Saturday is a Special Day

What did you do on Saturday? I'm amazed at how our weekends are always so full! Here was our day:


6-8 am: Get up early and try to do a little housework (pretty much a fail..not much accomplished)
9 am: Off to the church for a primary activity (Sacrament Meeting presentation is tomorrow!)
Noon: Clean up the church, do some work to get ready for sharing time tomorrow
1-2 pm: Do a bunch of swim club stuff - write checks, pay bills, etc.
2 pm: Go to Jill's swim meet
7-10:30 pm: Take in a basketball game while we're there!



.....then fall into bed! (The big party next door didn't even keep me awake this time!)






Oh for the simple life of a quiet weekend! *sigh*


I love it when Jill has meet's at the U of C. I find it a totally nostalgic experience to be there and see all my old hang outs. I love it.





We went to the basketball game because we were there, and they were playing Lethbridge. My cousin is an assistant coach with their team. He apparently went home after last night's game though and wasn't there for this game. Oh well. We had a good time there! Peirce used his wooing skills to befriend the girl that throws prizes into the crowd and he scored with candy, a water bottle and a t-shirt. The game was a lot of fun and he decided he's not going to be in the Olympics with Jill. Instead he wants to play basketball for U of C. That works for me! :0)
Peirce went around to a ton of the players and got them to sign his shirt. He says it's his most prized possession and that he will never wear it and get it sweaty :0)

My Ghoulish Boy

Peirce wanted to be a ghost this year. I don't think we've ever come up with an easier costume! We took a sheet and cut it up.....it was perfect because that was about all I had time for.

I think he enjoys the ghoulishness of it all too much. Gone are the days of clown costumes, bunny, and puppy costumes!

They're right. They really do grow up too fast!

Adventure Time!

When Peirce got home from school today he was up for an adventure - and in true Peirce form, he nagged someone until he got it!

I had a PD day today and was downtown at a conference so Allen and Peirce decided to go get on a bus and come and meet me. With the magic of cell phones and them getting a bunch of bus transfers as they went, we were able to find one another along the bus route and end up on the same bus. What a fun surprise to be sitting on a boring overcrowded bus and them get on!!

After our bus ride we stopped at the pool to pick up Jill from swimming - but not without a stop first at the library. We discovered the greatest thing! The library lends out GPS devices that you can use for geocaching!! Looks like another adventure is in the works! When Jill got home she got busy playing with it and reading the instructions. I have a feeling this is going to be a busy weekend running around Calgary to find all sorts of treasurers! Let the adventuring begin!

Hanging With the Hitmen

Ever since Jill started school her birthday parties have been disappointing. Poor girl. It's almost impossible to get in touch with her friends and gather enough to have a successful birthday party in the summers. This year I finally convinced her to wait until school was back in session to have her party - and tonight was the night.


Allen has a friend who got us a deal on Hitmen hockey game tickets and so she took a bunch of friends to the hockey game. I was kind of concerned about how fun it would be. What I learned was that that bunch of girls can have fun no matter what they do! It was a real kick to hang out with them.
She got her name up on the jumbo-tron to wish her a happy birthday. And Farey came into our section. He had just swiped a bag of mini donuts from one of the vendors and when Jill told him itw as her birthday he gave her a big kiss and gave her the donuts. Just wait until her father hears!!

Happy belated birthday to my little girl! I loved watching you have a great time tonight!

How Quickly Things Change

Today we had a Thanksgiving dinner at my mother's sister's house. We did the same thing last year. Only last year my dad was there. He was still walking then. We knew he had cancer and he had been through some chemotherapy - and we thought it was going quite well. It wasn't long until we learned they hadn't beat it. The ride was quite a rollercoaster - sometimes we thought it was going well - and then we'd get news that made us think there really wasn't much hope. He passed away 3 months later. This Thanksgiving weekend really caused me to think of him a lot. One reason was that I have some good friend's at church whose dad is quite sick with cancer and probably won't live too much longer. The other reason, I think, is because I prefer to think of my dad as being very much alive. I believe strongly that he does still live and I will see him one day.

That is one thing I'm most grateful this Thanksgiving weekend. While I've gone through times of loss people have often commented to me about how grateful I must be to have a knowledge of eternity and the plan of salvation. While going through the moments, I didn't feel too much gratitude for that knowledge. It still hurt. I still felt sad. And I still felt a great loss. I realize now though as time has continued on that I was in fact quite comforted by that knowledge

I don't know how people go through it when they're just not too sure about those things. It changes everything.

Those Empty Places in My Heart

Is it okay if I say this? I know some people are uncomfortable when people talk about pregnancy loss....and some people who have gone through it don't like to talk about it....but here goes...

I have just thinking a lot this weekend about our baby we lost to miscarriage about six months ago. I was due the beginning of October. It seems like so long ago. But this week it has seemed like yesterday. And the beginning of November is when we lost our baby, Destiny....so it seems to be my season for remembering those little babies.

In some ways I really understand those crazy women who steal babies. I don't feel like stealing any babies - and I'm really grateful to have the children in my life that I have...but I have an inkling of what it must be like to want to have children and not have it happen. I am grateful for the direction my life is going and the things we have going on. I do still feel like our family is incomplete though. I am not sure if that's because of the babies we've lost, or if there really is another child that will somehow come to our family. Or maybe I'm just crazy. I don't know.

I still really wish there was something I could do to help women who go through pregnancy loss. I don't know what though. It's such a personal thing. I have a friend in my ward who lost a baby recently. She was close to 20 weeks - but not quite 20 weeks so it was classified as a miscarraige. I went to visit her and she really wasn't into visiting.....but I hope she felt that I understood and that I really care. The next Sunday I was standing in the hallway talking with her and another woman came by and made some comment about her baby she was expecting, and then went on her way. We just kind of looked at each other and didn't say anything...but we both knew exactly what the other was thinking, I'm sure of it.

Heartache. It's just a lot of heartache.

Simple Prayers

A post by my BIL on facebook reminded me that I need to blog about an answer to prayer.



First his story: he had a mollusk emergency. Apparently their kids have a snail (not sure if it's an aquarium or just a snail....really need to go visit them!) and the snail went down the drain. His post wondered if his lettuce strategy would work....put a lettuce lure down the drain and hope the snail decides he's hungry. His kids were quite upset:

There was some hyperventilating and a lot of trembling. The current strategy is fishing with lettuce lures. Crawl onto the leaf little snail. Come on... Come on...

Later the update said:

... (drumroll...) IT WENT FOR THE LETTUCE LURE! THE SNAIL LIVES!

I don't doubt there were some prayers going on there.



Now my story.....On Thursday while we were at Jill's Cross Country Meet we lost Peirce. Allen had come to the meet with Peirce and they went to the bathrooms when they first got there. That was the last he saw him. We didn't worry about it too much at first. We figured we'd run into him. But we didn't. Then Jill's race started. Still no Peirce. We follow Jill's progress. Still no Peirce. The race ends. Still no Peirce. We start looking....looking....looking. After about half an hour of a focused search I'm starting to get a little worried...okay a lot worried. So I went into some trees where I figured I could pretty much be alone amongst the 800 or so people there, and said a prayer. It was a focused and pleading prayer. "Please don't let this be one of those life changing moments that haunts us forever! I need to find him right now!" I got up, walked up the hill - straight to my boy - who was totally oblivious to the panic he had set in the rest of his family.



Amazing! One little prayer - and I walked straight to him....in an area I hadn't been looking in before. So thankful for answers to prayers!

The Pee Pee Parade

If I could change on thing in teaching it would be the Pee Pee Parade. Kids always have to pee at the darndest times. I hate being the Pee Pee Parade Marshall. No one should have to ask if they can go pee.....however, for the sake of classroom management I know why it has to be that way....but it still bugs me!

So today was another story in the Pee Pee Parade.

Have I mentioned that I teach Kindergarten Phys Ed class? That's an interesting experience. I have learned that I have to really break everything down my more than I ever would have imagined I'd need to. I can stand in front of the red line, put my arms out and ask everyone to line up ONE THE RED LINE....and I get kids standing on random red lines all over the gym. Eeesh!

Well, today the cutest little kindergarten girl came dancing over and holding herself and announced to me she had to pee. We were outside and I'd rather they go in pairs back to the school so I asked her to find a friend and go - but it was clear that there was no time for her to find a friend....so I encouraged her to just hurry and go. So she did.

A few minutes later a male teacher in the school comes out to tell me he just caught a little girl from my class peeing on the compound and now there's a big puddle of pee for me to figure out how to clean up so other kids don't step in it.

NICE!

Oh the joys of kindergarten!!

Poor thing.....so knew she wasn't going to make it so she took matters into her own hands and took care of the issue. I thought she did a pretty good job - but apparently they frown on kids peeing on the compound....wrecks those four square games I guess!

LOL

Follow up: The Superintendent

I got a letter from The Superintendent today.

The Superintendent. Mentioning him still makes me nervous.

Well, the letter was nice. He reiterated what went on in the class, gave me a bunch of compliments, and asked for some feedback on how I'm enjoying my experience as a teacher.

And best of all, he didn't mention my time table fiasco. PHEW!!

....apparently he did get a laugh though....my principal asked how the visit went...I told her the sordid story. She tried to be kind...but I could tell she really got a chuckle out of it.

Well, at least I have a story!