Dinners For Eight Halloween party - Its all about Kato

Kato Devil Dame

Kato made a deal with the devil....

Mike and Jean as Hippies (crazy ones I might add)

Ed and Nancy

Greg and April as the Flintstones.

Al and Sandy as roaring 20s couple.

Brian and Carlin as the crazy mad scientest and his nurse!

The electric slide I think. Chuck and Joann are out there, and Jo is the pirate lady.

Rich with his crazy homemade glasses.

Witchiepoo.!

Steve's mixed choir concert

The only 5 boys in the 9th grade mixed choir!

Steve introducing one of the songs.

C.J. and Steve.

Some October pictures

This is a picture of "lucky linda's" carrot pumpkin she made for bunco in October.

This is the Jewell fountain. I just thought it looked neat with the lights from the field behind it, so I took a timed exposure to get this shot.
This is the famous swan couple at the Precious Blood Center. We had our Just Faith retreat there in October. Luckily Mr. Swan was behaving himself and didn't get too aggressive! No chasing us off or anything. There must not be a nest right now. It was a beautiful day!

Cardinal and sparrow at the feeder.

Jordan and Kari picking up trash on a Girl Scout walk. There were only 2 girls so we just decided to take a walk and the girls thought they should pick up trash too.

First finch at the feeder.

Just the news

I’m very happy to say Dad’s throat problem is NOT cancer. That’s such a relief. They think his vocal cord paralysis was caused by a virus and they are going to try some various treatments over the next few weeks.

Six weeks of class are finished as of today. Amazing. That makes it day 29 out of 168. That means 139 days to go. (not including holidays or weekends!). So far, so good. I think I am getting a reasonable grasp on all the lessons we have covered so far. It is a complicated job. I truly think my programming background is a huge asset here. There are many rules to follow and computer coding that goes hand-in-hand with each rule. There are also many exceptions to rules. It’s interesting when the lessons move along. It’s tough to stay focused and not daydream when its slow going. Our class seems to be pretty good, on the ball. Of course from what I hear we will all be at each other’s throats by May 16th (graduation day)! Let’s hope not.

Just Faith is going well. We are heading into week 5. The first few weeks focus has been on poverty, so some of the video and reading we are assigned is tough to take in. We had our opening retreat last Saturday and that was a very beautiful day, clear blue skies and mild temperatures. Since we were such a small number we shortened it to one day rather than an entire weekend. The swan at the Precious Blood center was behaving himself for a change. He didn’t try to chase us or anything. Although when Sara fed some leftover donut to the geese he swam up and they made way immediately. He must be “king of the pond”.

I finally finished my Santa cross-stitch that I’ve been working on (off and on) for 2 years. I took it up for framing and hopefully it will be back soon. I forgot to stitch my name on it! I will have to write it on the back of the frame I guess. Now I am working on an “Antique Wedding Sampler” that I picked up on the cross stitch hop in May on a clearance rack. It is really hard. Since there is a lot of symmetry, any mistake MUST be fixed. No shortcuts or ad-lib. So far I’ve had about 5 major re-do episodes. Very, very annoying. However, in the end it will be a beautiful piece.

With just 2 girl scouts yesterday we took a walk and the girls decided (mostly Kari’s doing) to pick up trash along the way. We cleaned up one whole side of the road!

That’s all the news for now.

Martial Arts MADNESS - i.e. "what the *#@!"

~~~~~~~~ start of back story~~~~~~~~~~~

I don't understand some people. John and Steve went to a black belt prep class (for 3rd degree recommended - they are already black belts BTW). The first question that was asked, and NOT to the DAD, BTW, was "where's jordan?". Um excuse me but could you talk to the DAD and not the BROTHER? (she's off debating).

ANYWAY.... Next comment from the MADAME MASTER (okay that just didn't sound good, but I don't really give a *$#!).

"Steve, you need a hair cut. ". Okay, but if you have seen Steve on my blog you know he doesn't have long hair. It's just regular guy hair and he keeps it pretty neat. Ummmm. So, not NEAR enough to braid, dread-lock, or any such thing. Just normal guy hair. So....she made some more comments about the hair.....

And again, the kid's DAD is standing right there. Is there a reason you do not ask the DAD about the kids hair, when he's standing right there? Is there a reason that if you have a problem with a kid's hair you don't take it up with the PARENT, who is standing right there!?

(Do you all get it that the DAD is right THERE!?)

So, on with the black belt prep show. Next we are subjected to a 20 minute lecture about *drumroll*......., let's hear it folks,

DISCIPLINE. I.E. Parents not disciplining their children, letting their children make all the decisions, ummmm..... specifically "long hair".

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~end of back story~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My issues

• You don't know anything about our family's discipline. If you did you would know that we have the best kids ever. We are a happy family and if our hair is "not right" then you can kiss my lily white *#! And for heaven's sake, if she thinks Steven's hair is long, good Lord!
• You don't know anything about JOHN and discipline. Obviously not.... John is the one who taught ME about discipline. I didn't have too much of it when we met. Sure I was a sweet gal and all, but it takes self-discipline to get through life too and lots of it if you don't want to be bankrupt and have lots of health problems. So let me get this straight..... you Madame Master want to lecture my son and husband on their hair and discipline????
• Enough already. Martial Arts was one of the neatest things that happened to this family. It is the coolest family activity ever! It has taught our kids so much, a lot of hard work has gone into this activity. But for goodness sakes, enough is enough. We don't have to take abuse like this and won't. Our family can live without your particular brand of "hair correctness".
• And another thing, just because you are devoted to martial arts, have your own studio, live and breathe it, does not mean that others don't care about the sport just because they travel for work, have school activities, etc... What are you THINKING woman????
• If you have a problem with someone, just OUT WITH IT. I say this because we believe the master was pissed off about something else, such as missing last week's prep class, so she decided to make Steve and John a target in front of the whole studio. This really irks me (could you tell?).

So, they are done with that particular "brand" and will move on and find something a little more family friendly. It's sad.

Seems like this year has brought many changes for our family. It also seems that most of the changes have been for the best, and I think this one probably will be too.

What moms say

spanish and english - espanol y ingles

In an effort to improve my Spanish and eventually get the designation of BILINGUAL I decided to make a project out of it. I will begin, as of today, to blog in both English and Spanish. This will enable me to really practice my words, sentence structure and tenses. I will attempt translation first on my own, and then enlist the help of translation tools, dictionary, etc.

En un esfuerzo para mejorar mi hablando de espanol, y conseguir eventual la designación de bilingüe, decidia para hacer esto un proyecto. Comenzaré, en fecha hoy, para escribir aqui en ingles y espanol. Esto me ayudará realmente a practicar mis palabras, estructura de oración y tiempos del verbo. Intentaré traducir, primero por me. Si no, conseguiré ayuda del diccionario.

Muy bien!

Special Effects and the last two weeks

Training day 011 of 168.

So, after two weeks of class, I felt toxic. Seriously toxic. Some days were just a struggle to stay awake and focused. A slew of plain M&Ms helped me through, or did I imagine that? Regardless, by Friday of the second week my body was rebelling. I just felt like a bit jumble of "ickiness". Puffy, toxic, and gross. I ate healthy all weekend, worked out every day and by this morning (Monday of the 3rd week) I feel very much improved, almost back to normal. Another week of healthy should do the trick. I had NO candy at all today. And I didn't even have a diet pop!

I was browsing around the computer and remembered this special effects picture that Jordan altered. I just love it. Well, I took the picture of course, but I have always loved to take pictures of the kids when they aren't actually "posing" for the camera. Just natural shots of life. This was was during a heavy rainstorm a couple of weeks ago and the kids were watching it come down through the storm door. Jordan made some changes to the color and I think it's awesome! Click on it to make it giant size!