The DDA Trouble Free Zone Part 29

[PNO4TE]

Robyn - I hope you feel better in the morning.

 

[UP Disney]

Vicki,,

Stephanie and I have two shirts that we wore to Epcot for the F&W. If you are interested, we could send you the pictures. They are very nice and Chuck would like them. They do have the hand and wand in them, but they are very nice.

Please do send them. Are you going to wear yours? I'd love to match you guys. I think we'd have fun!

 

[UP Disney]

me, me, me!!

The wedding one???? We have a few EPCOT F&W shirts we could send.

I'll bring the wedding ones and if you guys can send me the F&W, I'll make some of those to match.

 

[tinknme]

Glad to hear they had a good 1st day!

So both kids had great first days. Alyssa told me that her teacher taught her to count to 100, which I thought was strange since she already knew how to do that. Then she tells me "1, 2, skip a few, 99, 100". She thought that was just hysterical. She also told me that she did cry for me once during the day, because she started missing me. Her teacher had a talk with her and she was better. Nicholas bounced right back into things. After soccer practice I took them out to dinner at Dairy Queen to celebrate the first day of school. It's the only thing between our house and soccer (except McDonald's), and you get free dessert. YUM!

 

[UP Disney]

Vicki,,

I am so ready to do every waking hour at the parks. I can always sleep at work. The phone would wake me up

Becky says Chuck & I have to get some sleep while we are there. She says she doesn't want crabby parents when we return! She knows her dad. He'd be a grouch if he didn't get his sleep.

 

[tinknme]

They do this here till they hit 7th grade. I have 1 more year of signing agendas for Riley. I hope next year he stays on top of things!

One of the things that they instituted when Katrina started 5th grade was they handed out assignment books. It was part of the curriculum. The teachers wrote the assignments on the board, the kids had to fill it out every day, and the parents had to sign it once a week. The kids were graded on the assignment book - basically, they just had to have it filled out. It was part of the grade for every class. Let me tell you, it really helped many of the students. It was started because Katrina's class was going into middle school and they were the worst class (as a whole) to come through the school. They made changes when they went into the middle school and they made changes in the high school, the year they went there as well.

 

[UP Disney]

Did anyone else wake up thinking of June this morning?

Yes, I woke up thinking of her all week-end. She was an awesome lady and I miss her advice.

 

[ButchsLilPrincess]

thank you Terry and Deb. Jen, remember if there's anything at all please don't hesitate. We're all for you, even if all ya wanna do is make out cyber shirts soaking wet with tears.

 

[my3princes]

Nick and Hunter both have assignment books and have for several years. This year it appears that we don't have to sign Nick's at all and if all goes well we only will have to sign Hunter's for a few weeks and then they're on their own.
My kids do very well in getting their homework done on their own. Of course the house rules are snack, homework, pick up their rooms, then fun. If they miss the homework part then there is no fun and they will get earlier bedtimes. Staying up is important to them so they follow the rules

 

[tinker1bell]

I left work on Friday at about 3pm. Got gas and made sure everything was packed. Left the house at 4:15pm and immediately hit traffic 30 minutes later. Had to make the decision whether to take the Turnpike a few exits over to Carlisle to catch 81 or go thru Harrisburg and catch 81. No matter which way I would choose, there would be traffic. I was in traffic bumper to bumper for just about an hour. Didn't do any good on my heel with stick shift. All that stretching, my leg wanted to go numb a lot.
The last few times we have gone down, we learned a new route and this was the first time I had driven it by myself. It really was not that bad, I had my CDs playing and was grooving to the music. I could not believe I actually hit a line of traffic going up and down the mountains. I mean, there was a little bit of a traffic jam going on.
Driving in the dark is very different. When there is rain, snow, sleet or even fog, you can sense where to go. Just plain dark is somehow different. But I arrived at my location at 10:30pm.

It is always so much fun when we visit Bruce and Carol. Interesting enough, Hal met Bruce doing Ham Radio nets and he kept asking us to come down. I am so very glad we finally did. We have known them for over 10 years. We always try to cook one meal and they really enjoy that. We have made Southern Fried Chicken, Pot Pie, and Hal has made Pizza a few times. He also made Chinese a few times.

Since they are live so far out, they cannot find some things that we all take for granted, so we try to bring the things they need. I had gone to get a lot of dried flowers so Carol could use them to arrange for the vases that Bruce turns. We made over 46 while I was there.

I drove out that Saturday up to Cass Railroad and took a few pictures. The station, the building they show a film about the railroad, the train coming into the station.

My favorite, twin Thunderbirds

I forget who likes barns but here are a few.

The first is owned by Stephen Koontz the author. It orginally advertised a hotel.

next just a few more. In the one picture you can see one of the telescopes from Greenbank the observatory.

The sign for the observatory

Something out front, just not sure what it is but it is cool.

Callie and I having some scratching good time with a few belly rubs added.

Finally Bruce and Carol with from the left, Bullet, Markie and Cache the 8 month golden, lab mix. He is a trip, loves to wash all the time.

We had lots of fun, watching TV, eating, drinking and just having a good time. I love just sitting on the front porch watching the Hummingbirds fly by. Listening to the creek
I always hate to leave because I feel the time goes by way too fast. I left Monday and made it home in just 5 hours.

 

[tinker1bell]

Please do send them. Are you going to wear yours? I'd love to match you guys. I think we'd have fun!

We have planned to wear both of them. I will find the pictures and send them to you.

 

[Blueeyes101817]

I think im headed to bed--didnt get much sleep last nght so i took my tylenol pm..

have a great night everyone

 

[PNO4TE]

Sounds like everyone's kidlets had pretty good first days and you all didn't totally lose it!

I ended up having a very good day and am looking forward to tomorrow. Just finished my salad for dinner and am going to brush my teeth and head to bed.

Good night, DDA!

 

[ButchsLilPrincess]

Terry what great picures. I'm glad you had such a good trip even with the traffic and your heel acting up .. I love the flowers and the vases. they're beautiful. and Bruce and carols dogs are just gorgeous. I can't wait to have doggies again .. I miss having animals around the house with me .. I just hate the training part lol

 

[UP Disney]

Well, I'm off to bed. I had a good but busy day. Have a great Wednesday DDA friends! Prayers & for all that need it.

 

[my3princes]

I was just reading on the camping forum and there is a thread about DVC starting to charge $95 for non DVC Disney Resort Reservations. That will mean that it will cost us $95 to book FW using our DVC points. I haven't read anything official, but I hope it's not true. I've already booked FW for 2008 and no mention of any fee was made That would really be disappointing for us because we bought DVC in part because we could use our points at FW with no additional charge.

 

[KMH1]

It's technically still the first day of school...whew, what a day!

It started like this...let's bake a cake! Please don't flame me that my children are licking batter with raw eggs. My mom let me do it and I'm perfectly normal.

We got cleaned up, ate some lunch and then Alyssa modeled her new dress (an $8 Gymboree bargain!), her sitting mat (I told you it was pretty lame, but she likes it), and her petite, pink backpack:

Matthew decided he wanted to join his sister on the runway (errr, dead grass), and then he really put on the bling...those are some awesome orange sunglasses from a Wendy's kid's meal!

Kevin met us at the church to surprise Alyssa, and we managed to get this not-so-crisp picture amongst the chaos. Matthew decided to nap in his sister's absence, so I frosted the cake. Alyssa was quite pleased with the final product:

Alyssa is definitely excited to go back tomorrow. She raved about playing on the playground and having crackers and water for a snack. She was quite flushed, from the lack of air-conditioning, but hopefully this extreme heat will head out soon (remind me I said that when I'm whining that it's freezing in February ).

Matthew and I are going to have to figure out a new routine. He's been napping from 2:30 to 5 p.m. all summer, but since I have to pick Alyssa up at 3 p.m., I tried putting him down right when we got home at 12:45 p.m. He went down easily, but I had to wake him up at 2:45 p.m., and he was quite a grump this evening. Oh well, we'll figure it out.

Now I'm going to attempt to catch up on today's posts.

 

[UP Disney]

I was just reading on the camping forum and there is a thread about DVC starting to charge $95 for non DVC Disney Resort Reservations. That will mean that it will cost us $95 to book FW using our DVC points. I haven't read anything official, but I hope it's not true. I've already booked FW for 2008 and no mention of any fee was made That would really be disappointing for us because we bought DVC in part because we could use our points at FW with no additional charge.

I sure hope that isn't true for your sakes.

 

[bear74]

okay off to bed. I work the next 2 days, then have to see the Dieticain and endocrenologist on Fri. I then work this weekend. I will try to get on fri.

 

[ButchsLilPrincess]

Deck building 101

This was early into the project last weekend

That was the fun from last weekend. Then the first day of school happened so here is a picture of the kids on the deck on Wednesday morning.

This is our new deck funiture. There are comfy cushions for each chair, but those are in the deck box as we had just put them away when I remembered to take some photos. The table was a brown wicker finish when we bought it. We painted it and I think it came out pretty close to the color of the chairs. The paint keeps chipping though. The little table was a redwood color before I painted that.

We still need to finish the stairs and do some major cleanup, but it is getting closer.

Deb and Chris, I had to go back and find the pics since I kept seeing everyone comment on the deck .. BRAVO .. what a great job you guys did on the deck. I don't think I could do that with out putting something through my hand at a very high velocity and ending up in the ER lol .. Great Job it looks mah-velous .. and the tables look great .. i had forgotten you said that the table was missing from the set .. i would have thought that table came with the chairs GREAT JOB matching the paint so well ..