Saturday, December 31, 2005

Manatees

We drove up to Orange City Saturday morning to see the manatees at Blue Spring State Park. A fresh water spring (dark line in the pic at right) puts out 100 million gallons of spring water per day at a constant temp of 72 degrees. The spring water runs into the St. Johns River and when the river temp gets low, the manatees migrate into the spring.

There were 109 manatees (the park rangers count 'em) at the spring this AM. We saw over 70 sea cows while we were there. The water is very clear, the sky was overcast so we could see into the water easily, and the early time - got there about 9:15 - meant very little wind to ripple the water. When the manatees aren't there, people can scuba dive down the rift way into the limestone cave...not my idea of fun! Lots of black headed vultures around also.

We spent the rest of the day taking down the Christmas decorations and taking care of Saturday stuff. I cut the grass and got the lights off the house - no slips, ankle twists, or pratfalls! Temps were in the upper 70's this afternoon, which we enjoyed.

May God bless you abundantly in the new year!

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

We Like Christmas!

I think that there is a direct relationship to the length of time we anticipate an event and the speed at which that event flies by. We have been looking forward to Christmas with all of the kids / grandson for months. Now that it's almost over, it seems that the time has taken wings.

We visited Leu Gardens Friday afternoon - saw many wonderful plants and flowers, especially roses. We had supper on the deck Saturday night and included our Orlando kids, Matt & Jill. Everyone attended Conway Community Pres on Christmas Sunday for worship and a great turkey dinner later in the day. On Monday we showed the gang our downtown stomping grounds - walked through the First Pres / Christ School block and the toured Lake Eola. We went to SeaWorld on Tuesday and enjoyed the dolphins, penguins, sea lions, and of course, Shamu. Spectacular!

Great food, beautiful weather (60's during the days) and blue sky, shared stories, games at night, lots of Luke time, family jokes rehashed, and we even got in The Princess Bride. All good stuff! Thank you, Lord, for family!

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Projects


I finished my table this morning -- rock solid! It took about 6 hours and less than $25, so that second table is a real bargain. Bob's enjoying the deck; we had lunch outside. Note the shadows; sun and warm with temps in the upper 60's.

I power washed the chairs today. After a year packed away, they needed to shed the critters and dirt that had claimed them as home.

Tomorrow Bob and I are going to clean the water fountain and stream in the back yard. BJ likes playing in the water, and I bet Alec & Luke will too!

Saturday, December 17, 2005

...And It's Vacation

We had a half-day of school yesterday. That meant a special chapel (half hour); the usual library time with a special book presentation by our librarian (half hour); a special math probability exercise with 4 pennies (half hour); cleaning desks (half hour); filling bags with necessities for Compassion Corner, the next-door mercy ministry to the homeless (half hour); a cookie exchange and class party (1 1/4 hours). Interesting note on the desk cleaning - one boy came up to me with a surprised look and the comment that he had found a paper from September! No wonder he couldn't fit his books in the desk. I also spent many minutes untangling kids' puzzles that I had given on Thursday as my present to them. I knew that these brain teasers would come back to bite me, so I gave them the puzzles a day early so I could undo the damage that many of them did trying to figure out how it came apart. It's also sort of payback...

Today I'm going to fix one of the Christmas presents that Gayle and I gave each other. We had ordered a folding teak octagonal table for the deck in early November so we could have it when the kids came at Christmas. It finally came the day after Thanksgiving, left in our entry while we were gone. The box was a mess, many large holes and retaped poorly. When I opened it, one of the legs was broken and the leg part completely missing. It took nearly two weeks to sort it out, but we were told that the shipping company did not want to pick it up, we could dispose of the table, and a new table would be shipped to us. The new table came Thursday. My project today is to dispose of the old table by repairing the leg. One of the definitions of dispose is "to put into correct form." Works for me!

By the way, Bob the Christmas Rabbit is home...

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Ready for Christmas




Yes! We're getting ready for Christmas...

The lights are up, the tree is decorated, the house is ready!










The weather is great!

Now we need some kids...

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Two New Lifers






It's my turn to update the blog - have a few pictures from our trip to Canaveral Seashore last Friday. I found two new shells that I hadn't had before. However, one I can't positively identify yet and the other one is not complete, but enough to know it was a Scotch Bonnet. I don't think it was common on the Gulf Side, but we found two half shells on the Atlantic side.

We also encountered a slow moving land turtle by the car. He hissed at us when we got too close and then crawled away into the bushes.

Did a fun project with my students today - we made an "I Spy" book. They worked with a partner, found all kinds of "stuff" around the classroom and composed a "collection" . Then they wrote five or six sentences like "Find the red bear," or "I spy a yellow balloon." I printed them up tonight and will get them laminated and bound tomorrow. They all worked hard for over an hour on it - here's one example:

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Thanksgiving Bonanza

I have a billbergia saundersii that I bought from Tropifloral over a year ago. I had a beautiful flower shortly after I bought it, and then I had two new pups form. Those two pups flowered this week. The bad news is that billbergias seem to flower for just a short time; good news is that they are spectacular! If you look closely you can see the two pink sheaths on the plant sides of the flowers.





I "hard cultured" the saundersii in my lattice house and it seemed to like it. Only problem was when I wanted to bring the plant inside, I had to flood out the frog living in the bottom of the plant vase! He wasn't too happy, but I think he got over it. I put my billbergia Hallelujah in the lattice house, which gave Mr. Frog a new home. I'm also hoping that the hard culture outside will get my Hallelujah in gear with a flower.


We also have two gift (that means I
don't know their names!)
orchids from students blooming in the house right now. Not bad, huh? Happy Thanksgiving!

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Just Breathe

Well, we made it to the Thanksgiving break and though we have two days of inservice ahead of us it sure feels like a week of vacation. My class was responsible for chapel this week, so I prepared three days worth of mini-challenges regarding Thanksgiving and intertwined it with some ECHO hunger issues and West Virginia Food for Children pictures and stories. It was well received - even have a few adults who might be interested in going to WV with us this summer. We're taking a collection from the school kids for the Food for Children project.
Friday my little ones had the program and they did very well. They said Psalm 100 in unison without a hitch and then sang three songs , one of which was illustrated by a powerpoint of their drawings. They were so cute in their little hats. Thursday was our Native American Pow-wow where we go to a park and dance around a paper fire and pretend we're Indians. This is not my idea since it gets a bit stereotypical but "we've been doing it since the Kdgn. started" so who am I to change an institution? When we got back we wrote down what we liked about the day and not one kid mentioned the "pow-wow". They all talked about the nature hike and the alligators they saw and the inchworms and butterflies. Hmmmm.....
After our two days at school Dad and I are looking forward to puttering around the house. I have some chairs to strip and refinish and we've planned out our Christmas decorations and are looking forward to putting that stuff up.
On Thursday we're going to be serving dinner at the Salvation Army for 3 1/2 hours and then if the weather is nice we're going to pack a

picnic and go to the seashore. Turkey sandwiches count for Thanksgiving dinner, right?
Thanks to all of you for the Birthday cards and phone calls. It was the kind of day I like - low key with a few thoughtful expressions from family and friends. My little ones were more excited that I about the birthday and one of them spilled the beans about a week ago when she said "What day are we supposed to bring you a flower?" Anyway, 55 feels very much like 54 though I'm counting more silver among the gold and noticing that I'm not winning the battle of the bulge.
And welcome aboard to son Bob - the latest member of the Bosscher bloggers! Don't be too hard on him to update frequently - remember what it was like when you were in college??

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Travel Weekend


I had a good, quick trip to Grand Rapids this past weekend. The primary purpose was for Christian Schools International board meetings. The bonus was having supper with Bob, Kim, and Mike, and spending time with Mom and Art.


I took the Calvin kids out to Friday's for supper. We had a great time, got caught up on news, and finished off several pigs' worth of ribs.






We had good board meetings all day Friday and again on Saturday morning. I think our new CEO/executive director Dave Koetje is already doing exactly what the board hoped -- vision casting and creatively leading CSI into the 21st Century. Dave and wife Marla hosted a get-together for the board Friday night at their house. Marla and I were in band together at Calvin Christian HS many moons ago.


I spent Saturday afternoon with Mom & Art. We visited Aunt Marilyn at the nursing home and also went to see Uncle Howard and Aunt Doris. It was good to see them; health is a fragile thing. Uncle Howard is still recovering from his car accident in late January. Aunt Marilyn was pretty coherent. Art is still limping badly from his fall two Sundays ago. He was pretty game about getting out, though!

The best thing about the weekend? Seeing my Gayle drive up at the airport and getting home safely!

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Nothing New

Lest we get comments about keeping our blog current- here's a new post. No pictures, not much happening, looking forward to Thanksgiving break, but no plans as yet. We've asked a few folks if they would like to join us, but it seems everyone has somewhere to go. Maybe we'll just go to the beach and have turkey sandwiches, who knows? Dad just got home from Michigan and we're getting ready for another school week. Maybe next week, after my class does chapel in their cute little Pilgrim and Indian costumes, I'll have something to post.

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Florida Fall, Wild Wilma, Cute Cids!

So, a little poetic license on the "kids", but since I already have to explain why Toys R Us can make their r's backwards, why not? Hurricane Wilma left us with wonderful temperatures, low humidity and our first opportunity to turn off the air since last May. Of course one of my students came to school with MITTENS! on Tuesday, but we'll forgive her for that. At least we finally got to color in a square on the weather graph that says "cold". I tell the kids they can't color in one of those until they actually wear a jacket to school - so this week we had four squares in the cold column and 16 matching TCS fleece jackets half of which had no names on the tags because the mothers don't remember that everyone has the same jacket and by10am all the jackets are on the floor or trying to hang on the backs of the chairs and we have a mess to see whose is whose when we hang them in the hall at recess!! (Diagram that one, Emily!) Since Monday was a hurricane day and Tuesday was the Pumpkin Patch trip and Friday was dress-up day and parade around the school and the teacher had a cold and couldn't talk on Wednesday and Thursday it seemed like nothing got accomplished! Add to that a birthday treat with that fluffly mile-high frosting that gets on your nose because you have to take a bite in the middle, and a "decorate your pumpkin cookie with icing and sprinkles" activity at the Fall party and there's no way the wee ones are going to settle down! We had a fun week in spite of all that. The kids did some great creative writing with rhyming patterns, counted 530 seeds in our pumpkin and did all sorts of "pumpkin math", but I'm hoping for a more stable week ahead.

Saturday, October 22, 2005

One Great Day

One Great Day for Downtown Orlando was one great day for The Christ School. We belong to a consortium of downtown schools and yesterday was the day when all the students go out into the community and perform public service tasks. It's a big undertaking to find places and suitable jobs for several thousand students, but it gives them all a taste of helping others. The fifth graders spent the morning at the Salvation Army doing a variety of things. The kindergartners made cards, paper flowers and a big mural and then walked to the fire station, the library, and the Lutheran Towers retirement home to give out their cards and flowers. The big mural with all little people marching across was presented to Compassion Corner which is a homeless help center right here in our building. It was quite humid for these activities, but the kids were good little troopers and a quick ride back to school on the downtown Lymo (free bus) was a good end to the morning.

Now that all you Bosschers have your Christmas name, please remember to post some gift suggestions. If we go ahead and put them on the blog comment place we can all read them and no one will be the wiser about who's got whom. Is that the correct grammar Miss Emily? By the way are cold germs able to be transmitted via the web? I came down with a nice head cold this weekend - however I think it's from a couple of snotty nosed kids that I chased with the tissue box and hand sanitizer this week. I'm trying to get caught up this weekend with school and house work, but keep falling asleep from the medicine I took to get rid of the sinus headache. Can't win.

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Wonderful Weekend



We're back home safely after a quick trip to Washington, D.C. The weather was a bit rainy the first couple of days, but Saturday was a fall day in the best sense of the word. We went out to a park that featured some farm animals and enjoyed the sunshine and the playground. The pictures should give you a good idea of where our focus was most of the time. The little grand is a real sweetheart and we enjoyed every minute of our time with the whole Waterhouse family. We even had a ride around the block in the Model A!

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Tough Day

Today was difficult. I had two students who have honesty issues. That’s a nice way of saying they lie to their parents – and me – about homework. Fifth graders! And it’s the end of the quarter, so it’s crunch time. Parent / teacher conferences should be really interesting, especially if we have the little darlin’s present!

The worst of the day was this morning before school. We had a tragedy in Orange County last night – a sheriff’s deputy with marital problems shot and killed his two children, ages 10 and 8, and killed himself. The 10 year old girl was a friend and fellow gymnast of one of my fifth grade girls. I had a heads-up from her mom via e-mail, but it was hard when Sarah walked into the room before school, weeping. I wrapped my arms around her, several other girls came over, and we had a group hug around Sarah.

It was so good to see the compassion and concern that the class showed to Sarah throughout the day. They made a card and gave it to her at the end of the day. The whole class faced Sarah and said in unison, “We’re sorry, Sarah.” Children who had minimal experience with grief, and yet they reached out in their simple way to their friend. The Body of Christ at work in fifth graders…

This golden thread of encouragement continued after school. I had a call from a former fifth grade student in Ft. Myers who is now a freshman at the illustrious University of Florida. Trevor had tracked me down after reminiscing over his fifth grade Summit yearbook. We caught up on family news and he thanked me for a good fifth grade experience. What a great, timely call! Thank you, Lord!

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Walkathon Blessings

In a week of over 6 inches of rain, Friday morning's hour and a half window of no rain was such a blessing as The Christ School celebrated it's most successful fundraiser. "Roary" the Christ School mascot got everyone pumped up and ready to walk.



The children participate by bringing in the pledges and donations and then we all celebrate by walking around Lake Eola in the heart of Orlando. We raised over $42,500.00 dollars and had such fun in the doing. The Orlando police stopped the traffic downtown and were positioned along the route and in the park. The kids loved the motorcycles and talked to the policemen along the way. It was good community PR for our school, but also for the police department.

Then after a nice lunch the kids go home...and the teachers have a reward! Dad and I stayed at school and worked on report cards for awhile so we can be mostly done by Wednesday afternoon.

My students bring their dads to school for Dandylion breakfast - it's a way to make sure that we have lots and lots of adult chaperones for the students on the walk. They are all so cute - wish I could post all their pictures, but you get the idea. There's a lot of hype and preparation for this event, but it was so well organized this year. We all had a great time!

Sunday, October 02, 2005

A Green Week

At the beginning of last week we had talked about driving to Sarasota on Saturday. My favorite plant nursery – Tropiflora – was having its annual fall sale. Tropiflora has about 100,000 square feet of nursery plants under net and six true Northern greenhouses for special plants like orchids. Tropiflora is the largest / best place I have found in Florida for bromeliads. Most of the “under net” is for hundreds of varieties of bromeliads. We have visited there three times; I bring my camera because of the spectacular plants and inflorenscences (that’s what bromeliad people call the flowers…great word, huh?). I also get a new sense of awe about the amazing conglomeration of plants God has created.

A trip to Sarasota takes about 2.25 hours and we spend 2 to 3 hours with the plants ooing and ahhing as well as buying. It’s a whole day commitment, and with the price of gas and the Pres asking us to conserve a bit, and the typical busyness of our weekend, we decided to use the Internet and forego our little excursion. I ordered seven plants from the Tropiflora catalog Monday night and they were delivered to school on Wednesday. A couple of the larger bromeliads were shipped unpotted so I had to get them in dirt. One already had a large pup. A pup is how bromeliads normally propagate. A new plant buds out from the base of the parent and eventually gets clipped off and repotted. By supper time I had them situated in their new home.

We have three unusual new plants – one for its flowering (Vriesea scalaris), one for the pattern on its leaves (Vriesea hieroglyphica), and one for both leaves and flowers (Billbergia vittata ‘Domingos Martins’). I love the names! I think that I’m continuing God’s mandate to Adam when I learn plant names and care for them.

On Saturday I spent about six hours on the yard. Mowing and edging go quickly right now; the grass doesn’t grow as fast as it does in June and July. I still have to spend time pruning and weeding each week – stuff grows quickly and it’s not all where I want it to grow. The majority of my time was spent in the back yard. We have one laurel oak left and it’s doing well. The grass was growing right up to the trunk and I wanted to get that back a bit. I also had a Billbergia pyramidalis that needed to get out of its pot. This bromeliad does well around trees – tends to have many pups and will “climb” a bit.

I dug out about 2 feet of sod all the way around the tree. I had a problem with sod webworms in the back yard and before I treated them, I had about a third of the sod dead. Hateful things! I took the sod from around the tree and put in shovel sized plugs in the dead turf. And I dug into the electric cord that I had buried a year ago to run the pump that recycles the water in the fountain. I didn’t cut through the wires but I did cut the insulation, so I spent 20 minutes berating myself for carelessness while I taped up the nicks in the wires.

It’s still hot in Orlando. It was about 90 degrees again yesterday, but we had a nice breeze. For Florida it was a windy day, but in the Midwest or New Mexico it would be just breezy. A front came down to northern Florida so we got a breeze and last evening, about a tenth of an inch of rain. Good for the sod project!

Monday, September 26, 2005

Incentives are a strange thing. Our local paper is full of incentives to buy products. The Saturday paper is positively fat with car advertisements promoting incentives to buy. I save the JoAnn Fabric incentives from the Sunday paper for Gayle.What incentives do you use to move you on through your days? I think that most of us have some way or another that we focus and push ourselves to get done what must be done. Are you a list maker or a bargainer? I’ve done both.I make a list of things to do and then when I’ve accomplished all of ‘em, I reward myself with some fun thing that I’ve been looking forward to doing. Other times I will say, “When I get through correcting this set of papers, then I’ll…” and fill in the blank with something chocolate. I use incentives to move my fifth graders. A 100 Point Party – points given for good behavior, special projects, and of course, M & M’s. It’s amazing how a little public recognition and a couple of M & M’s can lift the confidence and outlook of a student! I get incentives also. Last week a fifth grade boy said to me, “You really like teaching, don’t you?” He noticed! This is from a boy who spoke no English as a kindergartener, a boy who came to the USA as a refugee from Africa with his parents. And then I had the chance to tell him why – you can’t point kids down the pathway of life unless you know exactly where you are on that path. That as a child of the King, I know where I am, whose I am, and where I’m going. Way better than M & M’s!

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Stiff Competition

How does one compete with a 1929 Model A Ford, Shakespeare and fabulous fairies? Our life appears drab in comparison.
The days of this week just fluttered by with enough on task time to know that we are accomplishing our objectives and enough serendipity to keep the children awake and tuned in. In K we painted lions for Dandylion Day (Oct 7) and measured out a 36 foot long paper anaconda ( adding machine paper works great) that was far longer than a five year old's estimate and looks grand looped in the canopy of our rainforest. We wrote alliterative sentences using adjectives for the first time - such things as "large lions, live lemons, and lovely leaves." Of course the lemons were all hanging on a rather piney looking tree but on a tree nonetheless so they would be "live". I have some creative thinkers. Monday is Johnny Appleseed's birthday so my list of things to bring from home is long - the crockpot, some cinnamon, apple peelers, and a saucepan to put on my head while I read the J.A. biography. I'm hoping Rob will drop me off at the door of the school so I won't have to carry all my stuff from the parking garage. We have been riding together as much as possible to conserve fuel. We were planning a little trip to the Fall Festival of our favorite nursery in Tampa, but decided to save the $ and Rob will order a few new plants for his bromeliad collection online.
We're having a busy Sunday, Rob is leading music in church, I'm playing the piano, then we have our monthly potluck, then at 5:30 a little house warming party for a young couple at church who have purchased their first home. After that Matt and Jill are coming over and we will proctor an exam for them. They are taking seminary courses online and the exam is sent to us through email, we provide a quiet spot, then sign the test and mail it to the college for them. Next month they are going to China to check out locations and make plans for when they go there as missionaries sometime next year - after March 21 when their baby is due. They are our adopted family here - Jill never knew her father and calls Rob her special Dad and Matt's family live in North Dakota. Yes, I'm making a pink and a blue quilt, they would like to wait to know the gender so we just say Baby K (Kasowski).
I'm not going to add any pictures until I sign up and work through Fliker (sp) - last week the suggested program was Picasa - and it doesn't do what Fliker does so I'm going to see if I can change over. Wish me luck.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Ya'at'eh

We had a little social studies lesson on Southwest Indians of America today, so I dressed the part -- jeans, long sleeved plaid shirt, cowboy boots, and all the turquoise and silver jewelry I could reasonably wear. I felt tall all day! It was great...the kids enjoyed the new look of the old teacher, parents thought it was "creative", and several aides were openly envious. Probably because I wore blue jeans. That was worth the effort in itself! I used the overhead to show the kids some Navajo words, which they butchered. To top off the lesson, I hauled out our antique slide projector and showed the students pictures of Pueblo Bonito, Rehoboth, and the Gallup Intertribal Indian Ceremonial parade. All pre-1984, so no BJ in the pics!

It doesn't take much to arouse the curiosity of these kids. I take my coffee to school in a steel thermos. The kids didn't have a clue what that was! One boy asked if he could have some of my coffee, and I told him that he had to bring his own cup. He finally remembered today -- pulled out a cup wrapped in a sock from his back pack. I gave him a half cup which he sipped with dignity at his desk. It's OK; he's ADHD so a little caffeine is a good thing here.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

It's the Wierdest Thing

Rob posted a message last night about his New Mexico/Navajo social studies lesson and it appeared....and then disappeared. Question for the rest of you bloggers. Can you only post from the computer you started up on? Rob was doing it from his laptop. Would that be the reason it didn't seem to "stick"?
I had a long day - Wednesday is my day with no breaks and then after school I had a conference with the same parents who have been "high maintenance" since day one. They seem to agree with what you say, then a few days later they're back with the same questions. I'm praying they won't continue this way .....it could make for a long year. Tonight was my women's Bible study and only one person showed up - but she's very special. She came here from Belarus about 2 years ago and is engaged to a fella from our church. She is a relatively new Christian and has such a passion to learn from scripture. It was a special evening with just the two of us...and the lesson was on Jesus washing the disciples feet which she said she had never read before.
Tomorrow Rob has a search committee meeting at school in the evening and I'm bringing in supper for the 8 members of the committee. I have my boxes all packed, just hope I remember everything in the frig that needs to come along.

Ya'll welcome Beth to the world of blogging!

Monday, September 19, 2005

Day Two: Bomb

My second day as a blogger - I spent an hour trying to put a picture in the profile spot and feeling rather tired of the whole deal I finally ended up doing an email to the blogger help desk. The error message said the URL for the picture was too long....and how do you shorten a URL that the program itself created? Any help on this Kate or Em? Dad took the picture with his camera and copied it to a disk and that's where I was getting it from. I followed the directions from the Blogger Help page....Hmmmmm.

Sunday, September 18, 2005


Just found an easier way to upload pictures. These are a couple of my cuties during "G Week" when we made "gorgeous, glittery, green goggles."
Well, I successfully put a picture on our blog - however it didn't seem to go in the place I would have liked it. We're learning.

cryptanthus bivittatus Posted by Picasa

Up and Running

You're never to old to learn something new, so I'm taking the advice of my friend Cindy and creating a blog to stay in touch with my family. I know how much I look forward to my daughter's postings and I visit their sites everyday. This first posting will be a practice.