It's a Go!

We heard today that CCPC has been approved by the USA Presbytery to lease the old Conway Presbyterian Church USA site. We have a few little details to take care of yet, but we hope to be in by this Sunday. Lake George Elementary's cafeteria has served us well for over 3.5 years, but now it's time to grow into a new place. The new site is less than 2 miles from where we were, and a mile closer to our house. We may have a moving bee Thursday evening. I did take some pictures at our service last Sunday -- I thought that it could well be our last time in the cafeteria, so I wanted a pictoral record of the service. God is so good! More to come...

We Beat the Feet

Thursday evening we were two of a two dozen contingent of TCS people at the annual OIA 5K Run/Walk. We were a small part of a large race; 10,600 people participated this year. GB and I did our power walk / jog around the slower folks in the road and did last year's time 5 minutes better -- 42 minutes! We were beaten by the 7 year old TCS first grader in the middle of the front row; little Lawton really has a motor! One of the fun things about the evening (from my point of view) was to walk across major roads and see all of the traffic stopped. I've been on the other end also, so this was fun payback! We slept really well last night...
This morning we took the 4th and 5th graders to Boone High School's track for our annual track & field day. My favorite was the 100 meter dash. My personal 4th grade favorite, Jordan rolled to victory on her scooter. I love her attitude!
GB gets to go to Wicked tomorrow with one of her third graders. Both parents had other obligations, so "Oh, twist my arm" Gayle said she could find the time to do this little thing! What fun!
One last thing...On my way to school this morning, I saw a bald eagle

flying toward me, about 50 feet overhead. And being chased by two crows! Not even the nation's symbol can dodge the raucus birds.

Bowling Green Tires

This week Wednesday, Jeff Hague (computer teacher at TCS) and I made good on our TCS auction offering and took six 5th graders Bowling With the Big Boys. The really good stuff was we got out of school in the middle of the day to do this. No one got over 110 -- not even Jeff or me -- but we had a great time. The boys were good, enjoyed a hot dog & fries for lunch, and we were back in time for the kids to go to Spanish class. They were not happy about that last little thing! We were just too punctual!
Next week we have to give our classes the SATs. This has got to rank toward the top of the most boring things to do as a teacher. School practice is that we do not give any homework, so any teaching time has to be with in-class practice of concepts only. I know that ability tests are necessary...but I don't like doing it!

I spent a couple of hours today cutting the grass, edging the lawn, and weeding in the back yard. I wish I could record the mockingbirds who serenaded me while I was outside working, or capture the perfume of the Confederate Jasmine that's blooming along the driveway. That would be an excellent blog! The variegated ginger is just starting to put out blooms; you can see one waxy white cluster on the end of a stem toward the left of the ginger clump. The pinkish/reddish plants in front of the window are Fire & Ice hibiscus; the sun was on them, so they seem a little more intense than they actually are. As I was working, I noticed that one of my bromeliads, an aechmea bracteata Rubra, was beginning to bloom. You can see from the inflorescence that it's bracted and has red sheaths -- hence the name. This plant will get small red flowers and then seeds on the ends of those bracts, which are very stiff. And if you look at the second picture, you can see why I keep this plant in a back corner away from traffic! It is a wonderfully unusual plant, but it has really nasty 1/4" spines on the leaf edges.

This past Thursday on the way to school I heard a small pop, like I ran over a packing bubble. Didn't think much of it until I got ready to leave in the afternoon and found out that my back tire was a bit flat. I was able to ease my way home and then found that I had picked up a staple, the kind you use to hold Romex up. I made an appointment with the bike shop on Saturday morning and rode to school with GB on Friday. This morning I tried to pump up the tire, but apparently the staple had done a really good job of messing with the inner tube -- no go. So I called a towing company that specializes in motorcycles and they got me to the bike shop on time. For $91! Man, am I glad I have towing coverage with my insurance! Turns out that the tires were getting on up in the miles and showing wear, so I now have a new inner tube and two new tires. They look good and ride well. I hope that I've seen the last of the flats for a long while...

We're off to the new Orlando IKEA this evening. Time to go exploring!

Spring Break

We spent four wonderful days in College Park with the kids and grandkids...and Emily was there! Except for Wednesday afternoon, the weather was cool and cloudy but that was fine with us. We just soaked up family time! Stayed up late, got up late -- for us, took some walks to the park, read to the kids, read our own books, Em sporadically worked on a term paper for her grad course, enjoyed church and adult Sunday School with the W's, and had a great meal at a Greek restaurant that Katie & Alec have come to enjoy. The baklava for dessert was almost too much. Many of the ornamental trees were in bloom, as was the forsythia and cherry trees around the Tidal Basin, but not the dogwoods. Luke is talking more and more and Erin is a busy little girl -- standing up around furniture and crawling all over the place.

We took Amtrak up to DC and back...did the coach-sleep-in-the-chair on the way up and rented a roomette (really a glorified closet) but it had 2 chairs that reclined, a sink, and a toilet, and the chairs came together to make a single bed and another single bed slid down on tracks from the ceiling. Meals were included as was steward service, which was nice. It was good to be away from the general noise of the coaches, and the personal rest room was really nice...even if it was right next to one of the chairs! We would travel this way again, understanding that you have to be flexible. Amtrak's motto should be The Journey is a Trip! We were delayed for a number of reasons on both legs of the trip; 4 hours northbound and 3 hours coming back to Orlando. We figured that it's just part of the package. We've certainly done our share of waiting through delays with airlines and even driving. We just brought our own music, books, magazines, games, and snacks to see us through!