We had a great combined choir rehearsal tonight at Zion Lutheran Church in town with that congregation's choir as well as the one from Redeemer. The three choir directors (for Dad's info) are Linda Samuelson (Trinity), Diane (Mosbeck) Johnson (Zion) and Ruth Stenson (Redeemer). Diane Johnson recognized Aaron in the church parking lot and said hi. Apparently she taught him music at Challenger a few times this year already so they are well acquainted. She remembered me as a small boy.
We found our places in the sanctuary pews and sat down, watching all the others come in. I saw just a few famiilar faces. Deb Fulton, Daniel's kindergarten teacher at Challenger, was there and this lady sat down right in front of Mike Lehrer and I and her face rang quite a bell in my head of someone I recognized from long, long ago... I was going to ask Mike whatever became of Nancy Fellman, my old swimming instructor from the 70's, but didn't get a chance. Our combined choirs totaled probably 50-60 members and for once we had a "real" tenor section. It sounded so great having so many guys singing at once and we balanced the ladies out pretty nicely. We sang "I'm Going Home" again from the Cold Mountain movie with Nicole Kidman. I'm going to have to rent that one to see what the song sounded like there.
Our combined choirs will be performing at Redeemer's Saturday evening service this weekend at 5:00 (practice at 4:30) and then will sing the early 8:30 service at Zion this Sunday followed by the late service at Trinity, so we will have a full three services to attend... I can't wait to see the look on Aaron's face when he has to sit through all that...
After the practice, we headed downstairs for an old fashioned Lutheran coffee fellowship with all kinds of bars and lemonade. Down there, I again saw the lady that had earlier sat down in front of me and asked her why she looked so darn familiar to me. She said her name was indeed Nancy Fellman... Good grief! At our table was Diane Johnson and another lady who apparently graduated from Lincoln in 1984, a year prior to when I would have. Her first name was Cory, but I couldn't recall her last name, unfortunately. Daniel had yet another visit to his buddy's AWANIS program at the other church in town here. The pastor and his wife who drive him with their boys obviously had a good time with him. He basically took the one vacant seat that was left in their minivan so it was truly a vanload of boys.
It actually snowed today in TRF if you can believe that. It's been in the 30s now for several days. Nothing stuck to the ground, though, so that's good. I'll have to wait another week or two before I think about starting the whole planting thing here.
Take care everyone,
Jim, Aaron, Daniel, and Andrew
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Monday, April 25, 2005
Emergency Response in Thief River Falls...
I was hoping I wouldn't have reason to find out what the response time is for 9-1-1 in Thief River for at least the first year, but come last Friday, that went by the wayside. I had to call the ambulance Daniel. He had gotten up off the couch in the living room and was wearing those nylon kind of warm-up pants and had to go potty. He ran through the dining room on his way to the bathroom pulling his pants down as he went, covering his stocking feet in slippery nylon on the hardwood floor. Next thing I know, I hear a resounding crack on what sounded like the doorjam of the entrance to the kitchen followed by a bloodcurdling wail. On the bright side, I learned emergency response time here is every bit as good as Seattle's, which isn't bad when you consider Seattle's Medic One program set the standard worldwide for response time. The police were here at the house in between 20-30 seconds....all five or so officers (They were only a block and a half away when they heard the medical dispatch). They beat the ambulance, which wasn't too far behind. Ambulance services are now provided by Great Plains EMS, a private outfit. I carried him out to the ambulance for a head injury evaluation and got an all clear from the paramedic. I was just concerned becuse it swelled up to a pretty big size knot within only a minute or two of the injury and didn't know if there could be more extensive damage underneath, i.e. a subdural hematoma, given the force of impact. In any event, we all enjoyed the excitement and Daniel got a nice fuzzy blue stuffed bunny rabbit out of the whole ordeal. All's well that ends well... One other thing we found out is a former police officer's sister was one of the previous owners of the house we live in.
We spent the weekend getting some implements for working in the yard including a Garden Weasel. I'm thinking we'll plant a flower bed in the bare area of the backyard and reserve a space down one side of it for some spinach, garlic, and herbs. Seems like Martha Stewart has overtaken the entire garden section at Kmart. Incarceration does wonders for sales these days, ya know... :o)
We also took a trip up to the 80 acres and found there' s lots of mounds of dirt that have sprung up all over the field, so gopher trapping should be good this summer.
As for church this Sunday, we didn't see Ormand Johnson and we're all pretty concerned how he's getting along these days. Come Wednesday we have our combined choir practice at Zion. I met the "Samuelsons" at morning coffee yesterday. They were having a going away for the Johnstons (not sure of the first names) who are moving to Warroad.
We spent the weekend getting some implements for working in the yard including a Garden Weasel. I'm thinking we'll plant a flower bed in the bare area of the backyard and reserve a space down one side of it for some spinach, garlic, and herbs. Seems like Martha Stewart has overtaken the entire garden section at Kmart. Incarceration does wonders for sales these days, ya know... :o)
We also took a trip up to the 80 acres and found there' s lots of mounds of dirt that have sprung up all over the field, so gopher trapping should be good this summer.
As for church this Sunday, we didn't see Ormand Johnson and we're all pretty concerned how he's getting along these days. Come Wednesday we have our combined choir practice at Zion. I met the "Samuelsons" at morning coffee yesterday. They were having a going away for the Johnstons (not sure of the first names) who are moving to Warroad.
Thursday, April 21, 2005
A Nice Spring Week in TRF...
It's been so nice outside this week I haven't taken much time to update my blog lately. It was 85 degrees plus earlier this week, which was the first day the boys came inside for any length of time to cool off. I met another new neighbor this week, my parent's old insurance agent and his wife, who happen to live on the corner of the next street up and had commented that they would see me every day in the winter with the dog dropping off Aaron at the bus stop and picking him and Daniel up in the afternoon. Aaron took a walk downtown with me that day to pick up my tax return from my accountant. It was all of about 15 minutes for the complete round trip to town and back and with the flat Minnesota land, it was a bit easier to walk it than in Seattle.
We had choir practice last night where I fixed about half the problems with the youth's foosball table in the basement beforehand. I was just missing a few bolts to replace broken men on the table. Practice went pretty well, but we did have to practice a "level 4" song. I don't know if you know what a level 4 song means, Dad, but it was quite the challenge for us all. The director said it took her choir at the community college something like 2 straight weeks of 3-day a week practices to learn. We only have one more rehearsal before the combined choirs meet. It also has a rather incredibly high note for the tenors at the end, too. I suggested it was more in the range of a castrato than a tenor...
As a sidebar, Terry Soine and Steve from the auto dealership were talking about obligations for the upcoming Lincoln High prom and someone mentioned something about "anyone" getting into the prom and Terry's role as vice principal in limiting access to the prom when he was still working for the school. Terry joked, "After a while, I just said, the heck with it... Just let 'em in and charge 'em admission!"
Come tomorrow, we have to take Duchess to her vet appointment to get her heartworm preventative and other shots. Dawn Williamson told me the heartworm preventative is something like $85 versus over $1,500 to actually treat the heartworm should she contract it. I'm still considering bringing funny bunny in too to have her nails professionally clipped so we don't end up with gouges in our forearms from doing it ourselves... Hopefully we'll get a chance to run down to the 80 acres and get a look at the gopher mound situation so we can hopefully get started soon on the gopher trapping season. Unfortunately there's not much else going on that's fit to print, but in this case, no news is definitely good news... See ya all later!
We had choir practice last night where I fixed about half the problems with the youth's foosball table in the basement beforehand. I was just missing a few bolts to replace broken men on the table. Practice went pretty well, but we did have to practice a "level 4" song. I don't know if you know what a level 4 song means, Dad, but it was quite the challenge for us all. The director said it took her choir at the community college something like 2 straight weeks of 3-day a week practices to learn. We only have one more rehearsal before the combined choirs meet. It also has a rather incredibly high note for the tenors at the end, too. I suggested it was more in the range of a castrato than a tenor...
As a sidebar, Terry Soine and Steve from the auto dealership were talking about obligations for the upcoming Lincoln High prom and someone mentioned something about "anyone" getting into the prom and Terry's role as vice principal in limiting access to the prom when he was still working for the school. Terry joked, "After a while, I just said, the heck with it... Just let 'em in and charge 'em admission!"
Come tomorrow, we have to take Duchess to her vet appointment to get her heartworm preventative and other shots. Dawn Williamson told me the heartworm preventative is something like $85 versus over $1,500 to actually treat the heartworm should she contract it. I'm still considering bringing funny bunny in too to have her nails professionally clipped so we don't end up with gouges in our forearms from doing it ourselves... Hopefully we'll get a chance to run down to the 80 acres and get a look at the gopher mound situation so we can hopefully get started soon on the gopher trapping season. Unfortunately there's not much else going on that's fit to print, but in this case, no news is definitely good news... See ya all later!
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Spring Cleaning
It looks like we're heading into a leisurely spring weekend here in TRF. Aaron just reminded me on putting him to bed that he doesn't have to get on the bus until a whole two hours later at 9:50. Daddy gets to sleep in!! :o) It's been a long week here burning the candle at both ends with the working at home, but it'll all be worth it when I can finally put my feet up for a little bit tomorrow. We went out to K-mart tonight so I could finally get a bookcase to replace one of the ones we gave away in Washington in order to move. I'm looking forward to getting at least a couple of more boxes emptied and books on shelves where they can be accessed.
I had the boys pick out new shoes at the store as they're no longer having to wear snowboots everywhere they go. Daniel picked out a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pair, but Aaron's feet are so big, he can no longer get those cute little boy shoes anymore, but rather has to wear the men's shoes. Aaron has jumped from a 6 to a 7-1/2 in men's and Daniel has gone from an 11 -1/2 to a 13 in boys. The next mission will be to get them both into bigger pants. Daniel is beginning to wear more of Aaron's hand-me-downs, which means he must be really growing.
When I took Duchess out to pick up the boys at the bus stop this afternoon, I saw an older guy out on a lawn tractor across the street in Fern Williams' lawn going up and down the greenbelt by the sidewalk. He stopped the tractor and climbed off when he saw me and it was Dale Folger. He's back from his trip down south for the winter. He told me all about seeing the Dead Sea Scrolls on display down in Alabama. He also regaled me with his story of being in Seattle when he was in the Navy way back when and having to call his uncle, an admiral, to get him out of there and down to San Diego. Dale said he was mowing three lawns now as Ken Murphy on the corner has his left arm in a sling these days. I finally figured out which house is which on this street. Directly across the street is the young couple Laci and Jason who are selling their house and renting the house next door to us, just to the left of theirs (my left) is Fern Williams, and the one next to hers at the end of the block is Ken Murphy's. On my right of Laci and Jason's is Dale's house. I've now identified all but one of the homeowners on the block. Fern came out of hibernation too, so I'll be seeing more of her now.
Choir went well this week, but Mike was gone, so it was a good thing I decided to sing tenor. It was just my accountant, Randy, and I in the tenor section. Ormand unfortunately was unable to attend and I didn't learn until after practice that he was in a motor vehicle accident earlier in the week, which apparently made the paper on Tuesday. I guess he pulled out in front of someone here in town. There were no details on his condition, but in the meantime, I found out he had had a heart attack more more than two weeks ago and I had never known it. Some other members thought he looked a little under the weather this past Sunday, but I didn't make much of it. We all hope he's doing much better. Speaking of choir, our choir director, Linda, said her husband is pressuring in a nice way to scale back on some of her responsibilities at the college and church. She had spoken to Pastor Hermodson and he was suggesting she take over the reigns of the new job they were batting about, that of youth program director, and the new job would be responsible for ALL music at the church. She was like, "Ah... NO!" He said, well the pay would be bumped up, of course," to which she again said, "NO!" She can't think of how she's going to cut corners as it is without sacrificing us or something else. At that point, Jerry, Marilyn, Shirley, and Carol were talking about drafting you, Dad, to return to the fold.... :o) Then Shirley told us how you liked to visit the snow in the mountains when you wanted to, not have to live in it full time and shovel. Ah well, it was a nice thought for a moment. Maybe you could guest direct when you come in September??? We're now singing "Wind of the Spirit" next. Apparently we're supposed to be gearing up for a cooperative kind of service between Trinity, Zion, and Redeemer and our choir is only going to get one practice with the music by ourselves before we join the other two choirs because the publisher didn't have more than one copy when Linda ordered them. We should do fine, though, I think...
When we were at K-mart tonight, Terry and Rita Soine walked up to us and I talked them into coming out to the house soon to take a look around the grounds and suggest shrubs/flowers to beautify the front and sides of the house. I wanted to get something planted in the barrel planters out front so they're put to good use. I may be the first house on the block to do it too. I'm thinking maybe annuals this year and perennials starting next year. I'll let you know what we decide.
Last, but not least, Daniel came up to me last night and begged to go with his buddy, Tyler, at the end of the street to his AWANIS (Sp?) program at the Evangelical Free Church in town. I guess it's for adults and kids alike, so the pastor and his wife drove Daniel with them last night and dropped him off at Trinity afterwards. Daniel was full of enthusiasm about it when he got back and wants to go again next week... That's all for now... :o)
I had the boys pick out new shoes at the store as they're no longer having to wear snowboots everywhere they go. Daniel picked out a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pair, but Aaron's feet are so big, he can no longer get those cute little boy shoes anymore, but rather has to wear the men's shoes. Aaron has jumped from a 6 to a 7-1/2 in men's and Daniel has gone from an 11 -1/2 to a 13 in boys. The next mission will be to get them both into bigger pants. Daniel is beginning to wear more of Aaron's hand-me-downs, which means he must be really growing.
When I took Duchess out to pick up the boys at the bus stop this afternoon, I saw an older guy out on a lawn tractor across the street in Fern Williams' lawn going up and down the greenbelt by the sidewalk. He stopped the tractor and climbed off when he saw me and it was Dale Folger. He's back from his trip down south for the winter. He told me all about seeing the Dead Sea Scrolls on display down in Alabama. He also regaled me with his story of being in Seattle when he was in the Navy way back when and having to call his uncle, an admiral, to get him out of there and down to San Diego. Dale said he was mowing three lawns now as Ken Murphy on the corner has his left arm in a sling these days. I finally figured out which house is which on this street. Directly across the street is the young couple Laci and Jason who are selling their house and renting the house next door to us, just to the left of theirs (my left) is Fern Williams, and the one next to hers at the end of the block is Ken Murphy's. On my right of Laci and Jason's is Dale's house. I've now identified all but one of the homeowners on the block. Fern came out of hibernation too, so I'll be seeing more of her now.
Choir went well this week, but Mike was gone, so it was a good thing I decided to sing tenor. It was just my accountant, Randy, and I in the tenor section. Ormand unfortunately was unable to attend and I didn't learn until after practice that he was in a motor vehicle accident earlier in the week, which apparently made the paper on Tuesday. I guess he pulled out in front of someone here in town. There were no details on his condition, but in the meantime, I found out he had had a heart attack more more than two weeks ago and I had never known it. Some other members thought he looked a little under the weather this past Sunday, but I didn't make much of it. We all hope he's doing much better. Speaking of choir, our choir director, Linda, said her husband is pressuring in a nice way to scale back on some of her responsibilities at the college and church. She had spoken to Pastor Hermodson and he was suggesting she take over the reigns of the new job they were batting about, that of youth program director, and the new job would be responsible for ALL music at the church. She was like, "Ah... NO!" He said, well the pay would be bumped up, of course," to which she again said, "NO!" She can't think of how she's going to cut corners as it is without sacrificing us or something else. At that point, Jerry, Marilyn, Shirley, and Carol were talking about drafting you, Dad, to return to the fold.... :o) Then Shirley told us how you liked to visit the snow in the mountains when you wanted to, not have to live in it full time and shovel. Ah well, it was a nice thought for a moment. Maybe you could guest direct when you come in September??? We're now singing "Wind of the Spirit" next. Apparently we're supposed to be gearing up for a cooperative kind of service between Trinity, Zion, and Redeemer and our choir is only going to get one practice with the music by ourselves before we join the other two choirs because the publisher didn't have more than one copy when Linda ordered them. We should do fine, though, I think...
When we were at K-mart tonight, Terry and Rita Soine walked up to us and I talked them into coming out to the house soon to take a look around the grounds and suggest shrubs/flowers to beautify the front and sides of the house. I wanted to get something planted in the barrel planters out front so they're put to good use. I may be the first house on the block to do it too. I'm thinking maybe annuals this year and perennials starting next year. I'll let you know what we decide.
Last, but not least, Daniel came up to me last night and begged to go with his buddy, Tyler, at the end of the street to his AWANIS (Sp?) program at the Evangelical Free Church in town. I guess it's for adults and kids alike, so the pastor and his wife drove Daniel with them last night and dropped him off at Trinity afterwards. Daniel was full of enthusiasm about it when he got back and wants to go again next week... That's all for now... :o)
Monday, April 11, 2005
Who's Got The Hip Waders and Water Wings?
I got my first unpleasant surprise as a homeowner last night... Andrew was invited to an after-work party down in St. Hilaire and was gone until about half past midnight. While he was gone, I went to the kitchen to use the sink and found the water pressure wasn't quite where it should be nor was it normal in any of the bathrooms. I just shrugged it off and went back to work until Andrew came home. Andrew went downstairs as soon as he got home only to come running back upstairs to advise me his room in the basement was "afloat." Now for the multiple choice question. See if you can guess the cause of Andrew's newfound "waterbed."
a) We just had our first thunderstorm.
b) The water heater broke.
c) The boys with their buddies left the outside faucet on yesterday when having a water fight.
If you picked "c," you're right...
I had explicitly told both boys to turn the faucet off and not play with it after 3:00 yesterday as it was getting soggy on the lawn. I'm guessing the faucet was left on a good 9 hours or so before Andrew discovered it. He was the first to guess what was up, to his credit. The faucet is located just above Andrew's egress window that sits actually underground with a plastic leanto roof to "protect" it from snow in the winter. That was unfortunately the water's point of least resistance and it all flowed through his window into his room. Luckily I invested $250 in a Bissell carpet steam machine last Christmas that acts as a wet vac... We must have vacuumed up a good 60-75 gallons of water with that. We've got fans blowing down there now in hopes of drying it out before black mold or mildew sets in. There were a couple of bright sides to the whole crisis, though... The flood was confined to the area just at the bottom of the stairs and Andrew's bedroom and didn't extend to the other "laundry" half of the basement or sauna so the damage is pretty well contained. The other bright side is Andrew now has a good reason to keep his room clean!! It was a mixed blessing in that regard. As he had a lot of clothes and towels laying around on his floor, they probably stemmed the flow of the water somewhat, but on the other hand, he lost a nice set of collector cards. I don't think he was too pleased when I suggested the need for room cleaning in the future. :o) I think I'm going to unscrew the faucet handle at this point to prevent future surprises.
We actually had our first Minnesota rain this morning when we left for the school bus this morning. It's been overcast for the first time I can remember in recent memory. I think the sun is just now peeking through a little. We missed the thunder from further south near Fargo. It's kept the boys in today too for the first time in a long while. The nice thing is Duchess waits for her paws to dry off before she hops up on the couch.
a) We just had our first thunderstorm.
b) The water heater broke.
c) The boys with their buddies left the outside faucet on yesterday when having a water fight.
If you picked "c," you're right...
I had explicitly told both boys to turn the faucet off and not play with it after 3:00 yesterday as it was getting soggy on the lawn. I'm guessing the faucet was left on a good 9 hours or so before Andrew discovered it. He was the first to guess what was up, to his credit. The faucet is located just above Andrew's egress window that sits actually underground with a plastic leanto roof to "protect" it from snow in the winter. That was unfortunately the water's point of least resistance and it all flowed through his window into his room. Luckily I invested $250 in a Bissell carpet steam machine last Christmas that acts as a wet vac... We must have vacuumed up a good 60-75 gallons of water with that. We've got fans blowing down there now in hopes of drying it out before black mold or mildew sets in. There were a couple of bright sides to the whole crisis, though... The flood was confined to the area just at the bottom of the stairs and Andrew's bedroom and didn't extend to the other "laundry" half of the basement or sauna so the damage is pretty well contained. The other bright side is Andrew now has a good reason to keep his room clean!! It was a mixed blessing in that regard. As he had a lot of clothes and towels laying around on his floor, they probably stemmed the flow of the water somewhat, but on the other hand, he lost a nice set of collector cards. I don't think he was too pleased when I suggested the need for room cleaning in the future. :o) I think I'm going to unscrew the faucet handle at this point to prevent future surprises.
We actually had our first Minnesota rain this morning when we left for the school bus this morning. It's been overcast for the first time I can remember in recent memory. I think the sun is just now peeking through a little. We missed the thunder from further south near Fargo. It's kept the boys in today too for the first time in a long while. The nice thing is Duchess waits for her paws to dry off before she hops up on the couch.
Sunday, April 10, 2005
The Chinese Golden Dragon Acrobats
Well, we had another good choir performance at Trinity with "Rain Down." We sang from the balcony, without the organ this time, so we were able to hear ourselves think for a change. Jerry and Marilyn Wigness returned to the fold for the first time in several weeks. It's a good thing I switched over to tenor this Sunday as the only other guy besides Mike was my new accountant, Randy, and he was gone this week so it was just Mike and I.
After the service, Jerry came over and handed us his season ticket for the Thief River Falls Concert Association and told us to go to the Chinese Acrobat performance at 1:30. Then Ormand gave us his season ticket and after we got home, Marilyn drove over her ticket from her house so we'd have three. When we got to Lincoln High School, the lady at the ticket table saw we had the three and only needed one for Daniel so she dug in her purse and gave us her "last free ticket." It was quite a show for free, I must say. The auditorium looks great there now that they've done some refurbishing. The act was just incredible with all their physical feats and balancing routines. They came out with about 6 plates spinning on sepate dowel rods and danced around with them. There was a guy that stood on only one hand while balance on about 6 chairs stacked in a tower. The tumbling routines were pretty neat too. Aaron and Daniel just sat there with wide eyes taking it all in. We dropped them off afterwards at their buddy, Dorion's, house. They're back out having a water fight right now, so maybe a little work can get done around here...
After the service, Jerry came over and handed us his season ticket for the Thief River Falls Concert Association and told us to go to the Chinese Acrobat performance at 1:30. Then Ormand gave us his season ticket and after we got home, Marilyn drove over her ticket from her house so we'd have three. When we got to Lincoln High School, the lady at the ticket table saw we had the three and only needed one for Daniel so she dug in her purse and gave us her "last free ticket." It was quite a show for free, I must say. The auditorium looks great there now that they've done some refurbishing. The act was just incredible with all their physical feats and balancing routines. They came out with about 6 plates spinning on sepate dowel rods and danced around with them. There was a guy that stood on only one hand while balance on about 6 chairs stacked in a tower. The tumbling routines were pretty neat too. Aaron and Daniel just sat there with wide eyes taking it all in. We dropped them off afterwards at their buddy, Dorion's, house. They're back out having a water fight right now, so maybe a little work can get done around here...
Saturday, April 09, 2005
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
No Child Left Behind?
Well, today was the conference at Challenger for Aaron's educational testing results. I met with Karen, the intensive learning instructor, Mrs. Miller, Aaron's teacher, the speech therapist, and Lori Warne, the school psychologist. They did a pretty thorough assessment of where Aaron has been prior to coming to the Minnesota public school system (Challenger) and how far he has come. The last time Aaron was formally assessed was in 2002 at Chase Lake in Edmonds. He continues to have challenges in areas of processing/sequencing, but has also made substantial gains in many other areas. They were all impressed with his level of growth and highly praised the school he came from in Washington, Chase Lake, and all they did in getting him where he is today. That being said, there were a couple of funny things his teacher, Mrs. Miller, related to us in the report. Apparently Aaron has a way of focusing on his immediate needs, sometimes to the exclusion of those around him. They were in a Social Studies class session one day when Aaron decided to get up in the middle of the session and go over to "look at the puppets" on the side of the classroom. Mrs. Miller was understandably surprised to see him do that and called out to him, "What are you doing, Aaron?" Aaron replied innocently that he was just "looking at the puppets." Mrs. Miller responded, "Do you think now is the appropriate time to be doing that??" Aaron simply said "no," and returned to his desk. After he got back to his desk, he looks over at one of his classmates and says, "Told you so!" I could just picture Aaron's expression too... :o) Another example was one day when they were in a particular session and Aaron decided he was thirsty. Rather than get his water bottle off his desk, he got up and walked to the sink in the middle of the session. Of course he again acknowledged it "probably wasn't the best time to get it" per Mrs. Miller's inquiry. Mrs. Miller thought it was just so funny how he got up, oblivious to the current activity, and just went about his business as though nothing was amiss. The funniest moment came, however, when Mrs. Miller posed a question to the class. Apparently a couple of kids tried responding with no success, then a tense silence followed by Aaron's blurting out, "Come on, people!! Would somebody just give her the answer??? Geez!!" I think she just about had a cow in class upon hearing that. He obviously knew that's what was holding up the class session and "wanted to get on with it!" We all had a good chuckle over that.
The long and short of the testing is that Aaron no longer meets criteria for speech therapy, having mastered average vocabulary ability and other speech skills. He averages between 3-14 word sentences, apparently, whereas the actual norm is around 18 words per sentence. She said that's not necessarily "a bad thing," though, as he seems to get his thoughts across just fine with fewer words. We all acknowledged, though, that he's nowhere near ready to just be "dropped" from all learning service support so they are doing an "override" of the Minnesota criteria for special needs and using just the "language development" criteria at this point to qualify him for services. They were in a quandary as to what to do about the upcoming NWEA and other standardized testing as Mrs. Miller figured he will just be frustrated to the point of giving up and I responded that I was aware they need to meet the new requirements of the federal "No Child Left Behind" Act, but that I suspected the Act's chief proponent was probably left behind himself somewhere along the way...
At the end of the meeting, we confirmed the boys were waiting in the office for me to take them home, but before we could adjourn, I saw the bill of a beige Mariner's cap just barely come into view in the window next to the closed meeting room door (Aaron) followed by Daniel waving real big at me.
The plan at this point is they will draw up an IEP (Individual Education Plan) based on the test results and we may meet again just before school lets out to go over it and confirm plans for next year.
Andrew's cooking some chicken for dinner tonight when he gets back home and then we're all headed to choir practice. Signing off now....
The long and short of the testing is that Aaron no longer meets criteria for speech therapy, having mastered average vocabulary ability and other speech skills. He averages between 3-14 word sentences, apparently, whereas the actual norm is around 18 words per sentence. She said that's not necessarily "a bad thing," though, as he seems to get his thoughts across just fine with fewer words. We all acknowledged, though, that he's nowhere near ready to just be "dropped" from all learning service support so they are doing an "override" of the Minnesota criteria for special needs and using just the "language development" criteria at this point to qualify him for services. They were in a quandary as to what to do about the upcoming NWEA and other standardized testing as Mrs. Miller figured he will just be frustrated to the point of giving up and I responded that I was aware they need to meet the new requirements of the federal "No Child Left Behind" Act, but that I suspected the Act's chief proponent was probably left behind himself somewhere along the way...
At the end of the meeting, we confirmed the boys were waiting in the office for me to take them home, but before we could adjourn, I saw the bill of a beige Mariner's cap just barely come into view in the window next to the closed meeting room door (Aaron) followed by Daniel waving real big at me.
The plan at this point is they will draw up an IEP (Individual Education Plan) based on the test results and we may meet again just before school lets out to go over it and confirm plans for next year.
Andrew's cooking some chicken for dinner tonight when he gets back home and then we're all headed to choir practice. Signing off now....
Did It Really Reach 60 Degrees This Week??
It's amazing. We've actually had at least a couple of days this past week where it's exceeded 60 degrees, yet we still have a modest snowbank remaining in our back yard. The rest of the city is devoid of snow and we actually have some green lawn, not all brown like some lawns get in Washington. We headed out to the hardware store, Andrew and I, last Friday and picked up a new rake and a child-size rake and shovel. I had intended to use the little rake and shovel for dog doo duty, but within minutes of returning home, Daniel had commandeered it with his older buddy, Tyler, and took over the raking assignment of the front lawn. While he was doing that, Andrew and I went to Super One and Andrew picked out some juicy ribeye steaks and steak fries and we had the barbecue on Friday night. We put the BBQ out on the front sidewalk that leads from the house to the street and just grilled them right there with some hamburgers. It was quite the tasty feast.
The next day, Saturday, the neighbors with the boys, the Widerski's, asked if they could trade babysitting duty with us as they wanted to get out for dinner at the Best Western and figured it would be cheaper for all involved if we did that from time to time, so I had six boys in the house Saturday night. They were all pretty well behaved, though, watching Shark Tale and playing pretty quietly, so I was actually able to get some transcription work done with little difficulty.
We made it out to K-mart on Sunday and I picked out a Darth Vader voice-changing helmet for Daniel's birthday along with a light-up sound effect Darth Vader light saber. Daniel was quite the imposing figure with his new mask and was even more popular with the Widerski boys when he got home. We got those toys (and a light saber for Aaron) as the Widerskis had them and I figured the boys should have their own so they can all play together with noone being left out. We went to Handy Farms for dinner, but an hour after we had eaten our appetizers, our dinner was nowhere in sight, so we ended up at McDonald's instead.
The boys spent all but about 10 minutes from the time they got off the bus to about 6:15 pm playing with the Widerskis tonight. They apparently were having a "battle with the 6th graders" today, something to do with water fights. Daniel got some more bike riding in too today. Aaron turned his dad's alarm clock off (again) this morning, so he ended up missing his bus this morning. He rode Daniel's bus with him to Challenger this afternoon. I'll be heading to his school tomorrow afternoon to discuss the results of his educational testing and determine how they will proceed with his educational plan from this point forward.
That's all the news that's fit to print since last Friday. We'll see what happens this weekend... :o)
The next day, Saturday, the neighbors with the boys, the Widerski's, asked if they could trade babysitting duty with us as they wanted to get out for dinner at the Best Western and figured it would be cheaper for all involved if we did that from time to time, so I had six boys in the house Saturday night. They were all pretty well behaved, though, watching Shark Tale and playing pretty quietly, so I was actually able to get some transcription work done with little difficulty.
We made it out to K-mart on Sunday and I picked out a Darth Vader voice-changing helmet for Daniel's birthday along with a light-up sound effect Darth Vader light saber. Daniel was quite the imposing figure with his new mask and was even more popular with the Widerski boys when he got home. We got those toys (and a light saber for Aaron) as the Widerskis had them and I figured the boys should have their own so they can all play together with noone being left out. We went to Handy Farms for dinner, but an hour after we had eaten our appetizers, our dinner was nowhere in sight, so we ended up at McDonald's instead.
The boys spent all but about 10 minutes from the time they got off the bus to about 6:15 pm playing with the Widerskis tonight. They apparently were having a "battle with the 6th graders" today, something to do with water fights. Daniel got some more bike riding in too today. Aaron turned his dad's alarm clock off (again) this morning, so he ended up missing his bus this morning. He rode Daniel's bus with him to Challenger this afternoon. I'll be heading to his school tomorrow afternoon to discuss the results of his educational testing and determine how they will proceed with his educational plan from this point forward.
That's all the news that's fit to print since last Friday. We'll see what happens this weekend... :o)
Friday, April 01, 2005
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