Halloween Eve

Mrs. Castillo's Kindergarten class

Jia and her teacher Mrs. Castillo

Anna and Mulan on the way to school

Mom and Mulan

Katie and Mulan

Mulan and her Dad

Jia and her friend Lisa whose parents are Chinese.
Lisa knows how to speak Chinese.

Beautiful Katie as Mother Nature

Gorgeous Anna the Killer Clown

This is the part that terrifies Jia

The beautiful Parnham girls on the way to their party

Big happenings going on around here! First of all, a sigh of relief from teachers everywhere for a weekend Halloween. The day after Halloween is one of the worst teaching days of the school year!

That being said, here is our big day:

8:45 a.m. Jia's Storybook Parade which Dad was able to attend.
3:30-6:00 Katie and Anna primping and prepping for their friend Katrina's Annual Halloween Bash. It is a huge party with a DJ and many, many teenagers. You can see the difference in the girl's personalities by their choice of costumes. (Jia is petrified by Anna's costume)
6:30: off to the party
6:30-9:00: Jia talks, and talks and talks.

More to come...we will have the outcome of the party and trick or treat pictures tomorrow. Anna fully attends to trick or treat until she graduates from college.

Picking the Great Pumpkin

The Church always has a huge pumpkin patch. This is a very iffy thing around here. Today's temperature was 86 degrees and very, very humid. Pumpkins do not last long in South Florida, but we decided what the heck, lets go check it out. It was fun, we saw some odd pumpkins--green ones (not ripe?) warty pumpkins (Jia liked those) ones that were orange and white which I liked, but Katie wouldn't let me buy because she said they looked like veins.

The girls each took some time deliberating and then chose their pumpkins. I bought some odd looking squash and some indian corn for our Thanksgiving cornacopia.

How I miss fall! I barely remember it personally...but here is my fall story:

My Mommom (whom Anna (Marianna) is named for, and who was (and is) the single most influential person in my life, used to send me a big manila envelope of the first autumn leaves ever year. From the time I was a little girl until I was in college and she moved to Florida.

Some stories might seem odd, but they are bittersweet and filled with love...

Bad Day

Yesterday I fainted in school in front of my 2nd hour class. It was really embarassing, but they were good. Had to go in to the hospital in an ambulance with my Admin and friend Cindy. They ran all kinds of tests, basically my blood sugar was low and I was super hot as we had just had a fire drill. After spending 7 hours in the hospital I am now at home resting. Say prayers, no more sick days....God provides.

Sad

things are bad again, don't know why, wish i did, this is a hard illness. maybe i did too much this past week that wasn't in my comfort zone. Plus I have the worst flu ever. Please pray because I am at a loss.

Whew!!!!!!!

That was a close one!

A visit from Uncle Doug

Doug was in Tampa on a business trip in Tampa and came all the way down here to see us. Tampa sounds close, but it is about a 4 hour, very boring, very non-scenic drive. It was REALLY nice of him to come to see us and we really enjoyed our short visit.

Jia is totally in love with her Uncle and I think she would have crawled in his suitcase is there had been room.

Doug has promised to to give anyone a dog headcount. But I guess you all have figured it isn't pretty.

Anyway it was a really nice visit. We don' see our family nearly enough.

A Beautiful Wedding and another win!

Out without the kids!

Okay, we'll miss them

Drew, Lesa, Kathy and Ted Meyer

Proud Parents-- Fred and Kathy

Little Sister Katie

Ted can always dance up a storm!

Mother & Son Dance

"The Girls"

Drew and I actually went out without kids (it's been well over a year, maybe two). We went to our dear friend Kathy's son Rich's wedding. I taught Rich when he was in the 7th grade at Apollo (that's just how old I am!) The wedding was gorgeous, Kathy is one of the most talented and creative person I have ever met so everything had her unique touch.

The nicest thing was seeing Kathy and her husband Fred, their children Rich (the one getting married) and Katie and our other old friends Ted and Kathy. I just wanted to say always appreciate your old friends, the ones you have held dear in your heart because even though you may not see them everyday you can always count on them and when you do see them again it is always like you never left each other.

Oh, and during the whole wedding we were getting text updates of the Gator-LSU game--cover of Sports Illustrated this week "Nobody Does It Better!" Tim and the Gators win again.

So Proud of our President and Our Country!

"I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments but rather an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations,"
~President Barack Obama

It has been a very short time, and the verdict is certainly still out, but it certainly seems as though our country is regaining some of its respect in the world. From shoes being thrown at our President to the Nobel Peace Prize.

Another Friday Night

My handsome husband and his idea of "watching t.v."