I have been enjoying the fall weather. The colors are in the trees. I found a street with many beautiful red leaved maples on my walk yesterday. I pulled my phone out and took a picture. Too bad I haven’t figured out how to get the pictures off my phone yet. The kids are enjoying playing in the leaves. Too bad we don’t have any trees in our yard. So different from all our oaks and hackberries in our yard in Texas.
I have enjoyed my walks this last week. I have noticed that the weather is different here. In Texas I had my cold threshold at about 50 degrees. I didn’t like going for a walk if it was below 50, because I didn’t like getting that cold. Here I can go for walks when it is 42 or 45 degrees and just need a light jacket with gloves, which sometimes I take off before I get home. I decided that the big part of it is that the humidity is different. Here it is dryer so the wet cool air doesn’t go right through me. I like feeling the cool air and the warmth of the sun on me. It has been so nice. Neal has been home most mornings so Caleb stays home with him. I have been exploring more of the trails around the neighborhood. Usually when I walk with Caleb we go on paved walks for ease of pushing the stroller, and also so we can end up at a play ground. This morning Caleb was with me and we stopped at a play ground. Others were there and we enjoyed visiting and playing with them.
Last week the kids had some time off school. The boys had Thursday and Friday home, Ruth just had Friday. The days were used for parent teacher conferences. I had a nice visit with their teachers. It was good to hear how they are doing in the schools. The district does a different grading scale here and I am still getting use to how it works. It is called “Standard Based Grading.” They don’t get scores on everything they do, they only get official recorded grades every semester and the grades are: 4 exceeds the standard, 3 meets the standard, 2 approaching the standard and 1 doesn’t meet standard. It seems a bit vague to me. But the teachers said that the kids are doing okay in their work.
Friday afternoon Neal and I went to the movie “Meet the Mormons.” We enjoyed having a date and seeing a nice film. There were some good stories presented. I am glad we could go.
Saturday I took Andrew and Spencer out for a little “date” time. We went and got frozen yogurt. We went into a store and bought 2 pumpkins. I thought it was fun that Andrew was asking how to choose a pumpkin that will taste good. He wasn’t asking if it was the right shape to decorate, but he was thinking more about eating it. I think I have trained them well. We also stopped at a park and played a bit. It was a nice time.
When I got back with the boys I took Ruth to the thrift store to find a costume for Halloween. She wants to be a Hawaiian hula girl. She lucked out that she found a grass skirt and it was 50% off day at the thrift store. She bought it with her own money and it was a first time for her to count out the money at the cashier. I think she will appreciate it more since she bought it.
Sunday Neal and I spoke in Sacrament meeting. It went well. Then I also taught Relief Society. I enjoyed being with the sisters again before starting my nursery calling full time. I did go into nursery for the 2nd hour. The kids are sweet, I will get to know them and their families and feel more comfortable with it soon.
Neal has enjoyed some bike rides this week. He had a long one by himself on Saturday morning. Then yesterday afternoon he took Andrew out again. They have gone on rides together up to about 7 miles. Andrew enjoys it too. It is nice we have so many bike trails right here in our neighborhood.
Andrew wrote a fun poem about Arches National Park. Then he did a cool visual display of it. I took a picture of it to try to share and for us to have a way to remember his good work.
Monday for lunch I took Caleb on a date to buy lunch at McDonalds and let him play on the play ground. He was so excited that he finally earned a lunch treat on his chore chart. I enjoyed the time with the kids this week. Caleb is also my little back seat driver lately. He watches how fast I am going and also pays attention to the speed limit signs. He will let me know if I am going over the posted speed limit. We enjoyed going to the library together Tuesday, he really loves going to story time.
We are doing well. Neal is busy filling out job applications. We are also enjoying lots of family time. We are thankful for our blessings.
We have been doing standards-based grading for a long time in our district. It's a way to look at the standards and see if the student has mastered the concepts. It takes subjective things like "effort" out of the grades and gives a very clear picture of where skills and weaknesses are. It really is a best practice in education and you should be grateful they are doing it at the schools where you are at. It makes me think they are on top of their game. ��
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