We Won!

Amanda and friends went to the playoff game tonight. I'm not sure if it was semi-finals or regionals. Whatever - all I know is that we won and are one step closer to state. Our football team comes so close every year, but we have not won first in state for a while. Second place the past two years. Maybe this is our year....

Jake had to work again today, but, he has already re-connected with his friends tonight.

Late Friday Night

Two more photos from Friday night.............

Amanda, Jocelyn, Kirk and Charlie

The Freshmen are upstairs tonight....

Ben, Hannah, Jake, Alex, Zach, and ?

And, somehow, the Seniors got the lower level - AGAIN!

(We actually had WW III for a while over occupancy of the basement - things got kinda ugly - so Mom had to step in and mediate)

I love midnight - that's when everything has to be quiet and all extra bodies have to go home.

(That is those who are not on the extened stay program - Sleep overs)

State Teacher's Convention - Day Two

Amanda and Jocelyn spent the afternoon at the mall, then came here for a sleepover.

Notice how the day begins in the afternoon. The kids love to sleep until noon on days off.

Steppin' outside to see what all the commotion is...
Someone has Saran wrapped Hannah's car while it was parked in the court tonight. This was about 9 p.m. For those of you "old" people.....wrapping a car in Saran wrap is "in".
My first photo of the completed mess didn't turn out for some reason, but you get the idea here.

Jake lends a hand (and a scissors) to help Hannah unwrap her car.
There's quite a bit of film here.... and a car somewhere!

*Note * I think that wrapping cars is "in" all over - or is it a Wisconsin thing? Like cow tipping?

Actually, cow tipping is "out". That was my generation.

State Teacher's Convention - Day One

We all have Thursday and Friday off for the state teacher's convention...

So much for Jake's day off. He got called in to work. Bummer. He is a really good sport about things like this. Always willing to help out.
See Ya Bub! Have a nice day.

Amanda spent the day "chillin" with a friend and then went to a bonfire in the evening.

Check out the colors on the tree. Awesome!

The latest news on my Suburban is that Jake wants it. Now it looks like we are going to be selling his Explorer. That is the story as of today anyway.

Sunday

Well, I shot about 300 photos today and only a few (from about 10 p.m. tonight) are of anyone in my family. The kids and I stopped in tonight to see Craig, Mom, Dad and Teddy.

Proud Uncle - Teddy loves his niece and nephews.

Someone is re-living his high school wrestling days. Amanda gets thrown around just as much as her brother by my sisters "boys". Their strength amazes me.

Fright Fest and the Weekend

Jake packed my car full of kids yesterday and headed to Fright Fest at Six Flags. They all had a good time and came here afterward to crash for the evening. It didn't end until midnight, so I was worried about them coming home so late. Needless to say, it was 2 before I got to go to sleep for the evening.

Today I drove Amanda to Denny's to meet up with her friend Ashley and Ashley's family as they were heading down to Fright Fest for the weekend. It was Ashley's birthday gift to bring a friend along on the trip. So Amanda is now gone for the weekend to Illinois.

After that it was home to clean the garage. Joy.

Had a job to take photos early in the evening in Milwaukee for the catering, and picked up the Teddy Bear for Mom and Dad later tonight.

Craiggers arrived for a visit to Mom and Dad's house, so I stopped to visit for a while. It's always so nice to see my nephews. Wish they didn't live so far away.

Tomorrow more photos. Engagement shots in the afternoon and an open house in the morning- for the catering. Kind of a busy weekend, but that's o.k. because it will be a slow week coming up for work due to state teacher's convention. Everyone is off Thursday and Friday so not many jobs will come up.

The Week In Review

It has been a pretty quiet week, except that basketball has started up again. The junior high girls season started, and that of course means official score book time. Now you may be wondering what I am doing at junior high basketball games........

Well, I still work at the school that my kids attended, and some of my closest friends are there also. Plus, don't forget that this is an after school paid position. Yes, I am paid to sit on my keester and keep the official game score book. I enjoy this and I love having the best seat in the house for every game.

The real highlight of my week - sorry time to brag here.......... It was 9 week grading time for the kids. I also had conferences with teachers. Amanda got a 4.0 gpa and Jake had one B so his was a 3.87. Yeah, pick me up off the floor. It was a very proud moment when I received their grades.
So that was about it. Other than that, I survived teaching music, math, bus duty, and my other sub assignments.

"Old" Friends

A while back, I posted a couple photos of Jake and Amanda's lifelong friends Kelsey and JJ.

Back by request, are some of the other "oldies". These are some of Jake's buddies that have been around a long time.

I am working on Amanda's. She has had a lot (8 to be exact) of friends move away.

Amanda, Jake and Alex - about 1999
Jake and Alex - summer 2007
Jake, Zach and Trevor - about 2001
Alex, Kyle, Ben, Jake and Trevor with Alli in 2007

Jake and Kyle about 2000
Jake and Kyle 2007

Jake and Ben - 1996
Jake and Ben 2007

*The kids like these for their Facebook pages.

Cousins

This is a photo of my Mom and her cousin Sharon. When I was young, Sharon and her kids would come to visit us at our house on Spring Street. That was about 35 years ago.

We had a little reunion over the weekend.....

Mom and Sharon
Some of Sandy and Sharon's grandchildren.
Missing are Candy, John and Julie's kids.

Sharon, youngest daughter Donna and her children Alex and Allison.
Sharon, her son Greg, his wife Emily and their daughters Amy and Hailey.
We had some fun times as kids.....the children of Sandy and Sharon.

Teddy, Greg, Donna and Me. Missing are Candy, Julie and John.

Note: Cousin Nick (Aunt Jeri's son) also came over, but he escaped before the cameras came out. We'll get you next time Nick!

Zero to Twenty - Something in an Hour!

Friday evening my house was empty......really empty.

Jake and friends were out somewhere, and Amanda and friends were at the school soccer game.

It was so quiet. Really quiet. I was actually feeling kind of lonely, so I was just about to head out the door to visit with some of my friends for a while...

Then the phone rang.

Amanda and "some friends" were walking home.

Definition of "some" = twelve.

Then the phone rang again.

Jake and "some friends" were on their way.

Definition of "some" = ten.

Cars were pulling up and kids were coming through the door like something you would see in a movie. Then more came - and a few left. Then more came - and some more left. I really don't have an exact head count, but I know that they consumed 4 pizzas and 2 orders of bread sticks from Dominoes, along with most of Jake's stash of soda.

Actually, everyone was very well behaved and it was quite a nice night. (I only filed one complaint with the kids about the one person who walked in and did not say "Hi").

I'm big on manners.

Photos of a few of the guests...

Some of the girls from Amanda's group. The early birds. When the others (and the guys) arrived they moved down stairs for a movie and booted Jake's group upstairs.
Some of Jake's friends right where Amanda's group left off.
Jake and friends.
Sometimes I know how many people are here by the number of shoes in the doorway. This photo does not include the ones that came around the corner and into the hallway.

I never did make it out to see MY friends....

Tuesday Night Football

Photos from the last home Freshman football game... good times, great season.

Amanda and friend David - (I have no idea where he got the headband).

self explanitory...
umm.. I think that the game is behind you...


These photos were compliments of the "Heather" collection.

Misc...

Amanda on her cell phone... it's either here or on AIM.

Yesterday it was 85 - felt like 95 and today it is 40 and feels like 30. Air Conditioning to Heat in less than 24 hours. Gotta love it.

Follow up on the big bomb scare - it has been business as usual at school since Monday. :)

We made MSNBC nationally and the local news. Some of the local Tv stations sent their helicopters out to video tape the kids out on the football field. Since they were shoointg this footage from so high above, some of the kids thought it would be funny to lay down on the field and spell out the word "HELP" with their bodies. Of course, the TV news people included this with their footage on the news cast.

And Yes, my beloved son took part in this .......

The pace has slowed down here .... no sports and no special events for Amanda, and less work hours at Best Buy and some of the college applications are sent out for Jake.

Whew!

Bad Day

It was just an all around bad day here. For starters, the Packers lost last night. The only thing worse than losing -- is losing to the Chicago Bears! We should have had that game.

BUMMER.

Just as this was the worst thing that I had to worry about today...

Then this afternoon, I'm teaching at a school in Merton, and one of my co-workers gets a text message from her daughter at the high school, and she finds out that they have evacuated the school because of a bomb threat. Noboday knows what is going on other than they have the kids on the football field. Fabulous. The one day that I don't have my cell phone with me.

The school I'm at doesn't get out until 4, so I'm trying to reach Jake's cell from the school phone to find out where he and Amanda are. I finally got in contact with him at almost 3 and he was just released from school. He had his sister and was headed home. Whew!

I talked with some friends who also received messages from their children at about the same time. They said that the line of parents in cars going to school to claim their children was backed up all the way into town. The wait was about an hour just to get on campus. Then they had to show ID to be allowed to take their children. Next thing was trying to find someone in a sea of over 1,200 kids - at each location. They had the 9th and 10th graders on the football field and the 11th and 12th graders in the soccer stadium.

What a mess. My kids were outside for 2 hours while the school was being checked, and even though they normally drive home, they were not allowed to leave.

Supposedly, business as usual tomorrow - Trust me, I'll have my cell phone with me.

These are some scarry and crazy times.

Homecoming - The Dance

The big night has arrived - finally!

Jake and Amy

Jake's friends

Jake and Amanda

A special "thanks" to my Mommy for once again coming to the rescue. She ran over at the last minute to fix Amanda's dress. The straps were not fitting just right and she re-did them for us.

Amanda, Jordan, Ashley and John
Jordan and Amanda

The Game - OUCH!

The festivities continue with the big game.

These clowns arrive right behind the parade.


Jake and Ben at the game - standing room only.
Halftime fireworks show...Someone's kid doesn't know any better than to sit on top of the fence. Oh, wait a minute......that's MY kid.
OOOOOh ---AAAAh
Ouch! This was the Halftime score! Sorry, Waukesha North. Someone better get my cousin Nick to come over to the North side and coach these kids on how to play football. I don't think that they even got a first down.

Amanda with Tara and Jordan (her date for Homecoming)
The girls...

Homecoming Parade

There is something kind of neat about the kids going to the same high school that I did... Memories!

Amanda and friends waiting for the parade to start.
En route. Amanda has a big bag filled with candy that she is tossing out to the kids.
The Freshman float.
Amanda and Ashley pose with the float. The "Senators" worked from 8 in the morning until 1 in the afternoon on this masterpiece. Pretty good for a bunch of rookies.

*Additional note: The cans dragging behind the float were rounded up from the last Halo 3 party in my basement.

Homecoming Week

It's Homecoming week and we're busy...

Brown bag lunches, Please! Jake on his way to school today - wet hair and all!

School Spirit Day - nice shirt! You can tell that I bought this when he was a Freshman. It's getting a wee bit small on him.

Ashley's Birthday - on the way to her celebration dinner tonight. Happy Birthday! (those are her parents patiently waiting in the driveway)

The guy Amanda is going to Homecoming with is on the football team, so she has his jersey to wear in the parade tomorrow-
she'll be riding on the Freshman float with the Student Senate.

Amanda has a lot to do with being on Student Senate. Preparation for the parade, Freshman float, decorations and dance. Not to mention the last minute details of her dress, alterations, date's corsage, her hair, etc... We also had her tennis banquet yesterday.

She has dressed up every day in some themed get up for spirit week and sold Homecoming dance tickets during the lunch hour. In addition to this she has had 3 tests, homework, and of course friends to keep up with. The really sad part of going to such a huge high school is that she doesn't see her friends very much during the day. Too many kids and too big of a building. There are many whom she never sees at all. Lunch is the only gathering time.

Jake stays busy with work, school work, online moderating, and friends. He didn't dress up at all this week - not his cup of tea. Actually, he did wear a school sweatshirt today for spirit day. (photo above)

We are also working on college applications for Jake. Although, I don't even like to think about him leaving.......my alma mater of University of Wisconsin - Whitewater would be nice :)

I have had a busy week of teaching. I went from gym teacher to French teacher, Pre-K to 8th grade Science, and others in between. Tomorrow will be easy - a 1/2 day in 2nd grade.

I also have a full time job as Amanda's chauffeur and personal assistant. Drive here, drive there, go to Walmart for this, go to the Piggly Wiggly for that, book this appointment, don't forget that appointment, ......I could keep going here, but you get the idea.