My Birthday and a Little More

This year for my birthday, we celebrated the night before.  Because on the actual day, Jeff and the boys packed up for a week long camping trip to the Olympic National Park.  So the night before, we met with Jeff's parents and went out to dinner.  Then we came back home and had cake and I got to open a couple of presents.  It was a very nice birthday.

The next day, Jeff and the boys left.  I spent that week cleaning out my classroom and working at school.  And that weekend, I flew to California to see my sister Laura.  While in California, I also got to see Michelle, Lori, Nathan, their new baby, and Michelle and Nathan's parents.  It was fun to catch up with them.

The next day, Laura and Gary drove me out to see their property in Nevada.  It was really fun to see what they are doing out there and where they will soon be living.  It's very pretty, and they've done a lot of hard work out there.

Sunriver

This past August we went to Sunriver again along with Jeff's parents.  We got there on Wednesday afternoon and stayed through Sunday.  We had nice weather this year and did lots of fun things.  We rode bikes a lot.  We swam quite a bit. Jeff and Daniel rode a mountain bike trail.  I took Sam and Simon and we played miniature golf and bumper cars.  Jeff and I did some runs in the mornings. We floated down the river.  We rode horses.  It was a nice relaxing vacation.

Other Summer Fun

In between Camp Meeting and going to Sunriver, the boys and I hung out at home and did a few things.  One of the things we did was go to Jossy Farms and pick peaches.  They have such a nice variety of peaches.  We go out and pick our own.  This summer I dried a lot of peaches, and I also froze about 25 quart size bags of peaches for the winter.  We also eat a lot of fresh peaches.  We had a peach pie and peach shortcake.  They are tasty!

Camp Meeting

This summer, back in July, the boys and I drove out to the Gladstone Campgrounds for Camp Meeting each day.  It started with a Tuesday evening meeting.  Then on Wednesday, it started with the all day meetings.  We always have so much fun going out to camp meeting.  We meet up with our friends, share meals with them, and the boys enjoy going to their meetings.  The meetings last until Saturday night.  It's one of the highlights of the summer for us.

At the Tent Site

Kids Playing

Simon and Brianna off to their Meeting

My Early Stockpile of Veggie Food

Daniel and friend Jed

Attending a Meeting

Kids from the Beaver Tent

Kids from the Ampitheater Tent

All of the Kids from the week

An Update

It has been a long time since I've blogged.  And as usual, things have gotten much busier and I just haven't had time to do a lot of writing.  My hope is that as things settle down, I will have time again to continue with pictures and updates as to what we are doing.

But the new big news is that I am teaching 3rd grade this year.  I got the call about 2 weeks before school started.  At the end of last year, the hope was that I would teach Kindergarten again, but as the summer went on, we didn't have very many Kindergarten students signing up and the 3rd grade class continued to grow.  So the natural progression was to separate 3rd grade into 2 classrooms, and I would teach the other class.  I knew this was a possibility about half way through the summer, but I didn't know for sure until the last minute.  So I wasn't able to prepare all summer long as I like to do.  I had 2 weeks to change my classroom from looking like a Kindergarten room to a 3rd grade room.  I have also had to learn all about the curriculum for 3rd grade and become acquainted with what I am teaching.  I have been overwhelmed!  We started school this past week, and things went well.  I really enjoy the kids and I think I am going to like teaching 3rd grade.  But it is different and I need to prepare lesson plans with more detail and careful planning.  So it is going to be more work.  Also, there will be more grading.  But I am excited about the challenge and looking forward to it.

More later...