Smiley faces!

Mount Baker, Sunday Sept 4

Picture Lake. Shuskan in background.

The banana sticker says: "Please sticker on forhead. Smile"

One of Bagley Lakes. About 3 miles past Mt .Baker ski resort, Heather Meadows Visitor Center.

Presenter at National Conference

Today my proposal got accepted to the 2011 Coalition of Essential Schools Fall Forum in Rhode Island, November 10-12.

I will host a workshop session titled "Learning Goals and Interactive Math Journal Put Students in Charge of Learning in High School Algebra'


To read more about the conference, follow this link:
http://www.essentialschools.org/events/8/

More Skating photos

Enjoy a little chocolate donut from Uncle Paul.

Waiting for his race.

Vance's event is next.

Time for the big slide with Uncle Paul.

Sitting with the coach, Mike

Vance @ Regionals, Portland OR

At the end of the May, Vance and I headed down to Oaks Park in Portland for the Speed Regionals. It was us and Paul. It was a WONDERFUL weekend.

Vance checks to make sure he is tall enough to go on the each ride.

Strawberry smooth @ Starbucks.

I know this is blurry, but I love his happiness! We were on the teeter totter together so it was hard to take pcitures and go up and down.

We were racing down the double slide together.

I see you!

Arya peeks through a toy at a playground in Federal Way. Paul and I took the kids to the park to play before getting Domino's Pizza and heading back to the motorhome. Vance skated at his speed meet the next morning at 6am.

Family

All 3 on skates doing the Hokey Pokey. It has been fun with all 3 them rolling around. Makes my practice time more challenging!

Making Purple Cow Shakes. Arya has to show me her tiny puppy.

I found this on the camera. And she is how old? Vance took it of her. I left my camera outside and they took lots of pictures. She just laughed when I asked her about it.

Self picture.

Chef Vance making mac & cheese from scratch. He was not too sure about eating it when it was done. But he crushed up some Ritz crackers in it and ate a few bites. I loved it!

Vance skiing @ Mt Baker

The video was hard to shoot because I had to snowboard down the mountain, watch where I was going and keep Vance in the screen. So it is a little bumpy.

Vance Hits the Slopes!

On Friday, April 8, Ty and I took Vance to Mt Baker to ski. He was amazing (helps quite a bit that we skate). He loved the tow handle, but travelled to the top of the mountain with us twice and skied all the way down. He crashed every once in a while, but no tears or "I want to go home". At the end of the day, Ty was ready to be done. I asked Vance if he was ready to go. "No. I want to go more". So we went to the bathroom and headed back up for one last run of the day. The weather was GREAT! Sunny, warm spring day. It was perfect.

Mount Shuskan in the background. Happy Vance, waiting for dad.

Vance's first speed meet

Vance's first speed skating meet in Auburn January 15-17. He placed 4th in all 3 races and was super happy about that. He is number 179 in the photos.

Waiting and watching.

Seattle Aquarium. Arya loved it. Vance was like "Ok, I've seen enough fish. Let's go"

Pre-race sleep in the motorhome with Arya

Vance and his friends. Friends --a great part of speed skating. Vance has made new friends at practice and at meets. He is learning to listen well, follow routines (not required by mom), and be social. Six months or a year ago, he would have never done this. But he has grown so much since them. He skates ago in February in Bremerton.

Disneyland -- Mom & Zoie

Well, I planned a trip to Disneyland January 11-13 for both girls and me. But at the last minute Arya got left behind so it was just me and Zoie. Leaving Arya behind was a great choice because it allowed Zoie and I to go on all the rides and have LOTS of fun. It was 3 days of non-stop fun and excitement. She loved every minutes, as I did too. Ten years ago, I worked at Walt Disney World and loved it of course; Disney is just so magical, regardless of your age. There were no lines on any of the rides and low to mid-60's for the weather. We swam in the rooftop pool on the 2nd morning, saw the water color show in person and from out 11th floor room over looking California Adventure, ate ice cream for breakfast, entered the parks early since we were staying in the resort hotels, rode the Big Thunder Railroad 3 times in a row. It was a great trip. Neither of us wanted to leave. And the best thing was Zoie had NO idea about the trip. I woke her up at 3am on Tuesday morning and asked her if she wanted to go to Disneyland. She jumped out of bed, got dressed and was ready to go. Good thing I had already packed the backpacks, because we hoped in the car and headed to the airport. And thanks for Ty's friend Steve for shuttling us to and from LAX and taking awesome pictures of us at the beach.

view from our room

cotton candy as we head to Autopia so Zoie can drive the cars

Mary Poppins (we saw ALL the characters the first day. Awesome!)

Zoie actually let me be in a picture.

Toy Story Mania 3D ride. Super fun!

Finger painting gone bad

Zoie was fingerpainting downstairs. So Vance was interested too. I set him up in the kitchen and so discovered that the fingerpaint turned into body paint.

Zoie is fingerpainting her homework snowman.

I returned upstairs to see this.

I had to creatively carry him to the bath tub, taking care not to turn myself into the incredible hulk.

Trio in Pajamas

Believe it or not I did not ask them to ask together. I was trying to photograph Vance's new pj pants I made. He would only let me photograph them for Ms. Gigi (my principal), who the kids love. Then, they all stood together; I quickly switched the camera to multiple shots and surprisingly got this. This is only the 2nd picture this year I have been able to take with all 3 looking at the camera and not being total goof balls.

Even though all three kids are 25 months apart, the difference between Arya and Vance is much larger than that of Zoie and Vance. She will catch up soon and probably pass them up in size and strength. She is one tough cookie.

Kids and Ty

The series of photos of Arya shows she does not need help in our house. Here she is getting a box of cereal.

And now she is getting a bowl for the cereal.

Too cute and silly for words!