Zoo Trip and Family Life

I did promise zoo stories. I really don't know if there are words to describe taking 18 classes of Kindergarten to the zoo. Remember, we have combined three schools into one so we have A LOT of kids. They really were hilarious and sweet running like mad men from one animal to the next. It was ridiculously humid so they got completely worn out after 45 minutes and started asking to go home. I think they had a good time. They would look at each animal for about 1 minute and then like a swarm of bees move on to the next animal. They seemed most impressed with the farm animals. Although one stopped long enough at the bison to ask why he was hunching his shoulders. It took me awhile to realize she was talking about the hump on his back. The bus trip back to school was so peaceful as many fell asleep. The teachers wanted to pay the driver to keep going:).

Friday I drove three hours to spend the weekend with Carine and Micah friends from Bible school. Ben was out of town and I didn’t want to be alone. It was so nice to just hang out with good friends and their adorable kids. There was much talking, laughing, café drinking, and being completely silly. I am so blessed to live this close to them, as I never thought that would happen. As you’ll see from the pictures I enjoyed using my new camera to capture some of the weekend. I look forward to more visits.

A much treasured American Girl doll in her new outfit.


Carine getting eaten by Moira's hair.


There is a reason we are friends.


The kids catch the silly picture bug.


Micah with the kids.


Sunday morning silliness before I left.

October is here

Last Monday it was 90 degrees and HUMID. I thought fall would never get here. Two days later we woke up to 50 degree weather and rain. Believe it or not I was actually ready for rain again. I never thought I would say that after Seattle but I was ready for a change.

Fall means leaves and lots of them. We did our first gathering this weekend and got six bags but that is just the beginning as the trees are still extra full. I will have some serious biceps by the end of fall.


I got my fall hair color - less blonde. This is a self portrait done with my remote on my new camera. I love this camera.


We also took a walk to the beach to see how close we actually were. It only took us 20 minutes. They were selling pumpkins at the local church and you can't look more like Autumn than that.





Fall is here and I am glad. It means a whole new wardrobe to wear to school. This week we have a field trip to the zoo so I am sure I will have some good stories from that day:).

The Power of a Tic Tac

Ok so a Tic Tac might be a one calorie treat for you but I have discovered that it is a powerful incentive with 5 year olds. I pay 99cents for this lovely shiney box of them and I can bribe the little ones to do almost anything. Of course I am very responsible with this new found power and only use it to get them walk quietly in line or to write letters with me when they don't want to. This is not my only weapon either. I have found that stickers, hugs, praise, candy of all kinds and now brownies get the same results. If only all of us worked so hard for such small rewards.

The kids continue to delight me and gross me out but I now officially love my job. For those of you interested in bodily fluids they do continue to flow. We have had one more #1 accident, one more #2 accident and one more throw up since I last wrote you. The throw up was rather impressive. She knew she was going to do it. She told me so and I put her in a chair with a garbage can. She didn't make a mess at all and was extrememly proud to carry her deposit to the nurses office. The little boy with the #2 accident was the same one who did it before. He is like a dog and once he starts running around at recess, he needs to go. It takes awhile to line them all up and walk back inside and he isn't allowed to go without us. He just can't make it.

I meant to write down some of the silly things they say but the only remember two. They were waiting in line when I heard a collective "oooooooooo", which of course means someone did something baaaaaad. They all start saying that a boy had said a bad word. Now so far thier bad words have consisted of stupid, shutup and dumb head. Well they started saying, "He said a radio word." As usual I had no idea what they were saying. Finally after listening to them harrass this boy for his radio word I realize he had said "damn" and it is extra bad as it is heard on the radio. :).

Oh Yeah my favorite is this. They are learning color words. To help them out we teach them songs. One starts like this "R, E, D, R, E, D, R, E, D spells red". They sing it over and over and loudly. Then you ask them if anyone can spell red and they all look at you like you asked them to go to the moon. We do this every day and it is amusing me no end.

So after spending the week with the little ones I came home and spent a great weekend with Ben. The weather is still great right now and we are soaking it up. We continue to spend most of the weekend working on house stuff but as it is all new to us it is fun. We did go on a quest for good Thai food as we have yet to find a restaurant of any sort that we like. We paid double what we would have paid in Seattle and got home to find that my order was shell fish not chicken. Yuck!! I do not eat shell fish. Ben has tomorrow off and is super excited to sleep in until 6:30 to get up with me. He is so much nicer than I am. I would not get up with him if I didn't have to work.


I also took some shots on my new camera. The first are a cool Praying Mantis Ben found in the back yard. I love these ugly guys as they eat all the bad bugs in the yard. If you click on these pics you will see the amazing detail the camera can pick up.



Then we had to take a picture of one of our favorite Baci pastimes. It is called how high can you go?:). She loves it. Don't ask me what Ben is wearing. It was just what he had on while he was around the house. Don't worry he doesn't go out in public like that!!