Snow-Wigd and the Christmas Elves, a December pre-trip!

Oh we don't have a pool at our school either, we took a bus that was 20 minutes late to our recreation center.
It does seem a little strange to take on one more thing when there is such an emphasis on testing. How do you teach everything you need to teach in a day and then lose 8 afternoons to pool school?

Yes I would agree with you that would be hugely stressful. I am interested though, our two are in swim lessons right now, b/c neither swim, and DS7 is frankly a little skittish about the water -- I don't want him to be one of those statistics, even though both DH and I are not really avid water people.... the younger one is no fear in the water....

Still with the testing emphasis, I do wonder just like you say!:confused3
 
Oh we don't have a pool at our school either, we took a bus that was 20 minutes late to our recreation center.
It does seem a little strange to take on one more thing when there is such an emphasis on testing. How do you teach everything you need to teach in a day and then lose 8 afternoons to pool school?
As a Mom of a son who doesn't know how to swim, I totally agree with them learning how to in school. Right now we don't know what will happen next semester, as son, who is 36 has to swim in order to graduate from ECU...LOL. God help him......
 
Jumping in over here too. Wow, that was some FES drama. Glad he is gone and all is back to "normal" The CHristmas trip sounds like such fun. Can't wait to read along.
Hi Mary! Welcome to the pre-trip!
It's very normal here at the house with just us, but I hope Max does well with his new family.
I'll just tell you the trip report to follow will be FULL if drama. I already have one daughter wanting to rent a car to so shopping at the outlets and guess what, she isn't old enough to drive a rental.....
:headache:
That's very interesting. Do they do it during P.E. time? Do you have a pool at your school, or will they be traveling to a high school or community pool? I think it's a good idea. If it saves one life ever, it was worth the effort. I can't imagine our system ever doing something like this, but I do think it's a good thought. Most of our families can't afford lessons, since we have over 95% poverty families
Actually tomorrow is during P.E. time but for the most part the 8 days we are going are during language arts, social studies/science time....
We take a bus to a rec center with an indoor pool just about 5 minutes away. It is funded through a grant as part of our district wellness policy. I would say that only 1 in my 20 can't swim already, but a large number of our kids have their own pools. We also have a large water park near our school, so they swim a lot in the summer.
The school I taught at last year was much like your school. Those kids really needed the lessons. They simply didn't have the opportunity to learn.

I can just see it now, that girl is going to get her hair pulled and I will be blamed!:rotfl2:
If I had waited a year or two to buy my points, I would have a lot more now, too! But seriously, I was very happy with the timeshare store and as soon as I am ready to add points I will contact them directly for more! I recommend them to everyone. Some of the larger contracts that are coming through nowadays are really, really good!
I wish we had done a little more homework. I also wish I had some money right now for some of those contracts!
I like the idea of swimming lessons for the kids. I never took swimming lessons growing up but in the summers all I wanted to do was swim so my parents taught me. My mom made it a priority since when she met my Dad he didn't know how to swim and neither did any of his siblings.
Good for your parents, so many times it's easy to allow your fears to become the fears of your children. I'm glad you got your swimming lessons!
I agree, that would be VERY cool!
I wonder if Chelsea has decided on something else, Jackie you can tell us, we won't spill the beans to any mean girls!
Those stinky kids - sometimes I think the girls are more mean to each other than the boys are. Boys seem to have their fights but then it's over - the girls remember and carry around the grudges. At least that's been my experience. Ahh the memories. You couldn't pay me enough money to go back to those years!
Boys just get down to business when there is a problem but girls can be so vicious! Girls seem to have a much bigger problem letting go of a quarrel.

Me either! Who says that those are the best days of your life?
They weren't the best days of mine, although I did have some good times in High School....;)
Wishing you luck with the pool school. That really sounds like a great idea. There was a boy of about 5 or 6 last week at the Kidani pool and he was terrified of the water. I felt so bad for him...his parents were gently coaxing him and his older brother wanted him to go in too. :(
Day 2 of pool school is over, it was a much better day, although my girls had quite the problems getting dressed with their undried bodies. I told them that they were panty whiners!:laughing:
:eek: No more teen or school years for me thank you very much. My niece Brielle was a lot different this year than last...she is now 13 :scared1:and in the 8th grade---at the high school--they are a small district. She knows EVERYTHING!!

Tracy
My girls knew way too much as well. I'm glad we are finished with that!

Hey Anita,

I'm glad that your home is your own again...
It is really nice to be comfortable!:goodvibes

I think that you have a charitable attitude towards Max and lets all hope that he learned from this lesson and goes on to be a wiser more mature person...
Thanks, I hope he has a good year. It's a huge opportunity for him to waste!

I had to laugh when you brought up the Chinese food from a Christmas Story...I think it would be kind of cute to do the Chinese...but then again I like Chinese food... (A Christmas Story has grown on me over the years...I didn't initially like it...but it really makes me laugh now...Stocking legged lamp anyone...)
I think my biggest fear is that it won't be any better than the Chinese food we get here all the time.

Not to hijak your thread:
My thread is your thread! Feel free anytime....:goodvibes



Luckily Emily has pretty good self confidence-but there's a little group of witches...who are teasing her and a couple of her friends-this past weekend (for get this...being SMART. and being in honors classes-how warped is that?..
I'm sure it's a bad case of jealousy! :mad:

Btw-Jackie-Emily is going out as Alice and some of her friends are doing the other characters...but wow-you gotta watch some of those costumes for teens...or you look like you have the cast of an adult movie...:faint:
Oh please get some pictures to post!

I heara ya on the costumes!! My sister and I were just discussing this the other day. Some of those are just offensive. Yikes. :scared1:
I'm sure the boys won't mind them a bit.....:rolleyes1
I see that a lot since I teach the gifted kids. I always tell my students just to remind the ones picking on them that they will make more money when they are older because they do care about school. ;)
I've told my own daughters the same thing about some of the boys they considered "nerds". They are going to be making the big bucks.....



No kidding! Some of the ones Chelsea showed me were a teensy bit too much!
I'm sure Chelsea isn't interested in the teeny costumes....is she?;)

very cool on the swimming I think. It can be difficult to get kids on a regular enough lesson schedule so they actually learn. I think it's great.
I'll be watching my one little guy to see if he learns anything....:confused:

Kendall was a Goth Fairy one year, rather tink-ish. It was cute.

I think she and 2 of her friends are regressing back a few years. They are debating between the PowerPuff girls (again).

Or Pie.

How one dresses as a lemon meringue pie I've not a clue.

Thankfully other than that we have one crazy inventor and one "random" which is my favorite, both Taylor and Kendall did it one year and apparently it is Evan's turn. Random means combining all the wierd parts of costumes collected over the years into one odd assemblage and accenting it with face paint and colored hair spray.

He originally wanted to be a fork, which I thought was hysterical.
The goth tink sounds very cute and I'd like to see the end results of some of those costumes.....PIE???

my school district does the swimming thing. My boys all love it and Bailie was horrified that she would have to be in a bathing suit near boys.
I think my kids are too young to worry about how they look in a swimsuit, another good thing about second graders!:cutie:
Brian Adams from the 80s..... OOOOOOOOOOOOOh and look where this one shot wonder song got him.... CLEARLY no one agreed with him....
Oh my gosh, someone is showing her age! Brian Adams!:laughing:
Yes I would agree with you that would be hugely stressful. I am interested though, our two are in swim lessons right now, b/c neither swim, and DS7 is frankly a little skittish about the water -- I don't want him to be one of those statistics, even though both DH and I are not really avid water people.... the younger one is no fear in the water....

Still with the testing emphasis, I do wonder just like you say!:confused3
As of day two of swim lessons I have decided not to let it stress me out, we will teach as much as we can and have out swim lessons for eight afternoons. Baylor would be mad if he knew I mentioned this but we have had an inground pool since before he was born. He is very skittish around the water. I wish he would have had lessons in the second grade...
OR a teensy bit to little... it seems... :laughing:

(the amount of fabric, that is...)

A couple of year ago when my oldest daughter Megan was away at college I saw some Halloween pics of her as a naughty librarian.....:eek:
 

As a Mom of a son who doesn't know how to swim, I totally agree with them learning how to in school. Right now we don't know what will happen next semester, as son, who is 36 has to swim in order to graduate from ECU...LOL. God help him......

Oh no Wanna! :eek: Can he swim at all???
 
Anita...I really have appreciated your conversation about DVC with MEK!! Prince P and I are seriously considering buying in the next year and we have been doing our homework and I'm glad we aren't wrong in serisouly considering resale as our option...that and I might want to buy at Old Key West and that would be the only way to go LOL!!!!!! So the two of you have been extremely helpful!!!

Wow...trust me as a fellow teacher I know how much pressure is on you!! I'm glad to hear you are just going to go with the flow and just keep swimming, just keep swimming (I'm sorry I couldn't resist, perfect Dory insert there LOL). Have a great week!!
 
Anita...I really have appreciated your conversation about DVC with MEK!! Prince P and I are seriously considering buying in the next year and we have been doing our homework and I'm glad we aren't wrong in serisouly considering resale as our option...that and I might want to buy at Old Key West and that would be the only way to go LOL!!!!!! So the two of you have been extremely helpful!!!
Well you know what they say about hindsight. I just keep thinking if we would have bought resale to begin with.......
I'm happy to be of some help!
:goodvibes

quote]Wow...trust me as a fellow teacher I know how much pressure is on you!! I'm glad to hear you are just going to go with the flow and just keep swimming, just keep swimming (I'm sorry I couldn't resist, perfect Dory insert there LOL). Have a great week!!
[/quote]
The time the kids are in the pool isn't bad, even the locker room with the girls isn't bad, they have some of the funniest conversations while getting ready to swim and getting dressed after...:rotfl:
It's the time when the other two classes are in the pool that we have to keep them busy....
They have given us a racquetball court to use.....can you say 20 kids in an echo chamber?:scared1:
Then they give us a basketball court with basketballs.... I'm going to have to find some other activities for the gym besides shooting hoops, they are dropping like flies! Jammed fingers, balls to the face, oh did I say balls to the face???
:confused:
I must admit I did have some good times but none of them were with anyone I went to school with, just people I worked with. :rolleyes1
Just as long as you had a good time and didn't get into much trouble.
 
[
Oh my gosh, someone is showing her age! Brian Adams!:laughing:

As of day two of swim lessons I have decided not to let it stress me out, we will teach as much as we can and have out swim lessons for eight afternoons. Baylor would be mad if he knew I mentioned this but we have had an inground pool since before he was born. He is very skittish around the water. I wish he would have had lessons in the second grade...


A couple of year ago when my oldest daughter Megan was away at college I saw some Halloween pics of her as a naughty librarian.....:eek:


OH I know, but Brian Adams was so popular!!!!! EWWWW is all I can say now! Something about middle school, I think, that was when I remember him and his dorky music!

Re the swimming, I was skittish around water, and still am to a degree, I just don't want my kids to get that "fear" from me... my youngest will be swimming before christmas I believe, and I am hopeful my 2nd grader will at least be more confident -- it is all about safety in my mind, I don't care if he only dog paddles the rest of his life, just want him to know what to do if he ever falls in water too deep...

Oh I have seen those kind of costumes!!! :laughing:
 
Hi Mary!
The goth tink sounds very cute and I'd like to see the end results of some of those costumes.....PIE???
:eek:

goth-tink.gif


There were wings and a wand but I think she'd taken them off before we snapped the picture. I remember her having a hard time with those nails!
:rotfl:

yeah...pie.

:confused3
 
OH I know, but Brian Adams was so popular!!!!! EWWWW is all I can say now! Something about middle school, I think, that was when I remember him and his dorky music!
LOL, your Brian Adams song made me feel ancient!:laughing:

Re the swimming, I was skittish around water, and still am to a degree, I just don't want my kids to get that "fear" from me... my youngest will be swimming before christmas I believe, and I am hopeful my 2nd grader will at least be more confident -- it is all about safety in my mind, I don't care if he only dog paddles the rest of his life, just want him to know what to do if he ever falls in water too deep...
I remember hating swimming lessons, jump in and do 10 "bobs" not my favorite thing to do, I think I was a crier....
I can swim now, and always try to do an annual dive into the pool, just to show they guys that I still can....:cutie:
It sure gives you a peace of mind to know they can swim enough to get to the side of the pool. I had to jump in more than once, fully clothed to haul Baylor out when he was little, just playing on the pool deck. One time he rode his tricycle right down the steps. It was like slow motion......I'm thinking that made him a little scared of the water.

Oh I have seen those kind of costumes!!! :laughing:
I was a bit shocked.....

goth-tink.gif


There were wings and a wand but I think she'd taken them off before we snapped the picture. I remember her having a hard time with those nails!
:rotfl:

yeah...pie.

:confused3
I think she looks very cute, the nails however look a bit frightening.:eek:
 
Anita...I really have appreciated your conversation about DVC with MEK!! Prince P and I are seriously considering buying in the next year and we have been doing our homework and I'm glad we aren't wrong in serisouly considering resale as our option...that and I might want to buy at Old Key West and that would be the only way to go LOL!!!!!! So the two of you have been extremely helpful!!!

Wow...trust me as a fellow teacher I know how much pressure is on you!! I'm glad to hear you are just going to go with the flow and just keep swimming, just keep swimming (I'm sorry I couldn't resist, perfect Dory insert there LOL). Have a great week!!


Anita-Just to pipe in with a question here...(since we've been following along with the resales...Hatter really likes the Boardwalk and Beach Club...-and its seems like there are some good deals right now...especially at the Boardwalk...)...why do you think that resale is the way to go...(the DVC people really push the new resorts-probably for obvious reasons...) but other than the length of time left...do you think you miss out on anything buying resale?

Btw-I'm enjoying your swimming stories...actually swimming may be the overall best excercise for you...Did you really tell them they were panty whiners?...:lmao:
 
The LeCellier would have cost us $52 per person, besides we have another meal there earlier in the trip. They also offer the package with R&C but we have an evening ADR there hoping to catch Illuminations from the patio.
Right now I'm thinking that we are going to be at Biergarten if we can find something for Baylor to eat on the buffet.[/color][/size][/i][/b]

We are doing Biergarten as well. It gets really good reviews it seems-even from people that don't think they will like it, so I hope that is the case with you guys as well! (and us too!). I think it will be a very festive time, I love the Germany pavilion with the Christmas decorations, so beautiful!!

Her friend stole her idea, now that's just wrong.....:mad:

I agree! How awful for her to steal Chelsea's idea! I do like the "Goth Tink" idea....

Well, I don't think I told you all the latest on school. We start pool school tomorrow. Monday through Thursday for the next 2 weeks our 2nd graders will have swimming lessons.....
Statistics have shown that if a child can't swim by the 3rd grade they probably never will.....
The entire district will take part in this. There has been major controversy. I have tried to just go with the flow. Maybe it will save a child's life.

Very interesting! I wish my school would have done this, I think it's a great idea. I wasn't a very good swimmer and almost drowned when I was about 11 years old. I took swimming lessons for the next couple of years after that!!! :laughing: I have a good friend who is 31 and doesn't know how to swim, neither do his siblings.
 
Anita-Just to pipe in with a question here...(since we've been following along with the resales...Hatter really likes the Boardwalk and Beach Club...-and its seems like there are some good deals right now...especially at the Boardwalk...)...why do you think that resale is the way to go...(the DVC people really push the new resorts-probably for obvious reasons...) but other than the length of time left...do you think you miss out on anything buying resale?
There is only one thing you will miss out on if you buy resale. The incentive to get you to purchase. In our case it was developer points that allowed us to stay at SSR. This honestly amounts to one free resort stay. In the long run after that vacation is over.... well it's done.
If you buy resale you can purchase the same points that may be costing $107 per point at $88 per point.
Now talking Boardwalk VS Beach Club.....
They both have great locations.
Beach Club is closer to the IG.
Beach Club has Storm Along Bay. Only Beach Club guests can swim there and that in itself sold us.
In the long run you will end up with more points to enjoy for many years if you put the same amount that you would have spent with Disney into a resale contract.
I hope that makes sense...:confused:
Oh and it you really watch, sometimes you can purchase a contract that has banked points. That gives you an extra trip right there!
When you use your points, whether you buy from Disney or resale, you are a member, and always hear that "Welcome Home"!

Btw-I'm enjoying your swimming stories...actually swimming may be the overall best excercise for you...Did you really tell them they were panty whiners?...:lmao:
It's amazing, those little girl conversations in the locker room.....:lmao:
YES I called them panty whiners again today!
:rotfl:

QUOTE=brookelizabeth;33962307]
We are doing Biergarten as well. It gets really good reviews it seems-even from people that don't think they will like it, so I hope that is the case with you guys as well! (and us too!). I think it will be a very festive time, I love the Germany pavilion with the Christmas decorations, so beautiful!!
Baylor has officially decided that he wants to give Biergarten another try. I must admit I'm really excited about his decision. I love that German Potato Salad.....:cloud9:



I agree! How awful for her to steal Chelsea's idea! I do like the "Goth Tink" idea....
You have to wonder about friends like that...:confused:



Very interesting! I wish my school would have done this, I think it's a great idea. I wasn't a very good swimmer and almost drowned when I was about 11 years old. I took swimming lessons for the next couple of years after that!!! :laughing: I have a good friend who is 31 and doesn't know how to swim, neither do his siblings.
I'm keeping an eye on my one non-swimmer, I hope it really helps him....
Today they put on life jackets and took them to the deep end. They were practicing what to do if they are in cold, deep water. They linked arms and floated in a circle. Then they laid back. I'm telling you they looked like they were doing some sort of water ballet. It was so darn cute!
 
Wannabinnc;[COLOR="RoyalBlue" said:
33964981]Well[/COLOR], Shaina was trying to teach him last summer and he got in a few strokes, so hopefully he will do ok. Oh Dod!!!!

I hope he does OK, you know that little Gator will want to swim with daddy someday!:goodvibes
 
I'm going to jump in here, since both the 80's and Halloween costumes have been mentioned, to say that Amelia, who's 10, is dressing as PUNKY BREWSTER! Remeber her? We've been getting the discs from Netfliks and she's hooked!:laughing: Sorry for the hijack.:)
 
I'm going to jump in here, since both the 80's and Halloween costumes have been mentioned, to say that Amelia, who's 10, is dressing as PUNKY BREWSTER! Remeber her? We've been getting the discs from Netfliks and she's hooked!:laughing: Sorry for the hijack.:)

Now that is sooo darn funny, yes I remember Punky Brewster :lmao: :lmao:you must post a picture of Amelia.
I can't wait to see it! Post it on my thread if you want!
 
I'm going to jump in here, since both the 80's and Halloween costumes have been mentioned, to say that Amelia, who's 10, is dressing as PUNKY BREWSTER! Remeber her? We've been getting the discs from Netfliks and she's hooked!:laughing: Sorry for the hijack.:)

That will be cute! I have a student who dresses like Punky Brewster, looks like Pippi Longstocking, and acts like Amelia Bedilia! Bless her sweet heart - she is as ADHD as they come - no meds, and scattered out all over the room all day, but just as sweet as she can be. When I first saw her on the first day of school, I thought of Punky Brewster. :laughing:



wigd, we're heading out tonight. We'll send pictures to Trent to FB, if you care to follow. Enjoy your weekend!
 
DSC00520.jpg



Here is some potato salad to hold you over a few months!! :thumbsup2
This is the only place I like salmon too! Don't forget to have Baylor try the mac and cheese.....very good!
Oh this makes me so hungry!!!!!!!!! :sad2:

Tracy
 











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