Ty’s Weblog

Mira is still running a fever and has a bad cough.  Xander’s temp made it up to 102.5°F last night.  Kate has a bad cough and a sore throat.  So I’m home today on sick duty.

I had to go pick Xander up from school a little early today.  He’s got a temp of 101°F currently.  He seems to be doing pretty well with it though.  Hopefully it’ll be a quick virus and he’ll be over it.

I’ve still not managed to pick up a Wii for myself. I could have this morning, but I didn’t. Wal-Mart had them this morning. I called and they seemed to have plenty. I just couldn’t bring myself to give Wal-Mart the money though. I just don’t like them as a company. I can bring myself to shop there when it is something I need that they have that no one else does, but I just can’t shop there for a luxury.

On the up side, a friend of mine got one this past week and he’s hosting a game night next week. So at least I’ll get a chance to try one out in the near future.

Maybe Target will get more in next week.

Mira work up yesterday morning with a very croupy cough. Nothing serious though. She and I bundled up and went outside for about 5 minutes and that helped some. Then we moved the cool mist humidifier right under where she wanted to sit on the couch, and that helped also. She’s been running a fever of about 100.0°F since then also. She sounds a lot better today, but still has a bad cough and the fever. She’s clearly tired also. I’m sure she’ll be better in a day or two.

Computer and Video Games has up a preview for BioShock. I’m really looking forward to this game. It looks like it is going to be something beyond the usual shoot ‘em up that so many FPS games have become.

We are back home again.  Boy what a trip.  The funeral was very well done.   We held a graveside service at 2pm Friday and had a reception after.  It was nice to have all the family together even if it wasn’t for the best of reasons.  Xander, Mira, Trin, and McKena all had a great time playing together and we had a great time watching them and playing with them.

We got up and left around 8am this morning.  There was a snow storm coming and we were trying to beat the worst of it here.  We managed to make it to Richmond before the snow started.  Things got very slow after that.  We had long stretches of 5MPH.  Once we got of the Interstate, things were even worse.  At one stoplight, the car started sliding sideways toward the car beside it.  I turned the wheel and let off the brake and that stopped us.  It was slow going the whole way.  On Fairfax Country Parkway, we went 16 miles in 1 hour.

We did finally make it home safe and sound though.  Just a few minutes ago.  Xander and Mira did a great job in the car, even though it was a much longer drive than usual.  We did manage to beat the ice storm that this snow is expected to turn into later this evening, which was the largest part of the goal there.

The drive was worth it though to give the kids the extra day to see their cousins.  We see them so seldom, we would have hated to have left an earlier.

All in all it was a good trip, despite the reason for it.

My Dad called this morning to let us know that his mom, Nanaw to us, passed away overnight. It’s been a long time coming. She’s been expected to die so many times now, I can’t even count them. It’s sad to have lost her, but it’s a relief also. She’s been in bad health for years now and it’s really amazing that she lived this long. We’ll miss her, and I’ll never forget growing up with her around. She was a wonderful person.

For the record, yes they are very good.  Kate got us the peppermint and the cinnamon, both were quite yummy.

“The phrase is ‘Whoever dies with the most toys wins.’”

Ah, yum. This was a post on Slashfood back in August, I’ve not noticed them in stores though. I’m not normally a big fan of dark chocolate but I’ll be on the lookout for these anyway.

Looks like at least one type is out. I’ll really have to be on the lookout for them.

Today I got to visit the kids classrooms,

First up was Xander. First he showed me his handwriting practice that he does every morning. He takes some tracing paper and lays it over a template with the alphabet, some punctuation, and numbers on it. Then he practices making all of them.
After that , he shows me his editing work. His teacher writes out some thing for him, in this case a short letter, but with lots of mistakes in it. His job is to find the mistakes and correct them. He does this with correct editing symbols. I was very impressed at how quickly he could move through the letter finding the problems.
Then he showed me one of his science experiments. He took some magnets and was looking at how many paper clips he could suspend from each one before they fell off.

After that, he showed me the multiplication bead board. He picks a problem out of the box and then puts beads down on the board to help him learn his multiplication facts.

The hour was up quickly. I gave him a hug and told him how proud of him I was. He seemed to have had a wonderful time, and I know that I did. He even let me take on of his handwriting practices that he did for me and take it to work to hang on my wall.

After that it was Mira’s turn. Kate and I did this observation together.

First, Mira showed us the flower cutting work. I was amazed at how much she is able to do on her own. She gets the work tray out and brings it to the table. Then she goes and gets water in a small pitcher and pours it into a bowl. Then she goes and selects a flower to cut. Then she puts on her apron to keep herself from getting wet. She trims the flower down to the proper size to fit into one of the small vases they have in the classroom. They have them do it in stages though, instead of one cut, to give them more practice. She trims the pieces into the bowl of water. Then she takes the bowl and throws out the stems and dumps out the water. Then she goes and picks a vase. She puts more water in the small pitcher and pours it into the vase. Then she puts the flower in the vase and puts it on one of the tables in the classroom. Then she cleans everything up and puts it all away.

Then she showed us the spindle box. She has a large box which is divided into sections labeled from 0 to 9. She takes spindles from the spindle box and counts them out for each section.
Next she showed us the continent puzzle. This is a large puzzle with the seven continents as separate pieces. She takes the pieces out and puts them down on the guide map (which is basically a picture of the puzzle with the names of the continents on them.) Then she labels each continent with the color coded label which goes with each of them. She actually knows which ones are Europe, Australia, and South America without any help already. She named those as she picked them up from the puzzle all by herself. Then she puts the puzzle back together.

Next up was the sound box. She went and got the box and then a set of sandpaper letters to go with them. In this case it was s, t, b, m, and a. She then takes the objects from the box and puts them under the correct letter, really under the correct sound, since that’s what they focus on in the classroom. The hardest part for her was knowing what all the things were called, since some of the objects are unfamiliar to her, or might have another name that wouldn’t fit under any of the sounds.

At that point we were done with the list she had made with her teacher, so she started picking other things to show us. We also got several demonstrations of mat rolling during all of this.

Next she shows us the caterpillar puzzle. It is a puzzle of a caterpillar with the pieces numbered from 1 to 10. She takes them out and builds it on the table and then puts it back in the puzzle again.

She showed us the knob cylinders next. They are different sized cylinders which she removes from their places and then puts back into the correct positions.

Then she showed us the bead stringing work. It’s a long string that she puts large beads onto. It’s another of the manual dexterity works that they have the kids do.

Then she was getting ready to show us the table washing work, but we ran out of time, it was time for morning circle in the classroom. Kate promised her she would come a little early to pick her up and let her show her then, which she did. Kate said it was quite impressive.

We gave her goodbye hugs then and Kate and I left to go have lunch together, which was another treat in itself.

We were both very proud of the work that our kids are doing at school.  They both do a great job at school, and I’m always amazed at what they are able to do.  I look forward to having another chance to come visit them in the classroom in the future.

Happy 2007!  We’ve had a wonderful start to the new year together.  We’re all a little sad about getting back to the real world again tomorrow though.  We’ve gotten used to spending all our time together doing pretty much what we want.  Now it’s back to work and school again.  It’s been a wonderful break though.