Monday, November 30, 2015

Playing Catch-Up On the Blog

I can hardly believe it has been two months since I have updated our blog. The time has been taken up by countless activities including a move for Papa Norm and I, as well as a quick trip to our beloved Kauai timeshare. I will try and do a catch up with a few comments and photos of the highlights.

The track season ended with great improvement from both Claire and Chloe. Claire ended up in first place the last two or three meets. Chloe moved up in her placement as well. We are so proud of how hard the girls worked and we enjoyed very much seeing Mike as one of the coaches of their team. Christopher was the assistant coach and got to help Mike with the practices by blowing the whistle when needed.





 
 
I continue to enjoy my time in the 2nd grade classroom. Below are Claire and Chloe hard at work. They both received awards last week for excellence in academic achievement. We were not at the awards presentation but later when I asked Claire if she was excited when she received her award, she answered, "I wasn't really sure what those fancy words meant until Mommy and Daddy explained it to me." We are still laughing about that response.
 

 
One of the highlights of the past months included a Grandparents Day for the 2nd grade class. In one of my last posts I mentioned that the girls had interviewed us and the class subsequently did a study on the time period that covered their grandparents childhood. It was great to hear some of the comments and information the students passed along. At the conclusion of that study unit they hosted a brunch for Grandparents and they entertained us beautifully by singing a number of songs. Each student had also made a self portrait of what they believe they will look like in their old age.





Another highlight was a visit to a local pumpkin patch. The three C's had so much fun and the light rain that came, off and on, didn't put a damper on their enjoyment at all.






 
 
Along with the fun things we did, we also were able to move from our home of 38 years to a lovely but way smaller home near the three C's. We live about 10 minutes from them which is so much better than the hour drive it was previously. It has been a tremendous amount of work but in the end will be well worth the effort. What a blessing to have everything on one level at this point in our lives.
 
 


Just three days after moving (planned a year ago...who knew we would move in the same week?) we left for a few days on Kauai. Only part of our family was able to go, Jon, Suzie, and Lisa, but we had a wonderful relaxing time. Some dear, long time friends, Gary and Patty, also went along and shared our condo and since they hadn't been to that island previously we had a great time showing them around.







Life is good and we continue to take each day and hopefully live it fully. The move has slowed us down a bit and we seem to both "feel it in our bones" but we are not complaining. We shared a great Thanksgiving with most of the family but somehow I didn't get any photos taken.

My last photo on this post shows the beauty of the trees in our new town. These trees happen to be at the three C's home and I couldn't resist taking this photo.


Looking forward to the celebration of Christmas!