The Kassel Family Project Life 365

Want to distract some kids?  Make them sort a grocery bag of plastic knives, forks, and spoons!  It was 15 minutes of blissful silence.

To celebrate the end of another successful year of Sunday School, St. Andrew’s had Fun Day today.  The kids got to play games, play with the parachute, do crafts, and play with bubbles.  Laura’s favorite activity was playing with the parachute and John loved the Ring Toss and Ladder Golf.  It was a beautiful morning and just a great time!

It was a Saturday O’ Fun with family and friends!  It began with a tasty breakfast at Cracker Barrel with Grandpa Ken and Grandma Marilyn.  We were home for maybe ten minutes when Laura and John asked if I would get the little pool out.  I’m a pushover so I did!  Before I even got the pool refilled, Chloe and Claire appeared on our doorstep to play with the kids.  After the pool had warmed sufficiently, I sent Chloe and Claire back to their house for swimsuits.  They came on a run about five minutes later ready to jump in the pool.

Crystal, Chloe and Claire’s Mom, showed up around 2 pm to pick up the girls as they had some family errands to run.  Not long after the girls left, Jeremy came over to hang with me for a while.  He brought Roux the dog with him so Roux could get some kid time.  A bit later after Alia woke up from her nap, the Lowery family came over for more fun time.  The kids had a great time and the Lowerys ended up staying for a spaghetti dinner!

The Lowerys left after bath time and then shortly after that, I turned on a movie for the kids.  Chloe and Claire, along with Bobby and Crystal, wandered back down the street to hang out.  The adults sat on the front porch and the kids “watched” the movie while mostly playing.  Finally, about 9:15 pm, it was bed time for my kids.  Laura and John were just done from a day of hard playing – and Momma was done from a day of picking up the kids’ room no less than *SIX* times.  It really was a Saturday O’ Fun!

I HAVE A NEW JOB STARTING JULY 1!  I received a phone call today from Roberta Mullen asking me if I would like a position at the Assessment Resource Center when my position at IML ends.  Of course, I said yes.  I have said all along, and for years really, that she runs a class organization and I would love to work there.  I am very excited and all that stress I’ve been feeling since September is now gone.  🙂  So, yay me!  I will meet with her next week to discuss the position and what I’ll be doing.  Stay tuned…

On the flip side, I did tell her that I had applied for the Project Manager position at DoIT in Andy’s office.  Should I be lucky enough for an interview and it is offered, I will take it.  The Project Manager position is the one position that I’ve been continually applying for for something like four years.  Plus, it would be a large raise, somewhere in the realm of $10K to $12K a year.  However, I have NOT been asked to interview and that is very much up in the air.

It would be dream job vs. damn near dream job in that case.  What a position to be in.

Laura had “IGE In Action Night” at Ridgeway Elementary School today.  IGE means individually guided education, which is the teaching method used by Laura’s school.  They also turned the entire school into an art show, displaying one piece of work from every student.  Grandpa Ken and Grandma Marilyn came down to attend with us.  Laura was very excited and she was so proud to show off her writing portfolio, her book of “favorite things,” and her watercolor artwork.  Her writing really has progressed quite a lot in the past nine months.

I finally got a chance to take a picture of Laura with her teacher, Mrs. Hanney.  We love Mrs. Hanney and I’m very happy that John will also have her as his Unit A teacher when he starts at Ridgeway.

Laura loves Mrs. Hanney too and her watercolor artwork is a picture of “Ms Hanney out std in a grdin in my yrd” (Translation-for those who can’t read “Kindergarten”-Mrs. Hanney out standing in a garden in my yard).  I told Mrs. Hanney that Laura used her as her artwork subject and she smiled.  She said, “I’ll have to go find her picture!”

John decided to get strep throat with a side of ear infection just for some added fun.  Surprisingly, he hasn’t acted that sick.  It was more like he was just off.  If he hadn’t gotten a fever yesterday, I probably would have given him ibuprofen and thought it was over.  Due to the fever, I took him to the doctor today.  The doctor looked at his ears and said they were pink, but not red.  Pink is a sign that the infection is there, but not really bad yet.  Then, the doctor looked at John’s throat and took a swab.  The doctor pretty much knew that the strep test would come back positive.  On a good note, he said the ear infection was most likely secondary due to the strep and not the other way around.  With John’s history of tubes in his ears and seven ear infections before he was one, that was a relief, but the doctor did say, “The counter starts today”.  If John gets three infections starting from now throughout a year, then he’ll be referred back to the ENT clinic for another round of tubes.  It’s all wait and see.  For the most part, John didn’t act sick much of the day.  He did watch a movie tonight before dinner and fell asleep.  I had to wake him up to take his medicine and this was the look I got for my efforts.  I’m not sure he even knew I was sitting in front of him…

…for 30 minutes anyway.  Andy took the truck to Joe Machens Ford to have the oil changed and tires rotated.  While waiting, he talked to the salesman who sold us the truck.  Adam asked when we would be trading in the Alero.  Andy said, “It will still be a while, but we’ll be looking for a nice, reliable family car like that Mustang over there.”  Adam began laughing and they walked over to check it out.  Andy asked Adam if he would mind taking Andy out in it.  Instead, Adam offered up the keys and let Andy take it out by himself for a bit!  Andy called me at work and asked if I had a couple of minutes to go for a ride.  He pulled up in that beautiful, yellow 2012 Ford Mustang.  I can’t even tell you how giddy Andy was driving that car.  He was grinning from ear to ear.  What a great time driving the dream car even if it was for only 30 minutes.