Out of school for the summer

Latest scrapbook page! I did a tutorial from Vinnie Pearce....love her!

Credits: Vinnie Pearce walkthrough, Papers and Elements from Vinnie Pearce and Viva Artistry

Woohoo! The kids are out of school for the summer! They did fantastic on their last report cards. Kinzi made 90's club all 5 grading periods and Nathan did absolutely fantastic on all his comprehensive test and final grades! We are crazy proud of these kiddos!


Our current news is that Scruffy has been sick. He came down with some serious ear infections a week ago and had to have a bit of surgery. So he's had surgery for that and is on antibiotics. Scruffy has also had just about 1 seizure per month for the last six months. They felt it was time to put him on seizure medicine. The blood work also shows that his kidneys were having some problem and his calcium levels were crazy high. So now he is on a special kidney food diet. He now has an account at our regular pharmacy.

We went to the Gaslight theatre this weekend and saw Harley's Angels. It was quite good. We go to the theatre about 5 times a years with my best friend Diane and her family.

Chuck's foot is mending well. He's in physical therapy...thank goodness....maybe he'll have more function this time around.

Kinzi bought a mini hamster with her A money and he's adorable. She named him Bibbles.

Not much else going on...

You tube Video - Very good commencement speech

I just saw this video clip on another blog and thought I would post a link here. Ellen Degeneres gave this commencement speech at Tulane University. It's quite good!

Last week of school.....yeah!

Yeah! I'm on a new roll, at least two weeks in a row. First, my family is ecstatic because this is our last week of school!! They get out a 1:00 every day this week!

I thought I'd show you a picture of Chuck's Frankenstein Foot....bless his heart...it's just always going to look funny. The iphone photo was taken at the doctor's office moments after them taking off his cast. He has 30 staples in that foot. It was so swollen that you couldn't even see his ankle nubs. He's much happier now that the plaster cast is off and he is in a walking cast/boot. He will have physical therapy this time.

As I mentioned above this is the kids last week of school. Nathan finished his comprehensive exams on Thursday. Next year Kinzi will take comprehensives as well. Their last 6 days of school are just fun projects. Nathan signed up for an engineering project. Below he is making a bridge. The teacher gave them each 6 1-ft long sticks, a box of match sticks, nylon cord, glue gun, tape, mesh and sandpaper and told them to go build a bridge. This is the beginning of Nathan's bridge.

While 6 - 12th grade are taking comprehensive exams, the 5th graders went on a couple of field trips. They went to Colossal Cave and a ranch this day. Kinzi is sluicing for minerals.

This was at the ranch, I thought it was kind of funny.

A month and a half or so ago Mackinzi competed in Latin competition at the Uof A. She won the top award in her category. She recited a story....much like Romeo and Juliet....but in Latin. These are kids from our school.

Kinzi attended her 2nd Irish dancing competition this weekend. The competition is called a Feis (pronounced a feeeesh). The next two pictures are from today's competition. She won 1 5th place medal, 3 4th place medals and a 2nd place medal. She was thrilled. It is a huge competition. There are tons of girls competing. We didn't know how popular it was but we sure know now!

The last photos are from Mackinzi class feis two weeks ago. She won 3rd place twice and honorable mention once.

Darren runs the dance academy. It was the first time any of these girls competed in a feis.

Most of the dance academy where she attend class.....see if you can find her....look in the middle.
Big hint!

My mom asked me to start blogging again!

Well....I've gotta say I'm so happy with my mom....she asked me if I was going to keep blogging and that she missed it! Bless her heart! I wondered if anyone really read it or cared.....thanks Mom! I'll start blogging regularly again!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms and grandmothers out there!

Let's catch up on what's happening shall we! As you might know Chuck had surgery on his foot again. This is the same one that he sliced open on sheet metal 3 years ago. The new orthopedic doctor repaired the foot some more and took out stitches the last surgeon left in. Yep, the last surgeon didn't use dis solvable stitches and they were still in there....very painful. We go back to the doctor tomorrow and he'll have the surgery cast taken off. We don't know what he'll do from there but we know this time he will get to experience physical rehab on his foot. I suspect he'll be in another cast for awhile.

I attend the second photography workshop in Utah a couple of weeks ago. I've learned alot and hope to put lots of things in practice. I'll post more pictures just as soon as I have to to take some and edit them.

Kinzi attend her first Irish Dancing competition last weekend. She won two 3rd place metals and one honorable mention. Her next competition is next weekend. She's really loving Irish Dancing.

While Kinzi dances, Chuck takes Nathan shooting at a shooting range (not while he's on crutches though) and they have fun shooting targets. I can't tell you what they shoot but they shoot a couple of things.

The kids have two more weeks of school. Nathan's comprehensives are Tues, Wed and Thurs and then their last week will be major "fun" projects. I'm so glad we've found this school. Both kids are so happy there and they are learning an enormous amount.

Since I read all the time I thought I'd start telling you about the books I've read. My book club recently finish a book by my favorite author, Jodi Picoult. It's called Handle With Care. It's a pretty sad book but it was very good. My favorite book by this author is being made into a movie called My Sisters Keeper. If you haven't read Jodi Picoult, I highly recommend her!

My book club is now reading Glass Castle: A memoir by Jeanette Walls. It had me hooked from the first chapter. I also, highly recommend this book. If you know of any really good books, I could use some recommendations.

Our favorite TV shows have wrapped up or are wrapping us this week for the season. We watch Heros, Lost, and The Biggest Loser.

OH, Oh,Oh, if you didn't see Star Trek this weekend, you've really missed out. It is EXCELLENT. My whole family loved it! We saw Wolverine last weekend and it was really good as well. My girl friends and I just saw Ghost of Girlsfriends Past and it was just ok. Star Trek hands down get our overall vote.