Thursday, May 27, 2010
Yay Emily!
Just to balance out yesterday's post a little... Emily was chosen Student of the Month for her class again! I didn't realize that could happen but I'm sure she deserved it =)
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Is this thing still on?
OK so it's been over a year since I blogged last. I don't actually think that anyone has noticed but I'm back. I love to keep journals about the happenings in our family's lives but I've been terribly slacking at that too lately. I blame the DVR. I used to journal during commercials to keep myself occupied. Now that we have cable and that wonderful invention called the DVR I don't watch commericals anymore... sorry advertisers! Somehow I do spend a lot of time on the computer so I'm going to try and put some of that time to better use and at least blog some of the things that we do. Maybe I'll even print them out at some point and put them in our journal. We shall see.
So entry #1... Claire had a "mental health" day today. Yeah a first grader needing a "mental health" day. It's been a tough year for her in school. Academically she is doing fantastic (again this journal is for me so if there is an extraordinary amount of bragging involved so be it). Socially things seem fine too. She loves recess and all the jump roping that entails. What she is struggling with is as she puts it "All the talking!" She has a very chatty class and my dear sensitive child feels that it is her responsibility to make sure the class is being as responsible as she is. As many times as we have told her that she can only be responsible for her own behavior and that if the teacher is reprimanding the class she is really only talking to the people who are misbehaving Claire takes things personally. (Oh yeah the comma on our keyboard is broken so bear with the strange grammar.) So we have gone through many mornings of tears and "I don't want to go to school today." It breaks my heart to send her when I know she is miserable but there really isn't the option to let her stay home when she feels like it either. She has to learn to deal with situations that aren't easy. But we have also been in a couple of times to talk to her teacher and try to come up with some options to make things easier for Claire. Her teacher has been very understanding and supportive and we have found some things that seem to be working. We haven't had tears for awhile now. And most of the "I don't want to go to school"s seem to be habit.
So since she hasn't really asked for awhile I surprised her last night by telling her that she wouldn't be going to school today. I told her it was her reward for doing so well in school this year. She's the 2nd person in class to read 100 AR books and the 2nd to get her monkey to the top of the math facts tree. She really is an awesome kid. (I warned you about the bragging!) I had a free ticket to the Aquarium of the Pacific so I only had to buy hers and off we went. We got there right at the 9:00 opening. There are horror stories about field trip kids taking over the place so we were hoping to beat the rush. We did fine. We zoomed straight to the sting ray tank where she could say good morning to her favorites. We were the only people there for a good 20 minutes or so. The rays were still happy to be touched and swam right up to her. She was in heaven! We toured the rest of the aquarium and saw just about everything. It did start to fill up while we were there but we just kept avoiding the largest groups. When we were done we walked a little around the outside of the aquarium and found a nice bike path that I'm hoping we can bring bikes back to some time this summer. It was a good day. Claire needed it and I was happy to get some one on one time with one of my favorite people in the world.
So entry #1... Claire had a "mental health" day today. Yeah a first grader needing a "mental health" day. It's been a tough year for her in school. Academically she is doing fantastic (again this journal is for me so if there is an extraordinary amount of bragging involved so be it). Socially things seem fine too. She loves recess and all the jump roping that entails. What she is struggling with is as she puts it "All the talking!" She has a very chatty class and my dear sensitive child feels that it is her responsibility to make sure the class is being as responsible as she is. As many times as we have told her that she can only be responsible for her own behavior and that if the teacher is reprimanding the class she is really only talking to the people who are misbehaving Claire takes things personally. (Oh yeah the comma on our keyboard is broken so bear with the strange grammar.) So we have gone through many mornings of tears and "I don't want to go to school today." It breaks my heart to send her when I know she is miserable but there really isn't the option to let her stay home when she feels like it either. She has to learn to deal with situations that aren't easy. But we have also been in a couple of times to talk to her teacher and try to come up with some options to make things easier for Claire. Her teacher has been very understanding and supportive and we have found some things that seem to be working. We haven't had tears for awhile now. And most of the "I don't want to go to school"s seem to be habit.
So since she hasn't really asked for awhile I surprised her last night by telling her that she wouldn't be going to school today. I told her it was her reward for doing so well in school this year. She's the 2nd person in class to read 100 AR books and the 2nd to get her monkey to the top of the math facts tree. She really is an awesome kid. (I warned you about the bragging!) I had a free ticket to the Aquarium of the Pacific so I only had to buy hers and off we went. We got there right at the 9:00 opening. There are horror stories about field trip kids taking over the place so we were hoping to beat the rush. We did fine. We zoomed straight to the sting ray tank where she could say good morning to her favorites. We were the only people there for a good 20 minutes or so. The rays were still happy to be touched and swam right up to her. She was in heaven! We toured the rest of the aquarium and saw just about everything. It did start to fill up while we were there but we just kept avoiding the largest groups. When we were done we walked a little around the outside of the aquarium and found a nice bike path that I'm hoping we can bring bikes back to some time this summer. It was a good day. Claire needed it and I was happy to get some one on one time with one of my favorite people in the world.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Biggest Loser Finale
I'm not a big reality TV fan. Most of those kinds of shows bore me to tears. For whatever reason though I've gotten totally hooked on the Biggest Loser. Even when the people get booted they still have something to walk away with; either the knowledge of how to change their lives for the better and/or they've already lost a good amount of weight. So I've been watching for a few seasons now. A few weeks ago my friend Amanda posted on Facebook that she had a pair of tickets for the live finale show and needed someone to go with her. I jumped up and down waved my hands in the air and screamed "me me me mememememe". Then I posted back (because somehow she didn't hear me all the way down in San Diego) that I would love to be her plus one.
Tuesday was the big day. As expected there was a whole lot of hurry up and wait. We got to the check in area in plenty of time then sat until it was time to go in the studio. Everyone from the audience was in the same area though so we spent a lot of time saying "That person looks familiar... is it a former contestant or a family member of a current player?" Between all of us waiting we could usually come up with the name. With about 30 minutes to spare until show time we finally got into the studio. We were absolutely thrilled with our seats to put it mildly. The front section was reserved for the families of the final four contestants. We were in the front row of the next section back in the very center! We were so close to the stage! As former contestants ran back and forth to greet each other they came by us almost every time. Alison Sweeney is the host of the show. Her husband and mom sat right behind us! Her mom was cute though. I overheard her say to someone "We never stop supporting our kids do we?" I love that! No matter how famous you might get you are still your mom's kid and she will sit in the audience to see you perform.
Finally the show started. I usually watch the 2 hour show in about 2/3 of that time because I fast forward through so much of the fluff and commercials. The 2 hours live went by so fast! At each commercial break the MC was running around the audience handing out goodies. I got a CD of workout music and a box of water mix ins. You couldn't help but get even more excited for the contestants with them right there in front of you. They all looked so happy and looked so good! I didn't really have a favorite this year so it didn't matter to me who won. But I was totally amazed by how good Michael looked and how well he did. Unlike past seasons when the winners actually looked too skinny he looked healthy! He may lose some more but if he doesn't he'll still be good.
After the show was over we scooped up a handful of confetti and grabbed out seat tags. Our hands were tingling from clapping so much and our voices were scratchy. But it was totally worth it! We stopped some of the former contestants and got autographs. We saw the mom and son Dan(the musician) and Jackie; season 3 winner Erik (on this season because he gained a lot of his weight back but by the finale he looked good again) and Daniel who was on 2 seasons because he had such a long way to go. They all looked great and so did the other former contestants.
As soon as I got home it was time for the west coast showing. So we turned the TV on and there in the first pan of the audience was me and Amanda! It was quick but it was us!! The girls were so excited to see Mommy on TV! The whole day was such a cool experience. Living in California it seems like we should be able to do more of these kinds of things. Usually it's not something I care all that much about but to be able to see one of my favorite shows was a blast!
Tuesday was the big day. As expected there was a whole lot of hurry up and wait. We got to the check in area in plenty of time then sat until it was time to go in the studio. Everyone from the audience was in the same area though so we spent a lot of time saying "That person looks familiar... is it a former contestant or a family member of a current player?" Between all of us waiting we could usually come up with the name. With about 30 minutes to spare until show time we finally got into the studio. We were absolutely thrilled with our seats to put it mildly. The front section was reserved for the families of the final four contestants. We were in the front row of the next section back in the very center! We were so close to the stage! As former contestants ran back and forth to greet each other they came by us almost every time. Alison Sweeney is the host of the show. Her husband and mom sat right behind us! Her mom was cute though. I overheard her say to someone "We never stop supporting our kids do we?" I love that! No matter how famous you might get you are still your mom's kid and she will sit in the audience to see you perform.
Finally the show started. I usually watch the 2 hour show in about 2/3 of that time because I fast forward through so much of the fluff and commercials. The 2 hours live went by so fast! At each commercial break the MC was running around the audience handing out goodies. I got a CD of workout music and a box of water mix ins. You couldn't help but get even more excited for the contestants with them right there in front of you. They all looked so happy and looked so good! I didn't really have a favorite this year so it didn't matter to me who won. But I was totally amazed by how good Michael looked and how well he did. Unlike past seasons when the winners actually looked too skinny he looked healthy! He may lose some more but if he doesn't he'll still be good.
After the show was over we scooped up a handful of confetti and grabbed out seat tags. Our hands were tingling from clapping so much and our voices were scratchy. But it was totally worth it! We stopped some of the former contestants and got autographs. We saw the mom and son Dan(the musician) and Jackie; season 3 winner Erik (on this season because he gained a lot of his weight back but by the finale he looked good again) and Daniel who was on 2 seasons because he had such a long way to go. They all looked great and so did the other former contestants.
As soon as I got home it was time for the west coast showing. So we turned the TV on and there in the first pan of the audience was me and Amanda! It was quick but it was us!! The girls were so excited to see Mommy on TV! The whole day was such a cool experience. Living in California it seems like we should be able to do more of these kinds of things. Usually it's not something I care all that much about but to be able to see one of my favorite shows was a blast!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
