Persuasive Letter Writing Assignment

Rachel's first grade class recently practiced persuasive letter writing. Her letters were sent home on Friday. They were pretty interesting to read. My favorite was the following to one of her classmates:

Dear Justin,

Please belive in Santa Claus. If you don't I'll give you some proof. Last Christmas morning I found some of his suit. And my Dad saw a great red glowing circle thing. I hope that helps you. If you don't believe in him he won't give you any presents. And even worse he might give you coal this year. I hope this helps you believe in Santa
Claus.

Sincerely,
Rachel

A Healthy Competition

Winning isn't everything, but wanting to is. ~~ Vince Lombardi

We decided to go bowling today; something we haven't done in a while. There is no greater competition for Jeff than me. He loves, no, relishes it when he beats me at any game or competition. You could say, I bring out the best in him. I thought I'd share one of his strikes today. You can see that he does not gloat at all when he does well. Such a sweet, modest soul. One of the many attributes that made me fall in love with him.

January Update

There hasn't been much to share so I haven't posted anything much as of late. I was on reserve duty the first two weeks of January.

We visited with my Mom last weekend. For those wondering about her status, she is doing about the same. Her speech isn't entirely clear. And, she still has limited use of her right hand. But, she can move about independently. So, for that, we are grateful. I'm thankful that my Aunt and cousins who live nearby to her have been able to keep an eye on her and assist her as needed as I have not been able to be there as much due to the distance we live away from her and due to work.

I spent the majority of last week in Marietta again for business. I won't bore you with the details but it was one of those trips where my hotel accomodations were frustrating. I had one problem after another with my room and got very little sleep. The work days were long too. I was exhausted by the time I got back home late Thursday night.

So, after three full weeks of not being at my civilian job, I returned to my office on Friday to a laundry list of things that had piled up and, of course, everything is either due yesterday or needed right now. I don't think I ever shared here that I was selected for a promotion in my civilian job late last year. While the pay increase and promotion became effective November 23rd, my duties and responsibilities didn't kick in until January 1st...while I've been out of the office. It is a new position and I have a lot of work to do to get some basic processes in place. In the short term, things are going to be busier than ever and stressful. I'm hoping that it will eventually taper off some towards the later part of 2009. That may be me being hopeful though. My new position entails being the fleet software lead for an airplane. For now, I will just be happy to have a little less business related travel. (I'm sure Jeff and the girls would like that too!) I also enrolled in Air Command and Staff College. It is the next level of education required to make my next rank in my military reserve career. It is the only box I haven't checked to be promoted. So, my New Year resolution was to get it done this year. It is a requirement to make the next military rank. It is a nice to have box filler on the civilian side. So, you can say, it "kills two birds with one stone." I'll be doing that work by correspondence. Now, I've just got to find the energy and time to do the tons of reading required.

There are a few events coming up in the near term on the home front....Jeff's 40th birthday and Anna's 6th birthday. I've got to get in gear and get some planning done for those two events. We already bought Anna's birthday gift. She and Rachel both wanted to get an I-touch. Rachel bought her own with her money that she saved from birthdays and Christmas, etc. Anna didn't quite have enough to buy one on her own. So she contributed what she had from her piggy bank and we kicked in the difference explaining that it was an early birthday gift. She wants a Winnie the Pooh cake for her birthday so I've got to figure out an appropriate design for that....as well as Jeff's cake.

We haven't planned any RV trips in the short term except to go to Disney for Anna's birthday in February. Other than that, we are discussing a long trip this summer traveling up the East coast to attend our cousin's wedding in WV. It provided us the opportunity to possibly plan a trip through D.C. and other areas that we've been wanting to visit as a family. So, we are going to begin making plans for that.

Lunch with an Old Friend

Tora and I attended technical training in 1995 together. Since then we have kept in touch over the years. He recently moved to Georgia after his last assignment in Alaska and we were finally able to schedule lunch together. I've been traveling so much and my work schedule is crazy and he is a navigator and is subject to the flight schedule of his organization so his work day is erratic as well making it hard to schedule a time we can go since he moved to Georgia. We were finally able to sync up this week while I was on reserve duty. Unfortunately, his phone took a blurry photo but you can still see us for the most part. It's great catching up after all of these years.

I took him to a local dive called the Boarding House. It's not exactly the nicest where ambiance is concerned. But, the food is yummy and cheap. It's all southern style food and it's served family style. It's a must do for those visiting the local area.

Anna Moments

I was in my bathroom braiding my hair when Anna quickly entered announcing the need to poop. We have three bathrooms. Why she felt the need to take a crap in the one that I happened to be in is not something I'll ever understand.

But, if I had not been there I would've missed the interesting conversation that ensued. Anna said, "Mommy, why is it hard to push poop out?" I replied, "Well, maybe you need to eat more fiber; things like fruit as an example." "But, I eat fruit," replied Anna. "Maybe you need to eat more and maybe add some raisins." Then, she changes the conversation to another facet of pooping. "Mommy, part of my poop looks like a snake. The other looks like a snail," she shares with me. At that point, I just stopped talking and smiled. Really, you can't pay for entertainment like this!

We took Rachel and Anna to see Bedtime Stories today. We all enjoyed the movie I think. After we got back home, Anna was having a conversation with our next door neighbor's son, Christian. He was standing in our front yard. Anna was yelling from our open upstairs bonus room window. She yells to him, "We just got back from seeing Bedtime Stories and Bugsy farted."
We watched the whole movie and the one thing she felt noteworthy to share with Christian was that the guinea pig farted after eating marshmallows. Ahhh, that was money well spent.

When I often remind Jeff that Anna is the result of his best and fastest swimmer; he reminds me that she is also the product of my one and only egg produced that month. We have done well contributing to the gene pool, don't ya think? I joke about things like this but honestly, you couldn't spend a minute with Anna and not totally fall in love with her. She keeps me laughing.

Celebrating the New Year in Savannah, GA

Jeff and I traveled to Savannah on New Years Eve to Skidaway Island State Park in our RV. We stayed there through Saturday.

For the most part, we just relaxed. That is a luxury we don't get often with the girls around. Plus, we were both nursing a head cold so we fully appreciated the ability to just take a nap when needed.

We grilled out at the RV for New Years Eve. And, we hiked around the state park on New Years Day because many places in Savannah were closed so there wasn't much to do. We had attempted to eat a Lady & Sons and found they were also closed on New Years Day.

We also went to the movie theater and watched Marley and Me. I have to admit, we were expecting more of a comedy from that movie. It was a good movie....just not quite what we had in mind.

We were watching the local news at the RV and they covered the Polar Bear Plunge. This is an annual activity where locals take a final plunge in the ocean from the Tybee Island beach on New Years Day. Now, keep in mind, it was in the 40s on New Years day. I couldn't believe these people were running into the ocean with their bathing suits on in 40 degree weather.

On Friday evening, we enjoyed a River Boat cruise. It was very nice and something that I'm glad we were able to do without the children. Although, I would like to come back again to Savannah with the girls.

While waiting for our dinner cruise to embark, we listened to a man playing the trumpet on the river walk area. He was quite humorous....he'd play the Indiana Jones theme song when a man walked by with a hat on that looked like Indiana Jones and other well known songs, matching them to the unsuspecting pedestrians walking by. I think my favorite was when a family with seven children walked by and he began playing the Brady Bunch theme.

And, since the children weren't around, Jeff aggravated Simba for entertainment when we were at the camper (better the cat, than me). He attached a paper clip to Simba's fur...his tail, the top of his head....anywhere to drive the poor cat insane. Finally, Simba just laid on the floor in frustration and quit trying to get it off of his head. Poor cat..... I'd have felt bad for him if he had not awakened me a couple of the nights with a lick-a-thon going on. Am I the only person that can not sleep through the noise that ensues from a cat preening himself?