Family Reunion

Clint & I had a really great trip to Oxford for the family reunion on his mom's side of the family. MamaKin is 102 and was able to be there. She recognized who we were. It took her a little while because of all the other faces she saw that day. We got to visit with Clint's Aunt Jan and Uncle Lynn and his cousin David2 and Stacy. Uncle David and Aunt Carolyn worked really hard on making the reunion great. We had fresh garden green beans, creamed corn & tomatoes. Aunt Carolyn baked 4 different kinds of cookies that were awesome. I ate WAY to much but it was worth the pound I gained. David2 and Stacy are expecting their first baby in December. They had a DVD of an ultrasound. It was soooo cool. They are having a boy. Clint, Uncle Lynn and David2 went to Tunica on Saturday after the reunion. I went shopping and still spent less than Clint did :) Then, Sunday morning we went to church with MamaKin. We were back in Tulsa by 7:00. Beth called me and said Nadia was wailing so much she brought her inside. (Nadia and CoCo don't really get along that well) I kenneled Lance at the vet's office so I picked him up Monday. He was VERY glad to see me. They said he did really well being boarded. I think it was harder on me to leave him than it was for him to stay there. The tech said he was very sweet. I guess he didn't try to eat her face off......
Ethan is at the lake with friends. I've talked to him several times and he's having a great time.
Wyatt is enjoying his summer until he leaves for boot camp:)
Mom and Daddy left Friday morning for Harlingen. A friend of theirs called and said their RV had damage from Hurricane Dolly (? I guess I should have watched the news this summer) so Jan drove them down and helped them get everything cleaned up. They had some water damage from a vent pulling loose on the roof of the 5th wheel. They got it replaced and everything dried out. Jan crawled on the top of the RV to replace the part and caulk around the new vent. I hope Mom had her video camera:) It is as hot there as here so they worked in the mornings and I think shopped in the afternoons. There is an outlet mall not to far from the RV. They have a Coach store there so I'm waiting to see how many purses Jan comes home with. It might have been cheaper for Paul to have just bought Mom & Daddy a new RV than let Jan loose in a Coach store:)
I'm headed to my new school to work on my classroom. Leann is moving to 2nd grade so I have a huge load of resources from her kindergarten stuff loaded in the back of the LandRover. I'm going back later in the week to pick up the rest. Phil and Clint are such great teacher husbands. They just smile and load vehicles and help us move all of it. We went to Stillwater last night and picked up 'stuff' and then had dinner with Leann, Phil, Victoria and Amanda (Leann's friend) at a new place in Stillwater called Crepe Murtle's. It was really good. We all had a crepe for dessert with cake batter ice cream. It really tastes like cake batter. I could get addicted to it.
More later..........

Nine Years Ago Today

Well, nine years ago today it was just as hot as today only I was wearing a long, heavy satin dress with a long train on it. Yes, today is our ninth anniversary. Some days it feels like yesterday, other days it seems like forever (the good kind). We are going to The Melting Pot for dinner tonight to celebrate and then tomorrow we leave for the Oxford family reunion. Sounds kind of like our honeymoon. Too bad we couldn't fit Vegas into this trip so Tunica will have to do. I think Clint will probably go with his cousin and I'll stay and read. I'm worn out from working outside in the heat trying to get the yard and garage cleaned up before school starts. Or, maybe I'm just getting old. Nah, its HOT outside.....

Stuff, Stuff and more Stuff

If you look at the front of our house, there is this addition on the north end that looks like a garage (the double garage doors gives it away). Well, I had this crazy idea that we should PARK in the garage. So, since there were only trails through it, I knew I needed to clean it out. Well, the problem with that is I'm only human and fairly out of shape to boot. Every time I went out there to start cleaning, I looked around, moved one or two things around, got overwhelmed and came back inside. Clint agreed with me that we need help (with the garage:) and so Saturday morning we started a cleaning marathon. Ethan, Wyatt, Dylan and Adam (2 of the boy's friends) helped us empty it out. They hauled off 2 loads to the landfill with at least one more to go, and 3 loads to Goodwill. While they were carrying everything out, we organized by either things we need to sort through from the house storage and my school stuff. (My school stuff had more quantity than 35 years worth of house stuff. Sad, but true.) Then, Clint put up shelves in the garage and the boys brought it back inside. We consolidated down to a little over half full with room to work. I plan on having a garage sale sometime in August. THEN, hopefully we can park in the garage. It will hold 2 cars with A LOT of storage or 3 cars with ample storage. Ethan wants to park in there this winter too, so we'll see how much stuff I can get rid of.
Saturday night Clint and I met Leann and Jan at Creek Casino for a concert. Restless Heart was playing there. The show was awesome. I forget how much I love listening to live music. It was standing room only and very hot but worth it. We had a great time.
Sunday after church we went to see the new Batman movie. It was really good. I'm now a Christian Bale fan. I need to see Batman Begins (I think that is the name of it). After the movie we took a nap and then went to small group Bible study. All in all a really good and productive weekend.
BTW- I passed my severe/profound certification teaching test. Whew----

In the Hot 'Ol Summer Time

It is finally summer hot. It really hasn't been bad yet but today is 93ish and almost no breeze. I'm hibernating in the house trying to organize my school stuff. 14 years of stuff is a lot to sift through. I think Leann is moving to 2nd grade to she'll take her things back to Stillwater and also any of my things that she can use. I'll need my pre-K and Kdg things for my new class. Speaking of that, I went today and picked up my key and security code for the building. Tulsa doesn't give keys to teachers so it will be great to be able to get in and work in my room w/o having to track someone down. I also went to the first morning of Autism Camp at one of the elementary schools. I got to meet 3 of my kids. One of them sat down beside me and put his arm around me so I think we are off to a good start. He didn't have a very good year last year so I was worried at how he would react to me. All three are boys and in 3rd grade. I will probably have 1 more boy and 1 girl. I also met the para that will probably be with me. She's awesome with the kids. I have a feeling I will learn a lot from her. She had a great rapport with the kids.
More later, the chicken for dinner is almost done (Clint is making dinner, I'm just boiling it first) and the laundry needs switched. Oh, it never ends. When do I have time to work??????

Facebook

I've joined the rest of the world and have a facebook profile. If you read this and are on facebook, send me a friend request. I'd love to add you.

Happy 4th of July

Wow, I didn't realize it had been a month since I posted anything. Leann and I assessed for national board certification in June and that took a lot of my time. During one of the massive rain storms, the garage flooded which seeped (ya right, how about gushed) into the game room. This of course was in the middle of the night so I wake up to Clint yelling for me to help. We had about 2 inches of water in the game room before we got the wet vac going. We used towels to slow the water and then sucked it up as it came in under the door. That lasted about an hour before it finally stopped coming in. Now we have a really great reason to toss a bunch of stuff from the garage. It had about 3 inches of water standing in it. the next morning, John stopped by and he looked at the driveway. Since the garage had never flooded before we knew something had changed. Well, I had moved some railroad ties around in the driveway and had created a dam so the drainage was diverted into the garage. Yes, I'm the brilliant person responsible for the flooded garage. See, I'm really blond and dye my hair dark. Speaking of dyed hair, I thought I'd try to have less roots showing and used "soft black" as my color choice. I don't know what brain burp I had that thought "soft black" would be dark brown which is my usual color, but when I finished, I was really glad Clint was at a ABA conference for the weekend. I looked a little goth. No one seemed to think it looked as bad as I do, just different. We had the Barker family reunion in Mountainburg last weekend. It was great to see everyone. next year we are going to have it at the park at Lake Fort Smith. We drove around to see the changes since they flooded the spillway and expanding the lake. They have a really nice picnic area with canoe rental, paddle boats, pontoon boats and a pool. Hopefully the weather will cooperate.