And still more photos!!

More photos!!

Here are some more photos!!!

October 2006

I can't believe it has been so long since I posted to this blog. August was a blur, with summer school letting out August 11th and then getting ready for the new school year. At one point, Chris was gone for an entire week and I spent a solid 40 hours preparing for the new school year and working on my classroom. I also painted a mural at school of a space scene on a gigantic wall. I will post pictures of that.

School started and wow, I can't believe how much I love teaching at The Child School. I love my kids. We have done so much fun stuff since school started. We studied Egypt in September and did projects on mummification, built pyramids out of sugar cubes, wrote notes in hieroglyphics, and went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the Egypt collection. We did not get to see King Tut. The most fun was eating lunch with the kids in the museum cafeteria. They are so incredibly funny.

We had an Egyptian-themed party last Thursday, the 7th of October, as a reward for the kid's hard work in school. We had food like pita bread, hummus, goldfish (to represent fish, of course), grape juice, golden coins (made of chocolate), dates, Tootsie Rolls (no symbolism there just fun!) and pita chips. We played Egyptian Trivial Pursuit with questions the kids had come up with on their projects and played Steve Martin's version of King Tut about 15 times during the party. The boys danced quite a bit and were such hams!! We wrapped up some of the kids as mummies with toilet paper and face painted some of the kids as well. I took lots of pictures.

My life in NYC is quite simple. I go to work, I come home and work on school stuff for the next day, and go to work the next day. Weekends are usually little trips to Central Park, walking to Costco for supplies, going to the movies, or if we are really lucky, having friends in from somewhere else. We don't go out to eat very often and we have not yet figured out how to "order in" like most New Yorkers do. I love living on Roosevelt Island because it is quite and safe and really beautiful. Our ward here at church is good and now that the subway and tram are back on schedule, it only takes 30 minutes to get to church!! Yipee!!!

An update on the kids and Chris:

April, Dave, and Ian: We just went to visit them in Houston 2 weekends ago. What a beautiful little boy is Ian!!! And he has such great parents. It was a beautiful weekend full of joy and hope.

Meghan is in Togo, Africa with the Peace Corps. She arrived in September and will be home in December of 2008. I am very proud of her. It is a very challenging place. I am not sure whether or not I will visit her in country or have her fly somewhere to meet us some time next year. I am afraid of bugs but feel like a wimp saying that...She has a blog if you are interested: meghoke.blogspot.com

Jonathan: Just left his job at PrintPak and is working for Home Depot designing cabinets in their cabinet department. From all reports, he likes his job. He is engaged to Lauren. They are living in a house in Fredericksburg.

Katy: She just moved back to Provo after a 7 week stint in Fredericksburg with my sister, Diane. She is working for the Harris Poll people so if she calls you, be kind!! Katy is working to try to earn the money necessary to help herself get a car and seems to be doing well so far. She is pulling her life together in a variety of ways and I am very proud of her.

Valerie: Val continues to work at "The Taco" and recently got a raise. That is good, since she is having to replace her car after totalling it about 3 weeks ago after running a red light. She is okay but this was a definite setback for her and having to negotiate with the insurance and also look for another car has been a huge challenge. She is living in an apartment near Taco Bell.

Chris: Continues to love his job. He is working on some post-retirement projects to help him get ready for post-retirement employment. He helps me with various projects and we keep pretty busy most of the time. He and I both are trying to cope with our status as parents whose children have recently flown the nest. It has been a rather eye opening and challenging time but enough about that!!! :D

I miss all of my friends in Fredericksburg and Virginia Beach!!! I went on a very lengthy but quick trip to Bar Harbor, Maine with my sister, Diane, Katy, and good friend, Donna Smith 2 weeks ago. It was so much fun and we had a lot of good laughs.

I love you all. Here are some photos!!!