What we've been up to...

Here's an update on each family member!  September has been fast, fun, and busy; October will be more of the same!


Wade:

• doing fall baseball right now.  It's low-key, scrimmages instead of super-competitive games, and Wade's enjoying it.  It's a good excuse to break out his dusty baseball gear that's been sitting around since June.
• playing a lot of Madden NFL '10 on the PS3.  His dad showed him how to play, and he's enjoying it...A LOT.
• at yesterday's school assembly (held monthly), Wade took 2nd place in Accelerated Math out of all the 3rd graders, and 6th place in Accelerated Reader out of all the third, fourth, and fifth graders.  WOO-HOO!
• speaking of school, he ABSOLUTELY LOVES his teacher Mrs. Howard.  She's fantastic!
• Wade will earn his Wolf badge in Cub Scouts next week.
• He's gone for the day today for a friend's birthday.  Nick's family is taking Wade and a couple other friends down to Lancaster to play mini-golf.  SO FUN!

Rhiannon:

• went rapelling for the first time with her dad and the Miles family this past week.  Dad said Rhiannon did a great job!!!
• is excited to play a Pirates of the Caribbean medley in band.  She's got a really cool part on the mallets/chimes/xylophone.
• Is doing something she's never done before today and going to the movies with a friend...without her mom and dad tagging along. :)
• totally ROCKED the middle school's Decades Spirit Day a couple weeks ago.  She picked the 80's and looked amazing.  (banging my head up against the wall right now for not taking a picture of her awesomeness!)
• STILL loving her iPod and MuSiC!  She likes "all kinds of stuff!"
• got invited to attend a special Rachel's Challenge workshop at school this week; was nominated by either a teacher or student because she's super nice!  See the link for more about Rachel's Challenge.  It's pretty neat.

Jason:

• interviewed for a new job at China Lake last week and found out he GOT IT!  He was ready for a change--we're so happy for him!  He's now the Chief Engineer for the AMRAAM Technical Project Office.  He'll handle all the technical issues for that missile system with a team of about 50 engineers.
• finished his longest run ever this morning--8.05 miles in 83.5 minutes.  He's also going to start a weight-lifting program next week to do on his non-running days.  It's called Les Mills Pump 90-Day workout program.
• attended youth conference one night last weekend for our stake and was very impressed that our ward's youth made up 30% of the group and were really well-behaved!

Verity:

• having fun working on a few "crafty projects" for Christmas
• averaging 1-2 sub jobs a week so far this school year
• made "crockpot pork chops with sage and balsamic glaze" for dinner last night, and it was GOOD.
• trying to get ready for her 4th Primary presentation in 3 years--practices will begin next month.
• excited for the Church's General RS Broadcast tonight and General Conference next weekend!!!

Family Camping Trip

We had a FANTASTIC time this weekend on our family camping trip. Jason and I packed up for it on Friday while the kids were in school, and then we jumped in the truck as soon as the kids were both home that afternoon. I'll add details to this post tomorrow, but for now, enjoy the digital scrapbook of our fun times!

Free scrapbooking design personalized with Smilebox

Lizards, dragonflies, and...dry erase markers?

Had a 3rd/4th combination class all day yesterday and enjoyed most of it.   There were a few, um, highlights I thought I'd share:

Early in the day:

Me: Way to go, class! Each of your tables is doing so well with being on task and focused. I'm going to add a tally point for each table. (I grab a random dry erase marker and add points to the board).

Class: (eyes and mouths wide open with horror) YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO USE THE BLACK MARKER FOR THE TABLE POINTS!!!





HOW COULD I DO SUCH A THING?!

The funny thing is that the sweet kids were all as serious as could be. I just smiled big and continued adding points in random colors the rest of the day. Don't hate me! :)

There was also a boy who found a dead dragonfly right before lunch and had a good time scaring the girls with it.  I got pretty irritated at our loud, won't-listen-to-a-thing-I-say lunch line, so we turned around and went back to class and started over with a good ol' speech from me.  Second time around was much better.  I'm blaming it on the dragonfly terror:

Then after lunch we got another surprise.  I opened the door to let the kids in and another visitor joined us:

It took several minutes to get the class calmed down and get the lizard OUT.  I had to get on the same dragonfly kid who thought it'd be helpful to try and STEP ON the lizard.  Now, I'll be honest, I can imagine that's exactly what I'd be tempted to do if this had gone on inside our own home (or, let's be real, I'd just be standing on the kitchen table screaming), but it just really rubbed me the wrong way when he did that in the classroom.  Eventually a sweet girl just opened the classroom door and the lizard hightailed it out of there!  I was so composed and calm, total opposite of what I'd be normally, watching that lizard dart all over the classroom floor!

It was an exciting day, followed by a busy evening of Cub Scouts and Activity Days for Primary and a loud but fun Girls Camp awards meeting with Rhiannon.  That night Jason and I were chilling watching some ESPN and X-Factor.  I turned to him and said, "I am SO READY to get away from it all tomorrow and be in the mountains!"

Rewind: Mt Whitney August 2012

A couple weeks ago our ward had a Court of Honor.  I tagged along with Jason and really enjoyed the presentations given on the Scouts' summer adventures, especially the one that Jason was a part of--the 50-miler goal to climb Mt. Whitney.  There were hundreds of pictures taken and lots of stories, but that's something you'll have to get from Jason.  I didn't experience the altitude changes, the blisters, the exhaustion, the worries, or that once-in-a-lifetime feeling of accomplishment that I'm sure the group felt as they stood at the top of Mt. Whitney. 

For now, these wonderful pictures will tell some of the tale!  Way to go, guys!

Welcome, September!

We had a fantastic Labor Day weekend and enjoyed everything from a bbq with the Litton family on Saturday to our ward pancake breakfast and some party hopping on Monday.

Wade signed up for a laid-back fall baseball league that'll finish up on October 26th.  They'll have practices on Mondays and Fridays with an occasional scrimmage.  I was going to pass on this like we've done every year, but someone suggested it was a really good idea for kids moving up to the next level.  We'll try it out and see how he does!

Rhiannon enjoyed a babysitting gig last night for a few hours for our friends across the street.  She said she really prefers babysitting boys--so much less drama! :)  School is going well--she got the top grade on an assessment test in one of her classes and was really excited about that! 

I had a super easy sub job on Friday.  It was for a 3rd/4th grade combo class while the teacher was on campus doing collaboration.  It went like this:  I had only the ten 4th graders first, then a lunch where I had no duties at all, followed by time with only the nine 3rd graders.  It was the easiest 4-hour sub job I've ever had--I was grateful for it!  Next week I'll have that same class for a whole day--and I know it's not going to be the cake walk that I had yesterday. :)

Jason is gearing up for his second Ragnar in November.  He took Wade to his monthly model club meeting on Wednesday night, and they had a good time doing that.  He also made his family very happy by scheduling a camp site for us for next weekend in Kernville.  Family camping trip for the year is going to happen!!!  I'm SO excited--we're going to go here:

and we're going to try something new.....and take Oscar along!

More Oscar pictures

Wade took some cute pictures of Oscar last week that I had to share.  Oscar's haircut is already starting to grow out--my favorite part is the hair sticking straight up from his ears.

We love this dog, even when he's driving us bonkers!  It's interesting how he has a different relationship with each one of us and we've all connected to him in our own way.  He's Mommy's shadow and follows me around all day long, but his tail wags the fastest for Jason.  Jason is also the one who can get him riled up the fastest and calmed down in an instant.  Rhiannon loves hugging on Oscar and having him hang out in her bedroom, and Wade is the only one who can get Oscar to hold still for his daily face cleaning check (cleaning the drainage from his eyes that gets goopy sometimes).  Hard to believe he'll be a year old next month!!  Where has the time gone?

Love this girl!

She'll probably have a thing or two to say about the "Rhiannon times 8" picture, but I thought it was fun, plus she's gorgeous! :)  We took pictures outside on School Picture Day, just for kicks. 

10 Reasons, for starters, Why Rhiannon Makes Us Happy:

1.  She plays the piano beautifully and spends a lot of time on it.
2.  She's a very intelligent, responsible student.
3.  She keeps her bedroom floor clean.
4.  She's friendly and approachable.
5.  She's respectful to adults and (usually) patient and kind with her brother.
6.  She chooses good friends to keep close.
7.  She's not afraid to speak her mind and voice her opinions to us, in a usually very respectful way.
8.  She doesn't give us too much grief about not having a cell phone, a Facebook account, unlimited computer time, etc. 
9.  She dresses modestly.
10.  She's not perfect and definitely has things she needs to improve on (band practice forms, dearie?), but she's easy to talk to, willing to improve, and does her part to make our family and home a happy place to be!

We love you, Rhiannon! :)

Who's at the door?

 

A couple weeks ago there was a knock at the door.  "Who could that be?" I asked with a sheepish grin.  It was my brother Brant, who'd driven up from Anaheim on a business trip.  I'm kicking myself for not capturing the look on everyone's faces when he walked in--it was a complete surprise, even from Jason, who hadn't gotten my cryptic email the day before to "warn" him. :)

 

It was a short, very sweet visit--we had dinner, visited, showed off Oscar, and then we all hit the bed trail for school in the morning, work, and Brant's need to get on the road by 6:30am to get to Ontario for more business meetings.

 

I hope Brant knows how much his surprise visit meant to us--we loved that time with him and really appreciate the fact that his time driving was longer than the time we actually got to spend with him!  That's dedication! :)  Love ya, Brant!

 

 

Saying "goodbye for now" to good friends

Last month some good friends of ours said goodbye to Ridgecrest and moved on to definitely greener pastures in Hood River, Oregon.  We had them over for dinner their last week here and enjoyed that time with them so much.

 

The Cox family will be greatly  missed by our ward and our family.  McLain served faithfully as Elders Quorum president many years and then as seminary teacher.  Melissa helped me SO MUCH in Primary as the 1st counselor, and Sydney and Eli helped Rhiannon and Wade set up chairs around the Primary rooms every week before church.  It was pretty weird the first Sunday they were gone--we were bench buddies and liked to try to sit in front of their family every week at church. :) 

 

We will definitely miss them for more than our church associations, too.  We enjoyed getting to know them better and appreciated learning from their faith and patience as they went through the process to become foster parents for a short time.  I loved being able to talk to Melissa about anything, not just Primary stuff, and sure appreciated her checking up on me and asking if I needed anything.  Thanks to McLain who was partly to blame for introducing Jason to Five Finger shoes and Ragnar races, too!  And to Sydney and Eli who were expert babysitters for our tortoise Toby when we needed it!

 

Thank goodness for eternal friendships, email, phone, Facebook, and one more good reason to visit Oregon someday (we now have 3 friends living there--Sam Behunin and family, Linden and Andy, and now the Cox family!)

 

We love you guys--best wishes on your new adventure!