Jury Duty

About a month ago I got the infamous letter in the mail saying that I have been selected for jury duty.  This week was the time I was supposed to call to see if my juror number is being called.  My juror number was 894.  I thought for sure they would never need almost 900 people in one week.  Boy was I wrong.  My number and the 50 or so after me were called for Wednesday.  I get to report for my first stint of my civic duty at 9:30 tomorrow morning.

So I blame this on my parents but I'm actually pretty excited for the idea of jury duty.  The thing that I'm not excited about is trying to find childcare for my kids at the last minute.  Why does anyone think that jury duty is something we can all drop our lives for at the last minute?  I know that criminals (or accused criminals) are granted the right to a speedy trial but why aren't jurors required to receive more than 24 hours notice to serve for jury duty?  If I get called I may end up serving on a grand jury for the entire month of November.  Who thought 3-4 days was enough time for a mom, student, and part-time employee to find someone to cover my "life" for a month.

Either way I don't get much of a choice in it now so here goes nothing...

Our Website

For some of you this may be a little bit redundant but I'm trying to boost our online rank so I apologize now but here it is...check out www.pdxkids.org!

Thanks!

Attempt at Eloquence

I've never really made an honest attempt at blogging because I never feel as if I know how to fill a page. I think that's more of a mood than a genuine ability because, given the right mood, I seem pretty competent at communicating! I really want to blog successfully because I have a lot of friends and family who are not geographically close and I love sharing a slice of our world with them and hearing about some of their daily activities, too.

So, to catch everyone up...

Kevin is still working at Costco. He has been going to school full-time as well. Aside from that he is an AMAZING dad!

I have been going to school but I had a little hiccup recently. I was supposed to begin my student teaching in September and be graduating in about 2 more months. My placement fell through and my student teaching was postponed until January. We have found a school that should work for January. It is a small charter school in NE Portland. It will be about an hour commute (if not more) each direction and the school is far from traditional, but I'm trusting that God has me there for a reason and that reason is greater than any reason I could come up with to avoid going to that school. In the meantime, since I had finished all of my coursework I switched my major from math to physics. This move allowed me to keep my financial aid and work towards credits for a masters degree.

Conner has started 1st grade. He has been very successful in school and loves his teacher Mrs. Hopkins. He asked to go back to AWANA's this year so we have taken him back there and he has been memorizing 3-5 scriptures per week. Him and Chloe have both been doing an amazing job of soaking up these verses because there is a CD we have been listening to in the car. Conner has also been taking karate lessons and he is about to test for his yellow belt in a week or two.

Chloe has been providing all sorts of entertainment for us! She loves dancing and singing. She has been taking ballet classes and will have her first recital in December. Chloe is in teacher Tootie and teacher Celia's class for preschool and she is doing really well. Chloe is also in Cubbies for AWANAs. She got to take Cubbie bear home this week and has been very excited about having him here.

Charlee is keeping all of us on our toes! She has an amazing amount of attitude (I still contend that it couldn't have come from me!!) and she can roll her eyes like a pro! She's really pretty fun. But here's a prime example: this very minute she is standing on a little piano keyboard we have. I asked her to get off and she said no. I said we don't stand on the piano. Please get off so she did but then she immediately stuck her big toe of one foot on the keyboard and looked at me with a big grin. I told her she was going to get a spanking because she was not listening and was still standing on the keyboard. She got her spanking, cried, and I put her down. Within 4.3 seconds she has that silly big toe back on the piano. We've done this 3 times now!

I'm sorry for the length but hopefully you are all caught up now and maybe next time I will be able to come up with something creative or insightful to say. Don't hold your breath, though!