Strating Stuff

2009-04-12T14:12:00.007-06:00

Happy Easter!!

The kids enjoyed all of the Easter festivities at our house, including dyeing the eggs last night. They had a lot of fun and made a complete disaster of the table. But it was definitely fun. They wanted to start hiding those eggs around the house almost before they were even dry.

Today, we went to church, and when we got home the Easter Bunny had been here and of course left goodies and more eggs. The funny thing is that I don't think the kids really care much about the stuff in the baskets - they just want to find the hidden eggs. They both go absolutely crazy running around looking for those things. I had really been hoping for a nice Easter for the first time since moving away from rainy Vancouver, but of course, it rained today. Still, I'm sure the kids would have enjoyed the hunt no matter where we did it. And speaking of the baskets, you'll notice in one photo that Ryan has a Dora the Explorer doll in his basket. Yep, my boy is in love with Dora and this is what he asked the EB to bring him! Too cute!

Happy Easter!

Snow Days....Finally

2009-03-28T13:10:00.006-06:00

We had about 15 inches of snow from Thursday morning through Friday morning. They were even calling it a blizzard on Thursday. By far, this was the most snow we've had all winter. By Friday afternoon, the temperature had warmed up to about 45 degrees making the snow perfect for building a snow man. We all got out and enjoyed the warm sunshine and cold snow. They are saying we'll get more snow next week. At least we're on spring break now!

What did you do today?

2009-03-28T13:05:00.004-06:00

I took advantage of the last 2 snow days to actually do some scrapbooking. I think this is the first layout I've done since last fall. Anna's teacher is always sending home "stuff" to read about how to help your kindie learn, love it, and so on. Occasionally she also sends home poems and other cute things. When we got this poem last fall, I knew immediately that I wanted a pic of Anna walking home and would put this poem with it. The question, "What did you do/learn today?" is usually the first thing we ask her. "Nothing" is often her response until we push her for details. :)

Kindie Strikes Again

2009-02-28T19:39:00.004-07:00

Kindie Bear got to visit us again this weekend. The only problem with that is that he got "lost" on his way to our house. Anna was completely devastated, and Larry and I were in a state of panic. Although Anna's K teacher is a fantastic teacher, she is a bit intimidating. Having to tell her that we LOST her travelling bear was not something either of us wanted to do. So Larry, bless his heart, retraced Anna's steps, back to school, throughout daycare and the daycare bus, and finally found Kindie hidden in the wrong kid's cubby at daycare. Hallelujah! But needless to say, we're kinda hoping Kindie doesn't get to visit us again any time soon. We don't need that kind of stress !! :)

Anyway, Kindie went to Anna's ice skating lesson with her this morning and watched on the sidelines with me. She's getting to be a pretty good skater. Today they worked on skating backwards. She's so proud when she doesn't fall down at all during a lesson.

2009-02-15T22:00:00.002-07:00

Thought I might attempt a single random musing, ala, sis #1 in WA.

1. I wonder if I could get my 7th graders to start using the word "monstrosity" in either their writing or speaking simply by using it myself a bunch of times. It would be an interesting experiment in their gullibility and/or suggestability.

2. Not really a musing, but just wondering.... has the phrase "tee hee" hit Pullman yet? My 7th graders use it like we used to say "cool" or "whatever", and all sorts of other strange things. But tee hee, in a high-pitched girly sounding voice.... UGH!

2009-02-04T22:01:00.003-07:00

In an attempt to appease my adoring fans, all 3 of you, I will post a quick blog update.

1. Anna is great. Here is a pic of her with "Kindie Bear", the travelling kindergarten mascot who gets to spend the night with a lucky kindergartener every day. The book that travels with him is full of photos and musings of K'ers who simply adore him to pieces. ahh... the collection of germs.. I mean memories.. that Kindie must have!!

2. Ryan has been sick off and on for about 2 weeks. Lovely, green goo coming from the nose. No fever, though, so the poor kid has had to suffer through school, just like the rest of us. He started a new sports class at daycare - today was football. Geesh... I sincerely hope that 3-year-old football doesn't involve any tackling!

3. Larry & I are also good. Larry did a lot of travelling in January, which kills me. But one of his longer trips was to CA, where he got to see his brother, his dad, and his aunt/uncle and cousins. It was a great trip for him. Oh, and he met a famous SJ Sharks hockey player while out to dinner one night, so I guess that made his trip!!

4. I continue to be buried at school under an avalanche of essays that need to be graded. Hmmm.... 75 writing kids, 2 weeks to write a paper, 3 weeks for me to grade each set.... you do the math.

And that's it for now. Never thought I'd hear myself saying this, but I'm really looking forward to President's Day!!!

TTFN

2008-12-22T15:18:00.006-07:00

It has been a crazy, busy fall. But the one thing that we've definitely enjoyed is meeting Santa at a couple different places and telling him all about what is on our Christmas lists. In the photo, Santa came to watch the kids' holiday program for their daycare on Dec 7th. The program was great - much much better than we were expecting from a daycare. I think Anna & Ryan both enjoyed it too. And of course, getting to see Santa afterwards, was the icing on the cake.

10 Years and counting...

2008-10-03T12:59:00.003-06:00

Last Friday was our 10th anniversary. Wow!

Larry surprised me by flying in his sister Michelle and wisking me away for a glorious weekend in Colorado Springs at the Broadmoor Hotel. It is a fabulous hotel nestled right up next to the Rockies, complete with 5-star service! We even got a couple's Swedish massage together. It was so great to be pampered for 2 days, to get to sleep in late with no kiddo interruptions, and mostly, just great to spend some quality one-on-one time with each other. That's something we really haven't made a high enough priority in our lives since having the kids, so it was a fabulous time for re-connecting. On Saturday, we did some local touristy things - saw Seven Falls, Garden of the Gods, and Larry humored me by stopping at a "Ghost Town" museum, so that we could pan for gold in the trough in back of their building. We did find some gold flakes, and I think we've resolved to do the "real thing" sometime in the near future with the kids.

In other news, Anna and Ryan started swimming lessons last week. Anna loves it. Ryan, not so much. Ryan spent the entire lesson crying for daddy. The funny thing is that when it was over, he said he wanted to come back again.

And finally, in even more exciting news, I finally got my Colorado teacher's license!! YIPPEE!!! So I'm officially job-hunting now and hopeful that I'll at least be able to get a sub job sometime yet this fall.

The Joy of Fall

2008-09-19T15:15:00.007-06:00

We've been having some beautiful fall weather here in Denver this week. However, as I walk Anna to and from school every day, I've been noticing that the maple trees in our front and back yard are the ONLY ones in the entire neigborhood that are already shedding their leaves. (seriously - no exaggerating!) After chatting with a neighbor, she said these trees have always been like that - they are done dropping leaves by the time everyone else is just starting to rake. Hmmm... guess they just want to be first. Well, whatever the reason is, a little extra wind yesterday created the perfect opportunity for the kids to go outside and try to catch falling leaves. Anna even tried to catch some on her tongue (a la snowflakes). At times it really looked like it was snowing leaves. The kids had so much fun! These are the moments that I cherish and will remember forever.

Day Out with Thomas

2008-09-13T20:46:00.010-06:00

So today was the big day - we got to meet Thomas the Train!!!!! We hadn't told Ryan that we were going to see Thomas, just in case bad weather cancelled it for us, or something else happened. We also wanted to surprise him. He was excited to see the trains in general, but I think a little shocked about actually seeing Thomas. He mostly just stared at the train without saying much. In general, we had a great time at the event. It was held at a RR museum in Golden so there were lots of other trains to see and climb on. They had a petting zoo, kids activities, a HUGE Thomas gift tent, and Sir Topham Hatt was there for photos. By the end of the day, both kids were exhausted, but had a great time. Here are some of the photos from the day.

Brrrrrr

2008-09-06T16:57:00.008-06:00

Last weekend, we went "driving". Expensive, yes, but something Larry & I have always liked doing. Especially when we first move into a new area, we like to just drive around and check out the countryside around us and see what there is to do, etc. So on this day we went driving into the mountains to find a potential camping spot. We ended up in Leadville, which is located in the mountains south of Aspen at 10,000 ft. This is Turquoise Lake, a very beautiful area with fishing, camping, hiking, and some beaches. But at 10,000 ft in September, you can guess that the water is already quite chilly. Still, the kids wanted to "get their feet wet". We figured they'd touch the water and it would be so cold they'd be done in 1 minute. Nope - not the Strating kids!!! They kept going in further and further until their pants were wet and had to come off, then the shirts got wet too. Fortunately, whenever we go on these drives, we usually pack for worst case scenarios, so we had some towels and Anna had packed enough extra clothes for both kids for several days (she "saved the day" - her words!) We later found out from someone at a campsite that the water was 63 degrees that day. YIKES! The kids were definitely cold but had a lot of fun - even Ryan who normally hates getting wet with cold water.

Unfortunately, we didn't find anywhere to camp this year because the campgrounds with running water all closed for the season on Labor Day weekend. But I'm sure we'll check this lake out again next summer, and hopefully the water will be warmer then also!

Anna's 1st day of Kindergarten

2008-09-05T13:43:00.004-06:00

This is the scrapbook layout I did of Anna's first day of Kindergarten. I'm not very good at keeping up-to-date with all of my scrapbooking, but I just loved this photo of her, and had a perfect digi-kit that matched her outfit beautifully. Not to mention that this, of all occasions, is SO huge in her life, I wanted to make sure I got it scrapbooked asap. The photo of her matches her personality and mood that day perfectly - smiling, happy, excited, bright and cheery, but the head tilt says that she's still shy and a little apprehensive about what exactly "kindergarten" is all about. I just can't believe I already have a 5 year old!