Does a Full Moon last an entire month?

This month has been full moon crazy weird. The weather is great, which is sort of weird for September in OK, it rained for days and was cold. The temp the other morning was 49 degrees, which when put in one perspective is 17 degress above freezing. The daytime highs are from low70's to low 80's. Like I said, weird.
Wyatt didn't leave for the Marines. He had an incomplete frontal lobe incident with some friends and has some legal issues to resolve. He is talking with an Army guard recruiter and may go that route if he can. Which is probably a good thing since he's going to be a daddy in March. He and Ashlee are expecting a baby. After the initial shock of being a grandma at 42, I'm excited. Its kind of weird. When I was pregnant with the boys, I really wanted to have a boy. With this grandbaby, I really don't have a preference. Just healthy.
Wyatt & Ashlee lost a good friend last week. Their friend Ben was killed in a car accident. He was a really great guy and will be missed. His funeral was Thursday. He was in the army so they had a military honor guard there. It brought back some of the memories of Corey. Same gun salute and taps played. Wyatt has really taken this hard. He looked up to Ben and is also close with Ben's brother Adam. Their group of friends are devastated and trying to make sense of all of it. It is hard to understand why someone so young dies.
School is going well. I have 6 kids now. The other day, one of the boys unscrewed the faucet in the bathroom and was having himself a good time playing the fountain he created. It is hard to get mad at that kind of curiosity.
Got to go take care of Lance. He's barking really loudly and Nadia is griping at him to stop. It is getting REALLY loud downstairs.

Holy Moly

I realized this morning how long it has been since I updated so the 2 other people who usually read this can read what I've told them on the phone:)
School has started. Ethan has tons of homework every night. I'm at school for 10 hours everyday and Clint doesn't get home until 5:15ish so our evenings are busy. I LOVE my new class. It is challenging but worth it. I have 5 kiddos and 2 para-teachers. Sounds easy huh? Join me for a day and you'll see we work hard. The kids are very sweet though and are basically typical kids who happen to have several challenges they have to deal with.
Wyatt leaves in 2 weeks for boot camp. His buddy Scott is back from boot camp so I'm sure he'll update Wyatt on all the realities of it. Speaking of Wyatt, he and his girlfriend of 2 years are going to have a baby the end of February or the first of March. I'm not sure of Ashlee's exact due date. After the initial WHAT?!#!? wore off (in about 3 seconds) I'm very excited. I'm going to be a grandma! I'm hoping Wyatt and Ashlee can work things out between them and make the right decisions. Ashlee is willing to let me be a part of the babies life even if she and Wyatt can't work things out. Our family loves her and she's the mama of one of the greatgrandbabies so she's family now (we thought of her that way even before the baby)
Clint and I went to Mississippi for the season opener of Ole Miss football. Go Rebs! We won 41-24 over Memphis. Houston Nutt is the new coach (thank you Razorbacks). MamaKin is doing ok. We got to visit with Uncle David and Aunt Carolyn, Uncle Lynn and David2. We left Friday after work for MS and got back Sunday evening. Very fast trip but always worth it.
Clint's job plays out the end of September. We are praying for the right full time position to be there when this one is over.
Mom bought a new car last weekend. It is really cool. She bought a Hyundai Elantra. She picked blue since her Dodge was blue and she would be able to remember which car is hers easier:) They went to Norman with Pequeta and Royal this weekend. She and Pete LOVE the casino and I think that's where they are spending most of their time except for Saturday when the OU game was on TV. Last I heard, she had almost won enough to buy her car tag and tax. She and Pete are the luckiest people. I NEVER win so I just quit going.
Beth is painting her dining room and finishing getting her house the way she wants it. She made curtains for my classroom that look really cute. I get tons of compliments on how cute my room looks. Thank you Leann for the hand-me-downs and Beth for the curtains.
If you read this before Sunday the 7th, you're invited to the house for a send off for Wyatt. He leaves the 14th and will be gone for 13 weeks. I'm trying to not be hysterical. I don't go 13 hours w/o talking to the boys and I have to go 13 weeks. Clint says it is time to let him go, I'm thinking NOT! I know it is the best thing for him, but can someone tell me it is ok to just be mommy for a minute and not want him to grow up?????? Since we only have 2 kids, Wyatt gets the reaction for being the first to leave, and Ethan gets it for being my baby. Maybe I should get a life........

August already?

I can't believe that it is already August. July went by really fast. Clint & I went back to school shopping with Ethan yesterday. The mall was insane. I haven't seen it that crazy since Christmas. It is tax-free weekend for clothing and shoes so everyone was shopping. After shopping, Ethan met Boots (Andrew) and Clint & I went to dinner and a movie. We saw the new Mummy. It didn't get good reviews but I liked it. Then we came home and crashed in front of the TV. Ethan went to dinner with a group of friends. Wyatt is in Dallas this weekend. He went to the Brad Paisley concert with a group of friends. At least I think it was Brad Paisley. Anyway, I'm trying to adjust to the thought of him being away from home for long periods of time. I know it is the natural progression of things for your kids to grow up and leave home, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I'm like Mom, if I had my way, Wyatt and Ethan would never leave. There's nothing Mom likes better than to have everyone here (unless you add Phil cooking while everyone is here).
Beth & I went to Stillwater on Thursday and saw Leann's new room. She's moving to 2nd grade so she shared her stuff that she won't need this year with me. We loaded the back of Beth's HHR until you couldn't see out the back window. Friday, Beth helped me get my room set up and some of the stuff unloaded. I still have a lot of work to do so we're going back on Monday. Jan was going to help Leann paint her room this weekend. I don't think Sapulpa lets you paint but Stillwater does so Leann's class will look VERY cute. My is just institutional white. I'm going to ask about painting but I know I won't get it done before school starts. I walked around the building and looked in other classrooms and didn't see any other colors on the walls. I've met a couple of the teachers. I report the 12th and school starts the 20th. My days of sleeping in are numbered.........

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??????