Monday, July 31, 2006

It's already half way through Monday and I am still in a fog. Sunday was as busy as usual with church, a lesson from Mike, setting up my classroom for Arts camp this week, and then a cookout at our house with some friends. You are probably asking "what is Mike givin lessons on?". Well a cointuation from my story on Saturday, the adventure we set off on was getting a Honda minivan. Yes - we actually got one on Saurday in the rush of everything and at 11:30 that night Mike was still sitting in it trying to learn all of the gadgets and gizmo's it had to offer. I think he probably stayed out there until 1 or 2 in the morning and was quite intrigued with a new toy. I didn't get to drive it home on Saturday as I rushed home to meet some guests that were arriving and to relieve Ella Sue who stayed with the kids. When Mike finally arrived and I was going to give it a little test drive he realized that they had not put any tags on it and so it has been parked until today. Yesterday, after the kids layed down for their naps, my lesson began on how to use an automobile. Mike had me practice pushing all of the buttons and even talking to the car. Can you picture this........ Mike pushes the voice button and sternly says "audio up" and the van replies "FAN OFF" and then the AC cuts off. I can't believe our van talks to us. I know everyone out there can believe that Mike bought a gadget mobile but I am far from comfortable talking to a van - actually I am just uncomfortable with the van talking back to me - I have said way too many things to previous autos we have owned. I am sure there will be many more lessons to come and I will probably never use all of the gadgets that it has to offer but at least Mike knows how to use them (or we hope so)!

My new adventure is Arts camp this week at our church. I just want to say BLESS YOU to all of those out there who work in daycares, preschools, schools, any type of childcare or just around children. God knows I love little ones and I love to play but I was a bit frazzled this morning when I found myself leading eight 2 & 3 year olds for 3 hours. Luckily, Deanne, was there to help and as a mother of 5 children she has the patience of Job. We read books, colored, made an angel, read books, played on the playground, had a snack, toured the church, went potty, read books, listened to music, played blocks, changed diapers, rode the elevator, and yes read books again. As you can tell reading books is one of my favorites as it is a "calm" activity for the kids. There was also a bucket of magnetized letters and a whiteboard in the room and I believe that they kids dumped the bucket of 10,000 magnets on the floor at least 1,203 times before I decided that we need to put these away. Thankfully I had put away the box of 5,000 teeny tiny legos yesterday or I may still be there cleaning them up. I will be doing this all week so if you don't see a post it is because I have gotten so worn out that I am asleep whenever the kids are quiet.

Lastly, the pictures are from our visit to the children's museum in Portland and downtown at one of the fountains. My favorite picture is the one of the kids sitting on Pappy Lee's white leather couch, yes you heard right it is white. I panicked everytime the children got close but I think we left without them staining it or marking on it with anything. Luckily leather is a bit easier to clean than upholstery.