Dylan's "Mars" Project

Well we made it! The planet project is done. It was so hard not to do it for him, but DYLAN did his 3rd grade Mars project. He had to make a poster, then prepare a speech as if he were a real estate agent trying to "sell" his planet. The speech was actually easier than the poster... he really has a fun personality so he made up the speech and wrote it on notecards. I had a hard time sitting back and letting my little lefty boy produce a "neat" visual... neatness is part of the grade. I ended up letting him use my scrapbook stickers, printing photo of Mars, letting him type his facts, then he drew in a few "martians" for fun. Take a look at him here this morning when we were outside waiting on the bus.

Visited my old Alma Mater

I had to do an assignment for one of my classes today. I was charged with having to visit a school district, diagram out their network, and chat up the network administrator. After thinking about some of the places where I taught school, I ditched all of those ideas, and decided to call up the district office in Zachary. I was connected with a really personable girl, Adonica, who serves as the district's webmaster. The district's network administrator is Joe, who also was full of techie info. I drove out to Zachary... boy that brought back memories. I grew up out there in the "plains" and graduated from ZHS. Zachary High School ended up being the campus that Joe and Adonica took me to so that I could diagram the network. Very cool walking through campus although it looks quite different from when I walked those halls. We ended up in the library where I got the details of the network and when walking out was amazed that the very same librarian, Ms. Mills was still there. She was busy with students so I didn't interrupt, but that brought back lots of memories too. It was a great place when I was a student there and it still looks like a wonderful place even today.

First Board of Designers Assignment

Well, you probably are wondering why I haven't posted in a couple of days... my life has been crazy-full! It started Thursday night when I had to do a 300 word essay on the "History of Telecommunications" AND finish my first Board of Designers project for Scrapbook and Co. I also was preparing to do a presentation to the school districts in Region 4 (Lafayette area) on Friday as well. I stayed up until 2:45A.M. Friday morning doing these three tasks. Some of my best work comes out of "last-minute" deadlines (see the photo here of the project I made... it's a door-hanger for Erin's room), but I shouldn't have let things get out control to where I stayed up that late, knowing I had to be up at 5:45A.M. that morning. All is well though... I got all tasks completed successfully and I slept until 11:00 Saturday morning to play catch-up on my sleep. I haven't done that since before having the kids ;-)

20 After Midnight

Well I didn't get my blog opened until after midnight tonight :-(
Oh well, I've got to make priorities. I will say that I got through another online assignment for my ETEC 5700 class, but not before watching tonight's episode of Big Brother... priorities I tell ya! I can definitely foresee Jen going home Thursday. She's provided enough entertainment in the beginning of the season and quite recently has become an "inert" force on the show. For all you non-BB8 fans, thanks for enduring my ramblings about the show, but it is quite a source of entertainment for me and WD. Tomorrow night, two of the BB8 players are to appear on the game show, "Power of 10" hosted by Drew Carey, so here comes another show to schedule on the DVR.

Don't Take My Picture at the Bus Stop, Mom!

After waiting in the heat for the school bus to arrive, it finally pulled up to the stop an hour after it was suppose to. Erin hopped on and headed for middle school. It seems that she is too old (or cool) now for me to take pictures of her at the bus stop. I was going to sneak out behind her and snap a photo of her walking to the corner of our street before she got on the bus, when she turned in a slight panic and told me,

"Please don't take my picture at the bus stop, Mom!"

So much for my scrapbooking her first day of middle school. I was able to snap one of her prior to her exiting the house, though. That will have to do. After dealing with that, I just put Dylan in the car and drove him to school so that I wouldn't be late for work, only to realize that I left my camera at home! He wouldn't have minded me snapping a few photos of him... guess I'll do a retake tomorrow. Hopefully the morning will go smoother than today.

Meet the Teacher Day

In this terribly hot weather and terribly awful traffic, I left work early to go meet the teachers. Erin's at the middle school this year. We headed over there to get her schedule, peruse the campus and get her P.E. uniform. She's thrilled because she was chosen to be a library aide as her elective. She actually had to write a letter to the principal requesting the job. I checked out all of her teachers on the certification website (you can check your kids' teachers out here too if he/she is certified in LA). They all were certified in the area that they are teaching (doesn't mean everything, but hopefully they'll be excellent teachers). We headed over to Dylan's school to drop off his supplies and meet his teacher. He has a brand-new teacher fresh out of LSU. She reminds me a lot of his teacher last year, which was a wonderful thing. Another bonus is that she's teaching all subjects so he won't have to change classes. 2007-08 should be a great year for Erin and Dylan. I don't start classes until August 20th so I'll let you know how that goes then.

When will school start?

I can't wait for school to start back up in the fall. Not for Erin & Dylan, but for me. I finally took the initiative to apply for grad school. After many years of thinking about it, and after many encouraging words from WD, my sister-in-law Brandi and others, I applied. I have been accepted into Northwestern State University's graduate program for a master's in Educational Technology Leadership. I have always enjoyed technology and to be able to incorporate it into my career is totally fascinating. Since I will still be working full-time, I will only be taking 6 hours per semester. I know that when I was doing my undergrad work, I would take 21 to 24 hours during the fall & spring semesters, so maybe once I see how much work these courses will take me, I perhaps will be able to bump it up to 9 hours per semester. Either way, it looks like I'll be able to have the advanced degree within 3 years. I enjoy school so if this isn't too difficult (to work, be a mom, wife and student simultaneously), I may continue to take courses even after the master's degree. For now, I guess I better focus on getting starting. Go NSU Demons!