks left before school starts on Aug 11.

4th of July

Dad and Scott did get called out to another fire and are in New Mexico now. So far they have been gone 8 days this time and haven't heard they have to come back yet. This should help us with our expenses a lot.

Since we couldn't do fireworks this year because of the fire ban, we had to come up with alternatives. We still had Grandma's birthday party. I can't believe she is 96. Then we played with silly string. We thought we would have some left over since we bought extra for Scott and Dad and since they aren't here, but Chris and the kids went crazy and used up all of them. Oh well, they had fun. We also bought some glow sticks to play with and they had some light up stuff. Then we were going to go to Grandma's balcony and watch the fireworks from the Riverwalk but they started early and we missed them. We still saw some from Pueblo West and the few illegals that people still set off. I think every one had a good time.

Brandon is going to drive me crazy. I have been trying to help him get on track with school work before school starts. He is behind and it will be even worse in third grade. I know he is very smart but his brain just doesn't work like the rest of ours. I think he lives in a higher plane and the simple stuff just doesn't compute. For example, I asked him what number is right before 40 and he was randomly throwing out numbers like 12. I don't know if he really doesn't get it or he just doesn't care. He stares at me with a glassy eyed stare like he is not even there. If you give him multiplication he gets it though. Some days he does much better than others. Rachel says she is going to nickname him Random. He just spouts off stuff completely randomly. For example, at the party he said, "Too bad Bill is missing this since he is dead." and then a few minutes later he said "I bet Bill hated homework." Things like that. I love him more than anything but I am sure glad Jessie doesn't seem to be going to have any issues with school. At least not yet. I just have to hope that when school starts it suddenly clicks. In the meantime I will keep working with him and try to keep my patience.

Scott fire

CWFS finally got called out on a fire. After we agreed to go, he got offered an engine boss job with another two companies who were trying to get out also. In some ways it would be easier to not do the business, especially since we are operating in the hole, but anyway we figured that this is what God meant for us, at least right now. Then Scott just called and said the fire was almost out and they will be lucky to get two days out of the deal. Sometimes I think God is messing with us. We are praying that this will open the gates for other things to happen and I am trying to stay positive. If he can get more, longer jobs and I can hold off all the bill collectors for a little longer than maybe we can buy some time for us to figure out a more long term solution. Some contractors in other states have been out for four or five 14 day rotations at at least $1000 a day, if not more. You do the math at how good the money is when you are working. Of course we have to live in a backwards region that doesn't like contractors and will call on every one else in the United States before they will call contractors. I won't get into the politics of firefighting, it is too depressing and I am trying to stay positive. Brandon is fine with him being gone and happy he is on a fire, but Jessie is having trouble, she is too used to him being home all the time. By the time they get used to it, he will be home again, but hopefully not for long, or if everything works out, he will get transferred somewhere else and won't be home at all for awhile. I know that sounds bad but anyone who knows the situation understands what I mean. Keep you posted.

Memorial Day

For memorial day we decided to stay home. We thought about going to the mountains, and forget about we can't afford the gas but it was too soon to go without Shane. It made us sad just thinking about it, he loved the mountains so much. Hopefully later in the summer things will be better financially and it will have been long enough that we will be able to go without it being quite so sad. Chris, Rachel and GG all came out for a picnic. It was too windy to eat dinner outside but we were able to go out after dinner and eat dessert out there. Our new patio table we got last year shattered from the wind so we just huddled around the one in the front. Dad BBQ'd hamburgers and had the usual picnic foods and Mom and I made a jello cake. It's kind of cool because you use white cake mix and mix two kinds of Jello into it and then use whip cream for the frosting. It was pretty good. Chris brought Tiko and Sandy (their new dog) and the kids had a blast playing with them. Sandy is still kind of shy around us but Tiko fits right in. He loves to play with Socks, our cat. He started playing playing ball and the kids loved tossing the ball and chasing him. It was funny because Fearless decided that Tiko needed extra watching while he was wandering around and so Fear followed him everywhere and herded him away from the fence if he got too close. The shepard was coming out in him I guess. We have to be careful with them because they are so small they can slip through our fence and gates easily. I think everyone had a good time and GG always loves being able to sit outdoors and relax.

last day of school

Brandon's last day was actually only a few hours long. They have an end of the year assembly and then can go home if the parents are there to take them home. Brandon got certificates in spelling, science, social studies, music, PE, perfect attendance for the last quarter. He also got a certificate for completing the whole 6 months of a program called bookit which the student had to read at least 400 minutes every month. He also got the most Raz-kids login. Raz kids is an online program to help with reading. Then we went home and took lunch to the park and met Mom for lunch. Then the kids just relaxed while Scott and I prepped the back yard for the pool. Mom splurged and bought us all a new pool. Our pool was on it's last stand last year. Mom decided since we can't afford to go on vacations or anything, this is our only fun we can afford. Brandon is doing a title 1 program at the school for a few hours a day for the month of June and we are working on some online programs to try to get him caught up before 3rd grade. I am worried that he is just going to fall more and more behind otherwise. To make it fair I am also working with Jessie, which she doesn't mind because she wants to read very badly so she is all for it.

Off the subject but I thought this was cute. The other day were getting ready to eat lunch and Mom asked the kids what they wanted to eat. She had leftover spagetti and Jessie said she wanted the Pasgetti. Brandon said " Get it right Jess, it's Basgetti". Well we thought it was pretty funny anyway.

Field day / Jessie's Preschool Graduation

Jessie and Brandon in their South Mesa Tshirts on field day.

This was the first year that preschool got to participate in field day. I don't know how field days work in other place, or if you even have them, but I am not too impressed with how it's run. All the grades gather together and each grade runs the 50 yard dash to get a ribbon. Then they break away into groups to go to their designated games, every 20 minutes until lunch time. Most of the time by the time you figure out where your game is and figure out how to play, it is time to switch again. Or there will be someone else playing the game and so you can't play and you end up only playing a few games. After lunch the kids, especially the younger ones, have down time until the big kickball game between the fifth grade and staff that lasts an hour and the rest of the kids are supposed to sit and watch patiently. Then they have more down time with a popsicle party until school is out. This year Jessie was done by eleven so we signed her out and Brandon had another hour so we watched him until he was done. Then we found out they were just going to read and play quietly until the kickball game. We decided we weren't going to make Jess sit around because she was getting bored and tired and Brandon decided it wasn't worth it either so we ended up taking them both home. We ate outside at home and the kids played and we made a memorial stone for Shane to put in the garden. I think they had more fun than if they had stayed. The kids seem to enjoy field day even if it is chaos so I guess that is what matters.


Jessie's diploma

Jessie graduated preschool. They are so cute. They do a musical program that includes the zoophonics song. Then they go up to get their diploma and they got punch and a snack after. The kids are all a little confused by what is going on, but they enjoy it. Jess decided she wanted to visit Grandma at work and then we picked up chicken sandwiches and played the rest of the afternoon until Brandon came home.

I thought her kindergarten was all set with her new teacher, who is much better than the one Brandon had, but now they decided to do all day and half day kindergarten. The teacher they have now is doing the all day and we don't know who they are going to get for the half day. We have to put her in the half day because they charge for the all day and we can't afford it. Luckily she is smart enough that if she doesn't get a great teacher it shouldn't affect her skills but it tends to make school not as fun when you don't like the teacher. She is out of school now but Brandon still has one more week so I get broken in to having kids around all day.