Crazy week book long post

I am trying to decide if I want to post three to four quick posts about the different things going on, or just one ridiculously long post. It seems when I have posted back to back in the past the first post gets ignored, or at least no commentary... So I am leaning on making a long post. This is the third time I've started a new post, hopefully I will get to a point I can hit the all powerful "publish post" button.

I enjoyed the comments in the name blog. One mentioned a friend that took names from things that are important in their lives and incorporated them into names. We have done this and have come up with some new names that we really like. I teach at LHS whose mascot is the pioneer, and go to UVSC, whose mascot also invokes attributes I hope my children posses. I also teach dance and want my child to feel a special connection to that field of expression, so...

Wolverine Tango and Pioneer ChaCha are now on the top of our list.

------next subject----------

I got a little sunburned. I taught my middle school dance classes outside on Thursday for fun, and got a little more sun than I expected. Today it started to peel, big time. I have some special man-moisturizer, you can tell it's for men because it is in a very macho container and doesn't smell like petunias. I don't ever need moisturizer, thanks to growing up in 300% humidity, but I wanted to not look so much like I had some tropical skin disease. Of course I used too much. It looked like I used a butter knife and spread margarine across my nose and under my eyes. I got some in my eyes and looked like I was very emotional all during sacrament meeting since my left eye would not stop tearing. Kristen said something smelled funny near where we were sitting, I told her I could only smell moisturizer. At least it didn't smell like petunias.

----------NEXT----------

Friday was a 5 hour long teacher meeting at my middle school, no kids that day. The few times these happen during the year they are for training or testing correction, or something like that. This last one is for each department and committee to report on their year, budgets, goals, achievements, successes etc. Each department was asked to make a presentation through power point or something professional. I did one up for the dance department... it rocked. I had given all of my students a writing assignment in the past, they had two index cards and three different prompts they had to choose two of, one per card, and then write me a little sentence or paragraph about how the dance class went for them.

The prompts were...

I used to think...... but now.... (in reference to dance)

My favorite dance is... and why..

When I dance I feel.....

They come up with the most incredible, heart wrenching, inspirational responses. This is how I track my success as a program, it's not about how well you can shake your hips. I combined my favorite responses and blurbs about our performances and field trips for the year together with a bunch of photographs a professional photographer who came to my classes took for me and with music.... it was awesome. Many of the teachers were crying, everyone came up and told me how powerful it was, some asked for copies, some said it made them reevaluate how they think about their own personal self image, just a great response. Keep in mind that this came at the end of a five hour long meeting and dozens of other presentations. I want to put it on here so if anyone knows how to post a powerpoint let me know... I am patting myself on the back, but more importantly it is a commentary on how something as seemingly trivial as dance can have a positive effect on kids and teens. You have to talk about self image, body awareness, motivation... all of that.

I came up with the writing assignment as a band aid approach for a school wide project last year that was hard to fit dance into. I will never stop giving it, I love hearing the kids in such a way.

-------------and next again-----------------

We had a big party at our house on Saturday, an awards banquet for my high school dance team. Of course we didn't take pictures, we refuse to record anything for posterity.

I brought in a bunch of round tables and rented white chairs, fancy table clothes and matching plates, an accent salad plate that matched the napkin. Center pieces were glass dishes with a little colored water and lots of medium sized black rocks in the dish and spread around the dish also, around 9 floating candles were in the dish and scattered around the rocks. In a separate part of the yard were groupings of adirondack chairs, an hors devours table with champagne glasses and the best drink I have ever....ever had, we got the recipe. I had rolls of paper standing about three feet high throughout the mix and mingle area, kids went around and wrote adjectives on the papers of all of their co-dancers about that person, and they got to take them home. We also had a graffiti wall set up where they could write down their favorite memory from the year, we'll save that for future parties, and keep adding to it another one each time. Dinner was potluck, but carefully controlled, very nice dishes, very fancy. We had the awards presentation after, it was very nice. Took tons of work to set it up, but I think the kids appreciated it. The team captains gave out lots of funny awards, we had 6 trophies made special for some bigger awards. We also had hats made for everyone that had the name of the program and the year on them. We also made up embroidered blankets for our team captains to say thanks. If I hadn't had the wrong name embroidered on the girl's captain's blanket I would've said the party was a complete success.. I felt like such a schmuck.

------------------one more, this should be it------------

Yesterday was also my parent's 45th wedding anniversary. None of us kids live very close to Mom and Dad, so I kind of spear headed everything by using the internet and the phone. It ended up pretty great. I found a great fancy restaurant online that was actually pretty close to my parents. It is in a hunting lodge kind of hotel built in the 1890's... the setting and building were beautiful, right on the river, lots of boats going by. It was expensive enough that Mom and Dad had never been there, we all chipped in and bought them a gift certificate for them to get everything from appetizers, a couple of courses and desert, whatever they wanted. I then called a local florist and had them deliver a special arrangement that was on the table before they got there, it was four roses, each with one of our names tied to it, and a bunch of more flowers to make it pretty. Than we each came up with good memories of our childhood, I emailed them to the restaurant and they rolled up each one and inserted them into the arrangement. I got a nice email back from the staff at the restaurant that is was very nice and Mom and Dad were very lucky, I talked to Mom this morning, it sounds like it was perfect.

I'm going to put in here the 4 notes each one of my brother and sisters wrote up, I can think of no way to better express the family I came from, what we find important, and the family I hope to create for myself in the future.

It'll be long, but hey, if you made it this far you have more time on your hands than you thought you did!! :)

one more thing WEDNESDAY WE FIND OUT!!!!

ok here they are.

--------
Oldest Sister

I can think back and remember the day my parents were sealed in the temple. My favorite part was walking into the sealing room and seeing them waiting for us, already kneeling at the altar together.

I have lots of little memories, not just one specific, about the time we spent together as a family. I liked going to work in the garden. There was a member of the church who had a large lot of land that he offered as a community garden. We had a plot. We had to haul our own water and work hard weeding and watering the plants. It’s not that that was so much fun, but it was fun to be there, all together as a family. We would always go after and get slurpees, it became quite the anticipated tradition.

We had lots of adventures in the car. They were adventures, Dad was never lost, we were simply exploring. We were together, singing in the car, and playing math games.

I loved our family together time.

I love you both,
Shannon
------------
Next sister

Mom always wanted an organ. Dad always worked so hard. Mom and Dad scrimped and saved for a long time until there was enough extra to purchase a beautiful organ. We moved a lot, and the organ always came with us and always held a spot of honor in the den of whatever home we were living in.

I remember when I was a junior in high school and we were living in Hope, MI. Mom and I were working in the kitchen. I was washing dishes in the sink.

Mom asked me “Amy, if you could have anything in the world what would it be?”

I didn’t need to think very hard about it, I answered that it would be a horse. I didn’t have to ponder over it at all.

Mom then said “How about the horse next door?”

And I stopped, and I turned around, and I looked at her.

She said, “We’re going to trade the organ for the horse next door.”

I was so amazed and touched that Mom and Dad were willing to trade what Dad had worked so hard for, what Mom had always wanted so I could have my horse.

Mom and Dad always gave everything for us kids. They were always there.

I had a bad dream once, I was yelling and hollering in my dream. As I woke up, I didn’t even have to call for anybody, they were already there. Coming to make sure I was safe.

Thank you both for always giving everything you had for us.

Love,
Amy
----------------

Third child, older brother

When I think of a good memory from my childhood: one of the best is going to the drive in movies in our pajamas and sitting on top of the van to watch the show. Then we would go and play on the playground set under the big movie screen.

The next favorite memory is renting the movie projector from the library. We would hang up a sheet in the basement, make pop corn and watch the old western movies dad would bring home on the actual film reels.

I plan on doing the same thing and seeing if I can still get a projector and a sheet to set up and watch the old westerns with my kids.

I will always have a place in my heart for Clint Eastwood as a cowboy now!

Love,
Guy
------------
me

Laughing. I definitely remember laughing. Whatever we were doing, we would eventually all be laughing about it.

We would all try to take Dad. I would move all the way back to the couch, where Mom was sitting, protecting, hoping no one got hurt, making sure we didn’t get thrown into the TV or the end table, smiling and shaking her head. And then I would put my hands behind me, and push off the couch, run full force straight at the mass of legs and bodies and dive at his shoulders, knowing full well I would have little effect. He would see me coming and scoop me up and use the momentum from my run to flip me up and over the pile of Barnums and I would scoot to a stop, turn and run and jump on top again. And we were laughing.

Movie nights were great. Mom would have crackers and cheese, and if you waited a minute she would spread some on a cracker and hand it down the line, and then another, and another until we all got one, then she would quickly get one bite of her own before starting to make little crackers and cheese for everyone else again. If you sat in front of her knees, you wouldn’t get any extra crackers, she made sure that everyone was taken care of evenly, but you would get your back scratched when no one else wanted any more snacks.

Mom and Dad both gave great hair-icanes. You might think your head would fall off when Dad gave you one, but either way, we laughed.

Thank you for teaching me that happy is normal, and that being abnormal and weird is what we happily, laughingly, call normal.

I love you Mom and Dad, Happy anniversary,
Cal