Wow-Another activity packed week! At least Tom was home this week to join in the fun. He actually missed out on a trip to Boston this Friday since we had already planned on taking the kids to Busch Gardens for Howl- o- Scream. Both Scott and Allison had the day off from school, so we decided to go down for the day to get into the Halloween mood. Scott actually started decorating our house the first of Oct. I thought it was a bit early until I took a walk through the neighborhood with Cookie. Seems like everyone is getting Halloween fever. There are lots of Halloween lights and spiderwebs up already. And I always get teased for decorating too soon-Sears had Christmas trees up this weekend! The power of the mighty shopping dollar. I am still just looking forward to Halloween. I love walking through the haunted mazes at Busch Gardens, but I have to go in alone. The kids are too scared. They just enjoy riding the rides and walking through the park, looking at all the decorations and keeping an eye out for the costumed characters jumping out from behind walls and bushes after dark. The park has a few great Halloween shows too. I think our favorite moment was watching live domestic rats run across a tightrope overhead in the French Quarter. The whole area was decorated with plastic rats. The story goes that if the only entrance(a pipe) to the catacombs, the underground tombs is ever sealed, devastation will come to Paris beginning with a plague of rats. So to spice things up they added a few live ones. We were just a wee bit nervous that some of them would not make it across and land on top of us!
We even brought Cookie along on Friday and checked her into the kennel at the park(not a bad deal for only $7.00). It beats staying in her cage at home all day or dropping her off overnight at Camp Bow Wow for $45.
That was not the only activity planned for the weekend though. Tom had to run the Cub Scout meeting on Saturday morning. He put on a presentation covering physics-lots of water and air pressure demos. He even picked up a few rockets to launch. While he was busy with cub scouts, Allison and I headed up to our GS camp to sing with the GS choir at the Harvest Festival. We did not stay long though since I took Tom to our gala at work on Saturday night. This year's theme was a Masquerade Ball-we had a lot of fun, especially playing blackjack most of the night. Rather than win money, you trade in your chips for raffle tickets. They also had a silent auction. Sadly we did not win anything, but we had a lot of fun trying. Plus it was a great excuse to get my hair cut and a manicure!
Sunday was study day, but Allison and I did have choir practice(the holidays are fast approaching). I also took Allison for a hair cut and to exchange the shoes I bought her last weekend. Naturally, the ones I bought were too small. We had to get a size 9!
I have to catch her when I can. She had two Field Hockey games last week, although 3 were scheduled. One was canceled on Thursday as it rained all day. Now she has two games this coming week and she is done. We also took her out for a Field Hockey fundraiser dinner at Pizzeria Uno on WEds night. I had a chance to catch one of her games last week, although I spent most of the time chatting with the moms. I referred my out- of- work nurse neighbor to one of the Field Hockey moms that is the Director of Nursing for the Genesis Nursing Homes in the Baltimore area. My neighbor Gloria has been a nurse manager for many years in many different surgical units, but she has not been too successful in keeping a position for the last few years. Facilities keep cutting back, positions are eliminated or reorganized. Anyhow, Gloria has an interview next week so I hope she gets some work. She was actually considering getting an apt in Philly and working there during the week and coming back on the weekends. Although they may not have a management position for her currently, the Director seems to be excited to bring her in on the floor and work her up. So sometimes you get more than you expected when your kids get involved in different activities! As a bonus, Scott sold over 30 candy bars at the game that night as a fund raiser for the school's choir!
And Allison survived her first PSAT this week. (I don't remember having to take them during school). Not only did she have the PSAT, but a few of her teachers decided to schedule tests around that day as well, so she was feeling a bit stressed. She was surprised that the actual test was so much longer than the practice tests and noticed that she ran out of time on each section. That's why we told her to take the practice tests! She will actually take the PSAT next year too as a Junior.
We also had parent teacher conferences for Scott on Thursday night. I was feeling a bit stressed about the whole event, and was expecting the whole 15 mins to be very disappointing as I have had some issues with the teaching methods and we have had some disagreements with Scott's learning style and skills. Turns out the meeting was very pleasant and surprising as both of Scott's primary teachers think he is just one of the best students they have ever had! One of his teachers even went so far as to thank us for sending Scott to the school(nothing like the parent teacher conferences we had in the past). I was mainly concerned about obtaining study guides to help Scott review for his tests. We found out that Scott was getting the info correct on his quizzes but losing all his points for spelling. Didn't know we had to worry about the spelling, but we are being more cautious. I still don't think they should lose points for spelling since the kids end up with Cs on the tests for losing just a few points, but some things are hard to argue. Usually at this level teachers just give the kids word banks to pick out the right answer, but Tom is just happy to see that Scott understands what he is learning. His teachers love his enthusiasm and participation(finally somebody gets it!). So Tom and I left the school with a whole new happy outlook. We still have to see how his tests turn out.
Hurray again for our MSU football team(another win for us, sorry Uof M). Sadly our Ravens took a loss to the Patriots this weekend. Tom will miss out on another guys night out Monday night football date.
He is once again heading off to California this upcoming week. He will be closer to LA however and will have a chance to stop in and see my brother Mike and take him out to dinner. Mike is still looking for full time work as a librarian in LA. At least he has some part time work to keep him going. I will be plenty busy again this week(once again wish me luck!). Kathleen and family