Park Pictures

I finally got the film developed from our day at the park (yes, I said "developed"! I'm still in the dark ages and using my 35mm camera). Anyway, here are some of the pics. We had such a great time...it was hard to believe it was in JANUARY!!

Blowing off steam...school on MLK Day

Today is Martin Luther King Day. We were supposed to be off school today for the holiday. However, since we had a snow day before Christmas, we had to come to school today as a make-up day. I don't mind making up days...I completely understand the need to be in school for the required number of days, etc. What really burns me up is that the first day we "lose" is Martin Luther King Day.

The idea behind today is to celebrate the life and contributions to society of a great man...a man whose legacy is equality for everyone. I (for one) am trying to teach my students the importance of treating everyone equally (and I know I'm not the only teacher who is doing so). I'm trying to expose the kids here in this small, predominately white community to other cultures and the struggles other people have had to endure. Granted, I know that if we were off today, our students probably wouldn't be doing any activities related to honoring and celebrating Dr. King's life.... I just think it's a bad idea to take away this holiday. It's almost as if we're telling the kids that this is an "OPTIONAL HOLIDAY", that it isn't as important as other days. Probably this thought has never entered the minds of the powers that be. Who knows? I just think I'd rather make up days at the end of the year...

Well, at least I was able to do several activites today that (hopefully) taught my kids how important Dr. King was to the Civil Rights Movement. I just remember that when I was a student here growing up, no one ever taught me about the struggles that African-Americans had to face even after the Civil War ended and slavery was abolished. When I left here and moved to a bigger city, and taught in predominately black schools, I learned so much...from the other teachers and even from the students. I know that I'll never completely understand the discrimination and injustice the way that my colleagues there did, but it's my goal to teach my students here about respect and tolerance...

Spring Fever

What a gorgeous day today was!! Shawn and I took Keira to the park today to enjoy the weather. We took a walk on a trail, and then played on the playground. She slid down the slide with Daddy and then on her own. She especially loved the swing. I think we took an entire roll of pictures today. It was so beautiful...sunny and about 60 degrees. I am ready for spring to get here. Now that Christmas is over, I'm done with winter. I'm looking forward to warm days, playing outside, more trips to the park and to the zoo. I guess I'll just have to be satisfied with taking advantage of any unseasonably warm days that we have. April will be here before too long.

Back to Work (and Keira's latest adventure)

I went back to work yesterday. It wasn't nearly as hard as I'd imagined it would be. I settled back into the routine of school pretty quickly. Keira seemed to be happy to be with Aunt Sis and Uncle Doug. Today she was at home with Shawn...he had the day off work. I called to check on them during lunch, and he said that she'd just gone to sleep for the first time. They had had an eventful day. She apparently climbed all the way to the top of our stairs, with him right behind her. She climbs pretty quickly and laughs the whole time. It's definitely time to get a gate for the stairway.

I can't believe how quickly she's growing. I'll bet she's walking in no time. She's also getting another tooth. She got the bottom middle two teeth at the same time, so she'll probably get both of the top ones at about the same time. It's so unreal to me that my little baby will be TEN MONTHS OLD soon! It'll be time to start planning her first birthday before we know it.

A Brand New Year

The holidays are over for yet another year. Christmas was good. We saw a lot of family members , so that was nice. On Christmas Eve, we went see Aunt Cyndi and Uncle Rick. We also got to see a couple more of Shawn's aunts, uncles and cousins. I kept thinking about the last Christmas we spent with Mary there. I can't believe she's been gone for 2 years now. Last year was hard without her, but this year seemed to be even harder. I think it had something to do with all of the changes in the family...weddings and babies and such. At any rate, I definitely thought a lot about her during the holidays this year. I'm sure that if it was hard for me, it had to be ten times harder for Shawn, Holly, and Dwayne.

After visiting Rick and Cyndi, we went to my parents' house. We had such a great time visiting and eating and opening gifts. I think Keira had a fun "FIRST CHRISTMAS". Everyone was so generous, and she had fun opening the gifts. She especially enjoyed the boxes, bows and paper. We also went to see Grandma Wilson, Uncle David and Linda. After that, we stopped by to see Aunt Sis and Uncle Doug. What a busy night!

That night, Keira was up with a fever, so we were exhausted the next day. We finally managed to get out of bed (later than we'd planned). After feeding Keira, we let her open her gifts from Santa. Then, we got ready to take Max to Rob and Lisa's. After that, we left to visit George and Roxana. We got to their place early in the afternoon. Once Holly, Jeff, and Tyler got there, we started opening gifts and then had dinner. It was nice. We all really enjoyed ourselves. I think it would have been even better if Dwayne and Becky could have been able to be there. I know that it's hard to rearrange schedules and traditions...but I hope that next year we'll all be able to be together, especially with their new baby on the way!

On December 26, we went to visit the rest of Shawn's family at his Aunt Beth and Uncle Ken's house. It was good to be able to see his grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

We planned a small get-together at our place on New Year's Eve. Shawn and I were both really looking forward to hanging out with our friends and ringing in the new year with them. We cleaned up the basement, bought food and drinks, and even bought a couple of new games for the night.
On Friday (12/30), we went to dinner to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary, and we had a great time. The next morning (New Year's Eve), I woke up feeling so queasy! I ended up throwing up all day, and spent the evening in bed sick. What a letdown!! Luckily, everyone knew each other and felt comfortable hanging out and having fun together. I was just disappointed...what a way to start the year. Hopefully we'll all be ablt to get together again soon.

Now, I'm just hanging out with Keira on my last day before I have to go back to work. I've really had a lot of fun with her over the past 2 weeks, and am not looking forward to being away from her. Thankfully, the end of the school year is less than 6 months away.

I didn't make any resolutions for 2006. I guess I just hope that I'll be able to be the best MOM and WIFE (and daughter, teacher, friend) that I can be. There were a lot of changes in our lives in 2005, and I can't wait to see what changes this year brings.