Denver Christmas

We spent a week in Denver / Aurora with Beth and Bob over Christmas. The 12/20 plane flight was elongated by weather moving through the Atlanta area; we sat on the ground in Orlando for 45 minutes and then flew in a circle north of Orlando because of the queued planes over Atlanta. Had 3 hours between flights so that worked out well. We got into Denver an hour late - midnight! - and then waited an hour for our luggage, so we hit the sack after 2 AM Mt. time...long day!

The weather was cold, but no snow. Beth and Bob had a nice activity list for us. We saw the Colorado Ballet production of The Nutcracker, which was outstanding. We visited the Denver Zoo and saw the Christmas lights. We went to the 4 PM Christmas eve service at Colorado Community Church. On Friday we drove to Winter Park and went tubing in the afternoon and had a sleigh ride at night. Beth even gave us a "special" scenic drive in Winter Park which allowed us to meet some really nice young men with a 4-wheel drive pickup! And in between these activities, lots of good catching up with the kids which made a thoroughly delightful week.

The flight back yesterday went smoothly. The contrast in 24 hours was striking. Friday night during the sleigh ride the temp was -5 degrees. We landed in Orlando to 74 degree temps and had to open up the house because it was stuffy!

Picture Perfect

Last blog before we head out to Denver for a week with Beth and Bob...We have had a wonderful couple of weeks! Weather has been warm - lows of about 60 and highs in the upper 70's. We had a half day of school yesterday to close out 2008 and took the motorcycle to a large shopping complex about ten miles east of us for some last minute shopping (small stuff) and supper outside at a Panera Bread. Hard to believe we'll be freezing our tootsies in Denver tonight!

I took last Friday off to "supervise" the two contractors who installed our replacement Andersen sliding door in the back of our great room. My little part in that was to stain the wood transition strip they installed to cover the gap between the door and the tile, and trim a half inch off the vertical blinds so they would hang above the wood strip. While they were working inside, I put together my wooden puzzles for my fifth graders. It took me about seven hours total to make 45 puzzles, but it was worth it! I gave them to the kids on Thursday and within 20 minutes six of the kids had already figured out the puzzle and gotten the two pieces apart. The other kids were in various states of confusion and knotted-ness. I spent much of Friday morning getting puzzles untangled, which is why I gave the puzzles out on Thursday. Some things are a given...
Gayle and I had such joy with our students. Her kids were told that there were several families at TCS who were really in need this Christmas, so the third graders collected four large boxes of food and $200. My kids wrote letters to servicemen, collected $105 in pocket change for two local organizations that help needy families, and assembled bags of necessary items for homeless folks. Their parents donated $1,500 for these items - socks, washcloth, toothbrush & paste, bus pass, etc. All this in addition to the fun of exchanging small gifts with each other and great class parties. Our children were very generous to us - snacks and treats, gift cards and ornaments. My class put my gift cards on a rosemary "tree" which I have planted in the back yard. It smells great! My favorite card from one of my fifth grade girls had this hand written note: "Dear Mr. B, Thank you for teacher me. Merry Christmas. You Rock!" Good thing we have another semester to work on her sentence construction! A favorite gift from Duke and his family, who were instrumental in giving me the original Harley rental 3 years ago when Duke's sister was in my class. Check out the last picture...
Time to go vacuum the lawn before packing. Our oak trees are shedding leaves and acorns at a phenominal rate, so I need to get them up and bagged before we have little oak trees in the lawn...

Thanksgiving

So, it's a little late. I think the pictures are worth the wait, but then I'm really really prejudiced! We had a great time in DC with the kids and grandkids. Weather was a bit cool, but that's November in Maryland. I-95 was smooth with not too much traffic. Such fun to see Luke and Erin growing and progressing well. And they love being read to -- apples and trees. I gave Luke a head scarf I had; he always talks about a fire bike, so I thought it would fit. He seemed to like the scarf, and of course Erin had to try it on also. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner -- thanks, Katie & GB!

And thanks for the tile advice, Alec! We made our cut Saturday, straight and no chipping.