Halloween Preparations

Yes, I know Halloween is several weeks away, but you have to understand just how much we enjoy this holiday. We have been impatiently waiting for the Spirit Halloween store to open and it finally did last week. It was a major family outing to check out the latest scary things. The kids were so excited! You'd think we were going to Sea World. We were excited to find out that another Halloween store opened also. More competition. Love it! Halloween Express was much larger and had better prices. I love a good deal. The kids will be out of school on the 29th for two weeks. We will begin setting up all our Halloween decorations that week. It will be nice to have the kids to help. I'm usually on my own putting everything up. Scott does help me put up our large spider web that stretches between our two trees.

The weather has been beautiful here lately. I actually had the windows open for two days straight without the air conditioning running. I wish the weather would stay this cool, but it already started warming up. Hurricane Ike didn't cause any damage here in Austin. They had predicted heavy rain, flooding but nothing. Many church members have been housing Houston and Galveston evacuees. Things are a mess over there.

Scott and Marcus are in the other room watching the UT game. Marcus is turning into quite the football fan, especially if it's UT playing. He says that's where he wants to go to school. We'll see. Marcus is now playing fantasy football with Scott and my family. He's having a lot of fun. I'm not into to all that stuff. My two sisters love playing it, so it's not just a guy thing. Just not my thing, I guess.

The kids are doing well in school. Marcus had quite an adjustment moving up to middle school. He's misses just having one teacher. He now has six to keep up with along with their assignments. He's doing pretty good keeping up. We just have to really stay on him to find out what project or test is due when. He also started up violin lessons again. His teacher was gone most of the summer. Marcus also wrote his first poem for a language arts assignment. It is really good and, of course, Scott is very excited that Marcus has a knack for writing poetry. Here it is:

I am an owl.
Swift, fearless
Wise, strong
I see my prey in the darkness.
I see its fear.
My wings are silent as the wind.
My screech makes animals run in fear.
It shows who is the hunter of the night.
Courage runs weak.
Fear is my friend.
I am fearless.
I am strong.
I am an owl.

Here is another one he did for a social studies assignment:

I am a Tsunami
Strong , Tough
Breathtaking, scary
My cousin is the earthquake.
Shifting plates make my waves.

When I touch shallow water I lose speed.
Which makes my waves taller.
And then I am able to cross land.
I sweep up sand, dirt, trees, people, anything in my reach.
I see buildings tremble beneath me.
They brake apart, glass explodes, steel bends, and I wash it all back.
I see people running with fear, with surprise, with shock.
But there is no escape.

It takes years to clean up the mess I make.
Beds, TVs, desks, chairs, computers, debris everywhere on the ground.
Fun for me but not for you.
People lose their homes, families, pets, jobs, cars, books, everything.
Some people starve, fight over food, get sick and die.
I grab gasoline, fertilizer, trash, chemicals and pollute oceans, rivers and lakes.

My voice is like a bomb.
It tells that I'm the king of destruction.
I am strong
I am tough
I am a Tsunami


Jared is doing well. His teacher wanted him tested to see if has any learning disabilities that need to be addressed other then speech delay. We have the ARD this Wednesday to find out the results. Scott and I are very cautious about these tests and what their recommendations will be. We know Jared struggles but we feel it's because of his speech delay. He has always struggled because of it, but works so hard. His former speech therapist always was amazed at how fast he progressed and caught on. He has to work a lot harder to catch up with the other kids.

Ceci is doing great and is becoming quite the reader. She has always been such a bookworm like myself. When I wasn't reading to her, she was making up stories from the pictures. I am always tripping over her books in her room. I guess I need to get her a bookcase. They cover her bed and floor. She can't live without them. Her favorite book to have read to her is fairy tales. I have a good one with great illustrations by Brothers Grimm. They are little more graphic than the Disney versions, but I grew up with the original fairy tales. If you have ever read the Brothers Grimm versions you know what I'm talking about.

Scott is busy with school and finishing up his grant. He hopes to be done with it by the end of October. He still has several more podcasts and webpages to complete. He is also applying for another grant which is much larger in scale. He wants to create online training modules for distance learning teachers and teachers of hybrid courses (a course that is taught half in the classroom and the other half online). Hope that make sense.