Pam and Dean came to visit

All clean from the bath.

Jeff and Dean bonded for a bit. Actually, Jeff watched Micah, Dean and James, Michelle's son, while we went to RAFT for a few hours. RAFT is a teacher supply store. Jeff is a brave man. : )

What a cutie pie.

Auntie Pam and Micah. BIG hug.

We stole this idea from Chris to use the bumbo in the bath so Dean and Micah could hang out. It worked pretty well. Micah thought it was fun.



Bubble face.

We had a great time with Pam and Dean. Come again soon!

The Beach

On Saturday we went to the Beach with New Life Church and people from the refugee house that they support. We had a lot of fun. Micah loved playing in the sand. Sad to say this was our first and most likely last trip to the beach for the summer.



The next few pics show my progression into the water. The first two I am not exactly prepared to enter the water.


I tried rolling up my pants but I ended up going in the water to mid thigh with soaked jeans so I ditched them after a bit.


A little smarter for actually going IN the water.

I did end up taking my shirt off also but I am glad Jeff didn't get a picture. : ) I probably wouldn't have posted it anyway.

Lately

Our pumpkins are doing pretty well. We have only had one that the snails took down before I took them down. Don't mess with me snails. They were sprinkled with snail bait and crushed for good measure. I was surprised how much the one I lost bugged me. But we still have 5 more that are going strong. We will see what happens.

Last week Ashley invited me to a night called "Rush your mom". It doesn't have to be your mom, it can be your friend or sister or whoever so I went with Luann, Jeff's mom, and had fun. They pretended we were rushing and showed off their house and sang for us and answered all of our questions. It was fun and I was glad that Ashley invited me.

On Friday night we went out on a boat with our neighbors and new friends, Leana, Tola and Aaron. Aaron is 6 months younger than Micah and they play really well together. Leana's dad owns a sailboat and they brought us out on the bay. I didn't get any good pictures because I couldn't find my camera before we left but these are a couple from my phone. We had fun.

Half of One Thousand

So on Friday last week I was doing a worksheet that involved my students learning that there are 1,000 mL in a Liter. As I was walking around helping students to complete it I found that one or two students in each class were really struggling. I asked them the easiest question to start.
"If you divide 1,000 mL into two containers how many mL would each one have?"
"I don't know"
"Well, what do you get if you divide 1,000 in half?"
"I don't know"
"Do you know what half of 1,000 is?"
"No"
"Can you make a guess?" (Me thinking they are just shy)
"40?"
"Hmmm.... try again"
"100?"
"Hmmm... can you write out 1000 divided by 2 on your page?"
"No, I don't know how."
Hmmm... I go on to try using money thinking maybe it would click. No luck. What do I do when I have kids in my class that don't know how to divide and I am supposed to teach concepts that require algebra? This happens every year but for some reason I just felt like venting my frustration.

Pics from the park

We go to this park/school a lot in the evening since it is right down the street. The pics aren't special but I decided to post a couple.
A new way to swing.

This is Micah's pet dog Wobble.

Micah is getting to be a good climber.

Dad had to go down the slide with Micah. A bit of a tight squeeze.

This last one is a video Jeff took while we were at the park. I have titled it Too Big. Enjoy.

Baseball game

The day before school started we went to a baseball game for the San Jose Giants minor leagues. It is always a great time. It is low key and they throw in fun stuff to keep you entertained. Almost feels hometownish. I didn't get any pics of the game but I thought these two were cute of Micah doing the YMCA dance with our friend Brad from school. In the second picture you can see Laura and Freddy who got married by Jeff about a month ago.

Backpack give away

About 2 weeks ago we helped out with a backpack give away. It was cool. This community center partnered with City Team Ministries and Reliance Church (our new church) to help families get ready for school. They invited needy families to a dinner and afterwards we gave out back packs and boxes of food. Jeff and our friend Noe spoke on the message of hope. Noe's story was really cool to hear. Noe had gotten into some really bad stuff, gang stuff and drugs, and finally got kicked out of school in 9th grade. He wasn't able to return to school for almost 2 years. During that time he got involved at this community center, the Gardener Center where he began to see how his life could change and he could get back control. He was also led to faith by one of the members of the center. He went back to school and somehow got his diploma. While finishing high school he ran track and one day a coach at a junior college saw him running. He said to Noe that he wanted him on his team and helped get Noe financial aid to go to college. Noe graduated with his AA and went on to San Jose State University with his Bachelors in English Literature. When he finished he realized after a while that he missed school and went on to San Luis Obispo and got his Master in English Literatre. He got back this summer. It was such a cool story for him to tell to this group of struggling families who come from the same place he did. We gave out backpacks with the hope that maybe we could help these families and kids find hope in Christ and stay in school another year. I hope for some that Noe's story gave them hope to go further than maybe they ever thought possible.

Running through the fountains

One night Jeff and I went to an art show in downtown. We got there a little early so we decided to let Micah play in the fountains. We had fun running through them.

Micah naps - part 2

So yesterday I decided that rather than fight with Micah over the nap issue I would make it something pleasant. I asked Micah if instead of his bed he would like to sleep in this little fold out couch to bed thing that Melissa gave us. He said yes. Then when he wanted to turn on and off every light in his room (there are 4 of them) I let him (usually I don't). And when he wanted to get his blankie without my help I said "sure". So off to nap time he went without any problem and slept yesterday over 2 hours. Today I repeated this and got 2 hours and 45 minutes with no issues. It seems to be working. Hooray!

Micah naps

So Micah has always napped wonderfully until last week. One day I took care of Dean, Pam's baby, for the afternoon and Micah absolutely refused to take a nap. I was a bit shocked but just figured he was jealous of Dean and didn't put much importance to it. Well, for the next 4 days Micah has suddenly decided he will fight to the death not to have to take a nap. I know he is tired but it is getting ridiculous to try to fight over this issue. I would actually prefer no nap so we could do more during the day but I think that Micah still does better with a nap. Wish me luck for this week trying to get him back on schedule, otherwise we will have to resort to a plan B.

Starting school

Well, I started school last week and so far my classes seem pretty good. We will see how things go since this in the honeymoon period. I am still doing 8th grade science and I teach periods 1-4. 4th period ends at 11:37 am so I can usually get home by about 12:30 if everything works out. Also since I have taught 8th grade science for 9 years now I don't really do much planning. It is usually more just tweaking lessons to make them better here and there or changing something if I find something new. It is awesome that the admin. have let me do this the last 3 years. I am very thankful.