Thursday was our 10-year anniversary and I can’t believe how quickly time has passed.  Stuart and I both took the day off to spend together, and these days our favorite thing to do together has been golfing.  After we dropped the boys off at CDC in the morning, we headed up to our tee time.  My preferred golf course was under renovation on it’s back nine, therefore, we made a plan to play the front nine twice to get 18 holes.  After a little bit of warm up, we were off to start as a two-some.  It was great being out in the course again, and not being crowded was an extra bonus.  Both of us were doing fine with our swings, but I did lose quite a few balls in the hazards.  I got a better hang of it by the second 9 holes and had some good hits per my standard.  I was especially happy since I did not lose any balls in this round.  However I had lost my pitching wedge somewhere on the way.  More crazy then that was at the third to last hole, I hit my ball to the shrub.  I was being careless and impatient, and used my arm to retrieve a ball instead of using my club to push it out all the way.  As soon as I grabbed the ball, I felt tingling and Stuart noticed the poison oak.  I rinsed my skin off with a little bit of water, and tried to focus and finish up the rest of the holes.  Both Stuart and I beat our own scores in the second nine which I was very happy with.  Then I quickly went to wash my arm with soap and water while Stuart checked with Lost and Found at the pro shop.  Luckily Stuart was able to recover my club.  Probably because I was able to wash my skin relatively quickly, it ended up not bothering me too much other than a slight pins and needle numbness for the rest of the day.  This was the first time I was exposed to poison oak; it was an interesting experience.

    We had our favorite lunch, and took a nap in the afternoon.  It was quite relaxing.  After we picked up the boys at school and finished their homework, we headed out for dinner.  The boys were happy to celebrate the big day with us too. 

    Logan’s school work has been keeping us on our toes lately.  A few weeks back, we were worried if Logan was falling behind based on what we saw from his classwork and the brief observation I had in class.  I emailed the teacher to consider a meeting to discuss how we should help him at home.  The teacher kindly responded that Logan is actually doing well and is trying hard in class.  She said we can wait til November for the regular scheduled conference to discuss further.  Then last Monday we found out that Logan did not earn much points for AR tests (reading tests) in class and he might miss out on the “meeting goals” celebration soon.  Stuart and I were surprised to hear about this as we had not been told about “points”.  When I picked up Logan from school, the teacher spent some time explaining it to me while Logan and Connor hung out in the classroom.  These tests were voluntary but the teacher has been reminding the students to take them.  While Logan’s overall reading level was good, for some reasons he had not been taking the tests therefore not earning much points.  The teacher encouraged Logan to catch up by reading books at home and doing the tests at school the next day.  Since then, Logan has been motivated reading at least one book each night and then taking the tests.  He is catching up on his points.  We also encouraged Logan to stay on top of his projects this month rather than waiting until the last week.  He had already recited his poem to the class last week, and over the weekend, he finished the art and craft part of his book report.  This was a “Can Character” book report.  Logan read the picture book a couple of times and came up with the 10 clues of the main character.  Then Logan, with my guidance, decorated the can to look like the character.  Logan was very proud of his work. 

    On the other hand, Connor’s homework has been quite light.  Instead of daily ones, he has a monthly homework.  However everyday Connor spends a few minutes doing a part of it.  In addition, Connor will be the Star of the Week soon, and he has been working on his poster which he just completed over the weekend too.  Connor was also pleased with his work.

    I went out on Saturday night to have dinner with Robyn, Julie, Kathy, Michelle and Theresa to celebrate Robyn’s and Julie’s birthdays.  The boys were fine with the planned evening with daddy; pizza dinner and game night.  My evening was fun.  We went to a nice restaurant, we had a great meal and a good chat with the ladies.  After dropping off Kathy, I saw an earlier text that Stuart was giving the boys a shower, so I knew I had a chance to make it home in time and say goodnight to the boys.  I went upstairs; Stuart had just tucked the kids in and he mentioned to me that they missed a goodnight wish from me.  I went into Logan’s room first.  He was happy to share that they won the Castle Panic together and they ended up staying up an hour late.  I hugged him goodnight, then went to see Connor.  Connor told me that he heard me coming home and knew that I would be in to see him soon.  He also could not wait to share that he learned how to play the game and tried to tell me a bunch of details that he remembered from it.  He too was giggly about staying up because of the game.  Looks like we all had a good evening.

This was a picture Stuart texted me .

    Yesterday we made a plan to receive our flu shots.  Stuart picked up the kids earlier than usual and drove them over to meet up with me at my office.  The boys ran over to me for a hug, but Logan immediately told me that he did not want a flu shot.  Stuart told me that when they walked in to the building, the staff asked if they were here for the shot and that when the boys found out.  The line for the Flu Clinic was quite long, so I took us to see the nurse who agreed to give us the shots.  Logan immediately shied away from it and volunteered daddy to go first, then I was next.  Connor was third.  Even though the nurse was very quick with it, Connor broke down tearing from the injection.  Logan was scared but did obey to stand with us to receive it.  Immediately after the injection, he buried his face in Stuart’s chest and refused to look up for some time.  It turned out he was tearing too, and he finally agreed to turn his attention to the stickers he was offered.  Then we all returned to my office for a bit, and the boys chatted with Auntie Michelle who gave them a snack to distract them from the bad experience.  Finally Stuart took Logan home to do homework, and left Connor behind to be my carpool buddy.  I had a few more minutes of work to finish up and so Connor did some drawing while Michelle also entertained him.

     I had volunteered to do the Art Vistas lessons for Connor’s class this year, and this time I am sharing the job with two other moms.  Monday was our first lesson, and Connor was as excited as I was.  Shortly after drop off in the morning, the moms and I met up at the cafeteria to set up.  After recess, the kids started marching in with their teacher.  Connor was smiling widely and he gave me a big hug before he sat down on the ground with the class.  Then I quickly got us started.  I gave an introduction and shared with them an overview of elements of art, ie. colors, shapes and lines.  We discussed primary vs. secondary colors, warm vs. cool colors, different shapes and lines.  With the concepts they learned, the two moms reviewed a couple of famous paintings of trains with the kids.  The children were very engaged and eager to answer questions.  Connor raised his hand a lot too.  Next, we moved on to a hands-on project, and I reviewed the steps with the class.  The children used the pre-cut shapes to make a collage of a train and added more details with crayons.  Everyone worked hard, and their artwork was very creative.  Connor used lots of shapes to make his train and I was worried if he would have enough time to glue them down.  While we were giving five more minutes warning, Connor quickly picked up a row of shapes at a time, placed glue on the paper, then returned the shapes back.  He was very efficient.  At the end, we saw some well decorated trains and some creative ways of using different shapes from the class.  The final products were amazing, and the kids seemed to enjoy their time.  The lesson ended in exactly one hour perfectly.  Connor gave me several hugs before he followed the teacher and the class back to their classroom.  The moms and I were happy how well the first lesson turned out.

     We planned to go to a pumpkin patch on Sunday.  We took it too easy in the morning and ended up not leaving the house until late in the morning.  When we arrived at this local patch, we were in disbelief how crowded it was there.  There were lots of people everywhere, so we had decided that we would still walk around but would bypass the rides.  We enjoyed walking around and taking some pictures.  The boys were in a hunt for a perfect pumpkin, and they both found one in the end.