Trip to Chicago with my girl...

Bryn and I had a great time in Chicago and I finally uploaded the pictures to prove it!

We hit the ground running when we got into the city...

Bryn voted for a ride on the Navy Pier ferris wheel


Hooray!

Warming up with some hot chocolate

Dinner with Valerie Tripp (one of the authors of the American Girl books). She was so nice and spent lots of time talking to all of the girls and telling them how to work at being a writer. It was fabulous!

I accidentally got a picture of Bryn mid-sneeze. It cracked me up!

Heading to the Shedd Aquarium. We got there right after they opened and the crowd showed up just as we were leaving. Perfect timing!


Bryn and Grandma

Bryn, Grandpa and Zita (Grandpa's caretaker)


Can't wait until the next girl's trip! It was so nice for us to get away and not have any of the pressures of the daily stuff. We made it through the entire weekend without any arguing - quite a feat for us as of late!

First time for everything...

I had to delete a student post from one of my class discussion forums today.

And now I am going to launch into an opinion that could potentially hurt someone's feelings while ranting about students' posts that could potentially hurt someone's feelings. Hypocritical? Maybe. But this is my blog, not a college class, and any readers are not required to read it for a grade - unless there is something about Blogger I have missed!

First of all, I have to address an issue that has particularly bothered me this semester. The frequency of the mention of God and religion in the online discussion forums has been very high. In my BIOLOGY class. Additionally, the general disregard of other's opinions and the judgment passed on those who do not agree is astounding. I do have to take some of the blame since the topics are often of a controversial nature (i.e. prenatal testing for genetic abnormalities, the ethics of cloning, experimental cancer treatments) and I ask for an opinion on the subject. What I expect is a well thought out opinion supported by a list of facts that the student has spent a little bit of time researching (or at least plagiarized from the text - yes that is cynicism). What I get is a post along the lines of "it is wrong because we should all just accept what God has given us and move on" or "if you think ___________ you are obviously wrong because you don't think what I think". Here are a couple of examples of how the world works according to some of my students this semester...

No one should undergo any kind of fertility treatments. If God has made you sterile you can just adopt.

No cloning of any type should ever be allowed since that is "playing God".

No one should have any genetic prenatal testing for any reason. If you do, you are willing to risk the life of your baby from miscarriage through the testing because you are unwilling to accept what God gave you.

And don't even get me started on Intelligent Design being taught in the science classroom. Only two posts into this topic, I have sent out a cautionary email reminding everyone to be respectful of others opinions.

The post I deleted stated that people who have said that they miscarried after a genetic testing procedure have probably just said they miscarried, but actually aborted because they were unwilling to keep a baby with a genetic defect.

Who says things like this in a discussion forum full of people you don't know? What if someone in the class has miscarried after a genetic testing procedure? What if someone has struggled for years with infertility while longing for nothing more than a biological child of their own? What if someone is caring for a loved one with paralysis or a terminal illness and hopes every day for a breakthrough in stem cell or cancer research? What if someone is Buddhist or Hindu or (God forbid!) an atheist and has a different idea about God and would like to see a science text stick with scientific theory? If all of my students were fresh out of high school, I might be able to chalk it up to lack of life experience. But many of my students are parents and/or grandparents and old enough to have some empathy.

Are any of these people more "right" than the other. I don't personally think so. But the degree to which these students will dismiss any differing view leaves me dumbfounded. And the fact that it is done in the name of God makes me sadder still. I may not invite people to my church when I meet them in the grocery store and I may not profess my faith on the street corner, but I hope I do not use my religion to sit in judgment of others or tear them down or dismiss their opinions or feelings. I feel like when I sit in judgment, ignoring the log in my own eye, or am unkind or unforgiving is when I am farthest away from my God and my religion. I am constantly falling short. And will continue to do so.

So maybe I AM the hypocrite - sitting in judgment of my students. Maybe I am casting the first stone. I know I am frustrated and angry and human. And feeling like my class discussion forums are a microcosm of what is going on in the world - when respect, kindness and understanding can't happen between 20 students in one class how can it happen anywhere?

Good Times

Bryn and I spent two days in Chicago and had a fabulous time! It was so fun for us to get away and have some "girl time"...that is definitely something that gets shoved to the back burner to often by the daily grind.

We got to Chicago on Saturday afternoon and hit the ground running. We rented the car, headed to out hotel and went to check out the Lego store. Bryn was very impressed by the huge Lego spider right outside the store. We went back to American Girl and met Valerie Tripp - the author of many of the American Girl books. She signed one of Bryn's books and spent some time answering Bryn's questions like "which comes first - the books or the dolls?" (the books, BTW!). And "how long does it take to write a book?". We took a cab over to Navy Pier, rode the Ferris wheel, had some hot chocolate and did some fun mother-daughter activities from a book we got. We went back to the American Girl store and had "dinner with the author" - a fun dinner and Q&A set up by the store. We walked the block back to the hotel, played some double solitaire and finally called it a night!

On Sunday morning we got up and head to the Shedd Aquarium and saw their new show, "Fantasea", which Bryn says was the highlight of the trip. It was opening weekend for the show and some of the animals didn't cooperate but it was great anyway. We went at the perfect time of day - the crowds were pouring in just as we were leaving to meet my friends, Dustin and Wes, for lunch.

We had a nice time with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandpa talked quite a bit and ate like a horse! He did point out the creases on Grandma's forehead (which she didn't appreciate much!) and got a little sarcastic about the fact that I wasn't wearing shoes, but it was actually great to see him so engaged and responsive. There were some concerns about his blood pressure and overall health, but a trip to the ER after we left on Monday morning revealed that all is well.

The homefront stayed intact while we were gone. I came home to a little man with a cold and a couch covered in snot, but he is still in pretty good spirits. It was great to have Jim and Sherry here until this morning as I seem to have so much to catch up on and not enough time to get it done. We had parent-teacher conferences tonight (that is a whole other post as I need to have little time to mull that rant over!) and I had to hand out cookie forms at Girl Scouts tonight. Bring on the Thin Mints!

The next few days are going to be super busy - I have decided that if I am going to get out of this endless loop of too much to do, too little time" I have to stop some of these activities. It is time.

A nice little bonus...after two years of not being able to figure out how to turn the closed captioning on on the TV, I accidentally stumbled on to the secret last night. Now I can hear the show with bad audio without turning the TV up loud enough to wake the kids!

Catch up

Thought I would try to catch up on blog reading and writing a bit before I fix dinner and run out to a Missions committee meeting at church - too much to do, too little time!

It has been a busy week - with Bunco Monday, Friends of the Library on Tuesday, WOW at church last night, Missions tonight, scrapbooking tomorrow and a flight out on Saturday, I have just been trying to stay sane around here! Actually it hasn't been too bad except the fact that I don't get to see my husband much, but I suppose I have no one to blame but myself. Sorry, honey!

Elections at Friends of the Library did not result in a new treasurer mainly because there is an upcoming audit. Not good considering I haven't reconciled the checkbook in a couple of months (or 12, but who is counting?!?!). Fortunately there is not much monetary activity so I have a pretty good handle on what is going on. The reconciling is just a formality. Really. You think the accountant will buy it?

Bryn is out of school for fall break and she and I are heading to Chicago on Saturday. We are planning to go to American Girl and have dinner with the author of the books on Saturday and then head to the aquarium Sunday morning before we go to spend the night at my grandparents house. Should be a fun "girls trip" - I think Bryn and I will benefit greatly from the time alone together. I have been at the end of my rope with her arguing - I finally lost it this morning (after many warnings to her, I might add!) and screamed so loudly my throat hurt. How is that for some good parenting skills?

Grant spent the day at Parents Day Out and had a great time but is now tired and grumpy. Gee, what a shame I am going to miss out on a little grumpiness this evening!

Long time, no blog...

I keep feeling like I have to have pictures to post to update my blog but if I wait until I get pictures uploaded I may never blog again. We have been busy with all kinds of fun and not so fun activities lately...

Mom and John came to visit last weekend and I went to my first NASCAR race. My sweet husband even missed a K-State football game to go to the race with me - it is pretty cool that I rank right up there (and past!) K-State football! We are making plans to go and tailgate next year so no one has to be stuck at home with kids. Then we can take turns going in and watching if we want. It should be tons of fun!

I have been busy with the normal activities - Girl Scouts, church stuff, library stuff, bookclub, etc. I hosted Bunco here tonight and we had a great time. We drank a little more wine than normal but we didn't get to rowdy...Grant still managed to go right to sleep in the next room. The fact that he would go to sleep next to a freight train is beside the point!

We have been working hard on getting Bryn's room painted, organized and decorated. It is a nice shade of pale yellow, the shades and curtains are up and all of the furniture has finally been moved out of the garage and into her room. All I have left to do is get the mirror up on the dresser, hang her new dog pictures and find a bedside lamp. So exciting that it is all finally coming together.

I also got holiday outfits for the kids and made an appointment to (finally) get their pictures taken. A friend in town who does beautiful natural light photography is going to do them for us and I am so excited to see how they turn out. If they turn out as well as I think they will, we will probably have her take some family pictures in the spring.

As far as the not so fun goes...
Bryn was sick and home from school for a few days a couple of weeks ago, we all got flu shots today, Grant STILL isn't walking (Aaron and I are both having dreams about it so we have must have some underlying stress) and I took all three animals to the vet today with both kids in tow (I had a long battle with Harvey before we even got there - he was less than thrilled about being put into the carrier and ran under the bed as soon as he spotted it). But if that is as bad as it gets, life is good!

As usual...

I am way behind on just about everything including blogging. So let's see if I can catch up a little.

We had a great visit with Dad and Cheryl when they were here last weekend for Grandparent's Day at Bryn's school. One of the highlights was Bryn riding the mechanical bull at a restaurant where we ate. It was nice and slow and Bryn thought it was great. We also all got hooked up on Skype when they are here so we are able to video chat. Kind of strange to talk via video, but pretty cool. And it will be tons of fun for the kids to be able to see Grandpa and Nana and vice versa.

We are working on painting Bryn's room a nice bright shade of yellow. Unfortunately one coat isn't going to do it and I didn't buy enough paint. So off to Lowe's to get some more ASAP. In the meantime Bryn is sleeping in our room while hers is torn apart.

Speaking of torn apart, much of the house is currently a disaster as I have begun to "organize" and can't seem to find the time to finish. Too much to do, too little time. The mountain of laundry is not getting any smaller, either.

Grant is 18 months old today. He is talking more each day. Actually he is making more animal sounds each day and babbling a lot. We did get "Aaaaaaaaarrrrrrr!" added to his repertoire for "what does a pirate say" in honor of talk like a pirate day last week. And he now also makes a fish face for "what does a fish say". Yet while he vocalizes lot, he is obviously going to crawl while he does it as he still shows little to no interest in walking.

Next weekend is race weekend and Mom and John will be here. We are looking forward to their visit and will no doubt have a crazy weekend filled with all kinds of activities. We may skip the apple picking this year, though - I don't know if Mom and I can handle a million hours (OK, maybe it was only 5 or 6 hours) of apple peeling and slicing. I still have apple pies in the freezer from last year.

I looked at the calendar today and realized we don't have a single free Saturday until December. Lots of those activities will be lots of fun (like finally getting to see "Wicked" and Bryn and I heading to Chicago, for instance) but it still means there will be many busy weekends ahead. Hopefully we will be able to find some downtime in there somewhere.

All kinds of stuff

We have had a lot going on since I posted last. I have actually taken some pictures, too!

First, some pictures of goofy Grant...

In the dog bed...



Helping with the laundry...


Helping to "clean" the bathroom...


and of Bryn and Grant


Before...


After...


Bryn and Dad creating fish stories...


Bryn is back at school and loving second grade and her teacher, Mrs. Link. Here is a first day of school picture...


Aunt Nicole and cousin Bonnie came for a visit. We had a lot of fun just hanging out and relaxing a bit.


Over Labor Day weekend we met grammy and Pops in Branson. The guys did some golfing while the girls and Grant packed in lots of activities. A trip to the Kirby Van Burch with some backstage passes to see the tigers and other cats was definitely the highlight of the trip for Bryn. She has been watching "Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed" for a couple of months now so a trip to a magic show was perfect for her! She didn't know how most of the tricks we saw worked, but she loved it anyway! We also took a trip on Ride the Ducks (Bryn got to drive the boat for a little while) and went to the waterpark. And then all of us checked out the dinosaur mini-golf course:


As far as other news goes, we are still trying to figure out what to do about Grant's tongue tie. I think we have decided to just wait and see since Aaron and I are just not comfortable with the general anesthesia idea. We will be sorry later if it affects his speech or causes other problems, but since it will likely never cause any problems at all we just can't get comfortable with doing it right now.

We have been having some big keyboard problems with our new computer. After sending it back for repair and spending hours on the phone with technical support, we seem to have solved the problem ourselves by switching from Internet Explorer to another browser. Such an easy fix after such major headaches. Gotta love it.

We are back into the routine of the school year. Between Friends of the Library, Library Board and mission committee meetings I am making sure Aaron gets to spend lots of quality time with the kids while I am at meetings. Bryn is going to do Girl Scouts and a couple of short drama classes this fall. It doesn't seem like much, but with the Wednesday night programs at church, it all keeps us running.

Aaron is still teaching and trapping. His most current happiness comes from college football, a big TV and surround sound, though!

Grant is still not walking but is really starting to vocalize a lot. A lot of his words seem to be in "Grant language" although he will say "daddy" and "sissy" and "duck" and "hi" pretty clearly. He won't say "mommy", though, he just looks at me and smiles and says "baba" when I try to get him to say it...the life of a mother is so thankless! He will make lots of animal sounds - I have a feeling he is going to be an animal lover like his sister.

Bryn has decided she is part dog since she likes to pant and walk on all fours and she feels like she has a tail that should wag when she is happy. As grouchy and pouty and contrary as she has been for the past few months, I would love to see a wagging tail! It seems she is coming out of this phase a little (knock on wood) - I am sure we have something just as lovely to look forward to!

Our cable isn't working today so I haven't been able to watch any of the 9/11 anniversary coverage. It is hard to believe it has been 8 years since that awful day - I always think of the families and friends of all of the victims and of the military families and hope they have been able to find some peace and happiness.