Back in the Swing

Being in Florida for a week may have made us more sensitive to this, but it seems like God flipped a switch as we went from early fall to almost winter overnight. We’ve been running our heat since we got home, and we had our first frost yesterday morning. The kids have also enjoyed their annual run through Steve Freeland’s corn maze.

CANCER UPDATE. I haven’t mentioned Pauline’s chemo in quite a while. She has been doing really well. She even had another treatment while we were in Florida. She went today for a CT scan to check her progress. We are hoping the results of this will give us some idea how many treatments she has left.

Speaking of results, we are relieved that Mom got good results today. The Monday after we got home from Florida (the 20th) she was scheduled for her annual mammogram. This year they asked her to come back the next day for more tests which revealed two spots of interest. She had a biopsy Monday of this week (the 27th), and, as I said, the results came back negative. (For those who may not know, Mom had breast cancer back in 1990.)

POLITICAL BOY. I will be so glad when Election Day has come and gone if for no other reason than to silence our phone. I sure wish the Do Not Call list applied to political campaigns!

Nate sure has the election on his mind (he has learned about it in school). He’s been asking people at church, etc., “Are you 18 yet?” If the answer is yes he then wants to know, “Are you voting for Obama or McCain?”

What makes this funny to us is Nate’s concept of old. To his five year old perspective all adults simply have a larger age than his. Nate is not so sure what that number is, so everyone gets the “Are you 18?” question. This includes Aunt Mar who has seen 18 years go by more than 5 times now.

LOST AT HOME. Everyone has to get up during the night to use the bathroom. Maybe not every night, but we’ve all done it. We find the bathroom, take care of business, and return to bed almost automatically. Nate, on the other hand, gets lost. We know this because we hear him frantically running through the house in the middle of the night looking for the bathroom, and we have to get up and steer him in the right direction. We’ve had a lot of close calls, but no catastrophes.

THE WHISTLER. Ben has learned how to whistle, and he sounds pretty darn good! It took me forever to learn how to whistle, and I can’t say I do it correctly. I can only whistle when inhaling, not exhaling like most people do. I sound like a sick bird. Jenna is a lot like me in this, and when she hears Ben whistling it sort of gets her goat because he sounds better than she does. Since Ben is a Star Wars fanatic we mostly hear The Imperial March coming from his lips (with Nate humming right along), but since Disney World we’re getting some Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A Pirates Life for Me mixed in.

THE CAMP OUT THAT NEVER WAS. You’ll remember that we went camping back in September. While on that trip we talked about getting another trip in before cold weather got here. Everyone liked this idea, but when we started trying to coordinate with the church calendar it got pushed back to October 24 -- last Friday. This was all a go until we saw rain in the forecast for Thursday and Friday. Rather than letting this be a total loss we just called all the families who planned on camping and organized a party at Kenny and Lori’s barn. We had pizza, the kids played, and the adults visited. We were 11:00 getting home. We had so much fun everybody just got together again the next night to watch the Tennessee-Alabama game. Being true orange blooded Tennesseans we quickly lost interest and started playing several games including Trivial Pursuit ‘80s Edition. We had a lot of fun regardless of the pitiful football game.

A STARTLING DISCOVERY. It was late June that we found our cat Lilly in the fence row in front of Pauline’s house. She was very small then -- a newly weaned kitten. That was the only time I looked to determine her gender. Imagine my surprise yesterday when I was watching Lilly play with a toy and as she rolled over...I saw something very unexpected! Upon closer inspection I looked at the kids and said, “Guys, we have to rename the cat. Lilly is a boy!”

Rag me all you want, but just take comfort in the fact that I like to respect a cat’s privacy as much as anyone’s. Besides, there’s a lot of fur down there on her...him. Anyway, Lilly is now Willie. Vicki is having a hard time with this adjustment.

Joe

Our Disney Vacation, Part 5

This will be my last installment of our trip to WDW. What I have written here only scratches the surface of our trip. We do have pictures...over 650 of them, not to mention the ones Dianna gave us from her camera. We haven’t even looked through them to cull out the bad shots. I did get some once in a lifetime pictures of the inside of Space Mountain. We were riding the Tomorrowlad Transit Authority (People Mover) which goes inside Space Mountain. They happened to have the lights on doing a safety check. Usually you see the roller coaster trains zooming around in the dark. This time we could see everything about the ride.

I’ll end telling about Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom. No one in our family had visited these two parks before.

SUNSCREEN. It is amazing what a difference going 750 miles south makes. We enjoyed weather down there that we’d had 4-6 weeks ago here in Tennessee. One reality for our family is sunscreen. We are so fair we can sunburn in a cave at midnight on night with a new moon. Jenna could apply her own sunscreen which helped. The challenge was getting the boys to stand still so we could grease them up and still get out the door in time to meet the Cotters. They say your epidermis is the largest organ in your body. I can vouch for that.

One morning Nate was goofing off. I had told him to get dressed and put his breakfast dishes away while I finished putting sunscreen on Ben, but he got distracted. A moment later I got on to him for not doing what I told him to do. He said, “Rats! So much to do in my life,” and then started scurrying around, acting busy.

HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS. The rides that were the biggest hit here were the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, the Rock ‘N Roller Coaster, and Toy Story Midway Mania. The Rock ‘N Roller Coaster is the only Disney ride that takes you upside down. It does so three times: two loops and one corkscrew. The kids had heard about this ride early on so the standard question from them before went on any ride was, “Does it go upside down?” It became the family joke because the kids asked this of everything, including the Monorail.

Nate was a little scared before boarding the Rock ‘N Roller Coaster. You see, after loading the cars they move forward a bit and wait for a countdown. At the end of the countdown the ride takes off, accelerating to 60 MPH in 2.8 seconds. Watching this from the line Nate’s anxiety began to build so Vicki told him to pray if he felt scared. A miniute later he tugged on her arm and said he wanted to pray. Here’s his prayer: “Dear God, help me not to be scared on this roller coaster. And God, I know You’re going to be with me. Thank You.” Then he smiled real big and was good to go. Everyone was really pumped up after riding this.

The ride you need to Fastpass first here is the Toy Story Midway Mania. The technology behind this is incredible. As you ride this you stop at several different shooting gallery scenes. You have a gun on your seat and shoot the targets projected by a computer in front of you. You are also wearing 3-D glasses. All the projected targets appear to have depth as well as the projectiles coming from your gun (darts, water, etc. depending on the scene you are at). The computer even keeps score for you. This is a must do ride!

While the rides are good, the neat thing about Hollywood Studios are the shows. There are quite a few shows here and they average 30 minutes. This leaves you with a lot to do in a short amount of time which is why one of our days here was so rushed. Fantasmic combines live action with animation projected against water and retells the story of Fantasia. The Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular recreates key scenes in Raiders of the Lost Ark and then shows you how those stunts were done. And the Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show recreates a high speed car chase scene like you see in stories like the James Bond films. Both of these shows include explosions that are close enough for you to feel the heat. We also enjoyed the Beauty and the Beast and Voyage of the Little Mermaid stage shows.

Our table service meal here was at the Sci-Fi Drive-In Theater Restaurant. All the tables here are shaped like cars and they all face a large movie screen. The movie is a bunch of movie trailers from old science fiction B movies with a few cartoons mixed in. It was just corny enough to be really entertaining.

ANIMAL KINGDOM is half zoo, half amusement park. It is the prettiest of all the Disney parks. One of my two regrets of the whole trip was not returning here for at least part of another day. This park, or parts of it, usually close earlier than the other parks due to the animals.

We really enjoyed seeing the animals whether it was from a walk-through exhibit or on a ride like Kilimanjaro Safaris. The Flights of Wonder show featured different birds and was fun to see. The Festival of the Lion King and Finding Nemo stage shows were both excellent. Expedition Everest was the roller coaster to ride here, and while it doesn’t go upside down there is the Yeti to contend with. The kids rode the Kali River Rapids (white-water rafting) twice and were drenched (which is why the adults opted out).

My favorite dining experience was the Tusker House Restaurant. This is an all-you-can-eat buffet featuring foods with an African flavor. After supper (Kenny, you’ll enjoy this) I was eating my ice when Nate stuck his hand down in my glass to get ice for himself. He didn’t seem to understand why I got on to him and said, “You can still drink it.” Trying to make him understand I said, “Not after you stuck your grubby fingers down in my glass I can’t.” I guess he still didn’t get the point because he stuck his wet fingers up to my mouth and said, “Here, drink this.”

RECOVERING. Well, this pretty much wraps up our trip. We only stopped at Ellis Brothers Pecans on the way home (well, I already mentioned spending the night in Tifton). It wasn’t easy to get up and go to work and school Monday morning. We all had the post vacation blues. It felt like it was Wednesday before we got caught up on our sleep.

We had been dreaming about this vacation for a long time, and it lived up to all our dreams. As a matter of fact, Vicki has been riding rides in her dreams just about every night since. I would go back and do every bit of it again. We’re even talking about doing it again in 4-5 years.

My computer says I have written over 5300 words about our trip. I hope I have not overdone it. All this doesn’t even cover all the special little moments like when Ben or Nate would spontaneously want to hold our hands as we walked through the crowds. I’ll bet that won’t happen the next time we’re there, and I am so glad we have things like that to look back on.

Joe

Our Disney Vacation, Part 4

In this edition I am going to focus on two of the four parks we visited: the Magic Kingdom and Epcot. Keep in mind that the events recorded here happened over several days due to our park hopping.

ROLLER COASTERS. Oh, before I start I should just own up to a weakness now. I cannot stomach roller coasters. It’s not that I haven’t tried. The first roller coaster I rode was the Mini Timber Topper at Opryland. I threw up in the bushes. The last one I tried was Chaos, also at Opryland. I managed to keep my lunch down, but it wasn’t easy. I rode a lot of things at WDW, but I sat out on the roller coasters. (I’m not sure where this comes from with me. When taking flight lessons I would always fight nausea when the instructor demonstrated a stall or some other maneuver, but I never had a problem when performing the same maneuver myself.) Nate faced his fears pretty well, though one time he reached over and grabbed Vicki’s hand when he got scared. A few minutes later he didn’t need to hold his mom’s hand so he threw it back.

CROWDS. When we went to WDW in 2004 we were surprised at how empty the Magic Kingdom was. Well, I think Fall Break has caught on in four years. The parks were far more crowed this year.

You might think we saw a lot of foreign guests due to the current economic situation, and there were plenty. But the majority of guests were Americans by far. I knew of several families from Robertson County with plans to visit WDW over Fall Break. We hadn’t been in the Magic Kingdom a half hour the first day when we ran into Sharon Keay and her family (Vicki taught with Sharon in her Bransford days). Later Jenna saw a classmate, Will Gregory, and his family. And Wednesday night at church Randy Hall told me he saw me from a distance at one of the parks.

THE MAGIC KINGDOM. I don’t think there was anything new here since 2004, but we enjoyed riding our favorite rides and watching our favorite shows. Of course, it was all new to Nate. Ben says he doesn’t remember his last visit either. One of the first things we tackled was Space Mountain. Nate was so excited after riding this roller coaster he was almost beside himself. Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain were also big hits. Other favorite Rides were the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Jungle Cruise, Peter Pan, Buzz Lightyear, and Goofy’s Barnstormer. As to shows, you can’t beat Mickey’s PhilharMagic.

PIN TRADING has become a big thing with our kids. Disney makes all kinds of pins, and Dianna started each of our kids off with one (as well as a gift card). Many Disney cast members wear lanyards with pins for trading. Once the kids traded for pins they liked they spent their money for more pins and had a blast trading all week. (You too can get in on the fun at www.disneypins.com.)

My favorite memory of the week involves these pins. We had just gotten off the Carousel of Progress when Ben said, “My pins!” While in the show he had taken his lanyard off and been sucking on it. When he noticed it was wet he set it on the seat beside him to dry and forgot to pick it up. We doubled back and two different cast members checked the theater we rode in but didn’t find his pins. We were told they would check again after the park closed. Ben tried to be tough, but when he saw Vicki he broke down and cried.

Vicki and the kids then went on the ride Buzz Lightyear while I stayed behind to look for the pins again. I was going to ride the Carousel again if needed. As I waited for the theater we rode in to come back around I got a cast member to agree to let me go in and look for Ben’s pins. I found them within ten seconds (thanks to the flashlight on my key ring) and was waiting at the BuZZ Lightyear exit with the lanyard around my neck when Ben came out the door. I will always remember that smile and hug.

HOOP DEE DOO MUSICAL REVUE. While this was at the Ft. Wilderness Campground, I will include it here. This meal and show was two table service credits for us. The food was really good as well as the show. It was a very fun evening, but we really wouldn’t say this was a must see show.

EPCOT. I think Alex has a great alternate definition for the Epcot acronym. He says it means Every Person Comes Out Tired (it actually stands for Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow). This park was new for the kids. There are three new popular attractions here since Vicki and I last visited in 1994, and all for them were hits with our family. When you first arrive at Epcot the first thing you should do is get Fastpasses for Soarin’. That was the one of the coolest rides I’ve ever been on! It simulates riding in a hang glider. Mission Space and Test Track were also lots of fun. Spaceship Earth was another favorite of the kids.

I really enjoy spending time in the World Showcase part of Epcot, but the kids weren’t so enthused, so we didn’t even make it to all the countries. Our big meal here was at the Akershus Restaurant. This was a character meal with five princesses: Ariel, Belle, Cinderella, Jasmine, and Sleeping Beauty. We had a photo op with Belle when we arrived and the other four visited our table during our meal. What was so funny was that Nate was watching Cinderella and was actually checking his hair when she was a couple of tables away. He must have been nervous because he asked to go to the bathroom after just getting back from there. When we were reminiscing about our trip on the way home we asked Nate if he enjoyed meeting the princesses. He downplayed this saying, “We boys don’t like princesses!” Yeah, right. I think we’ve just had a preview of the year 2020.

Joe 

Our Disney Vacation, Part 3

All the way down to Florida Nate kept worrying about having to go to school the next morning. I don’t think he had the vacation concept down yet. Saturday morning, at Ann Beth’s house, he was really concerned so Vicki sat him down and explained it to him. “Nate, you have a whole week off from school. Tonight we will be at Alex and Chris’ house. Tomorrow we are going to Disney World. The next day we are going to Disney World. The day after that....” As he listened he got more and more excited. His eyes sparkled. He started giggling. He began jumping up and down. It was a precious moment. He didn’t quit worrying about school until we got to the Cotter’s house.

Since we had park hopper passes I think the most efficient way to tell about our trip is to present you with our itinerary and then focus on different amusement parks later. So, here’s how the trip panned out for us starting with Friday, October 10.

FRIDAY: We got the kids out of school early and were on the road by 3:30. We drove to the Yergler’s in Marietta, Georgia, and spent the night. A pleasant surprise for us was that Ginny was home from college on Fall Break.

SATURDAY: Ann Beth fed us breakfast and sent us on our way. We drove to Jim and Dianna’s house in Ocoee, Florida. Aunt Linda and Uncle Bob were there. We ate pizza and enjoyed visiting until it was time for bed.

SUNDAY: Dianna fed us breakfast before we left to check in at our resort. After checking in we went to the Magic Kingdom and met the Cotters there. After watching the SpectroMagic parade and the Wishes fireworks show the Cotters left. As resort guests we stayed for the Extra Magic Hours. This was the only day we took advantage of this (we were too tired for it after this).

MONDAY: We started the day at Epcot. We had planned to hop over to the Magic Kingdom later but rain moved in and caused us to leave Epcot earlier than planned. The afternoon was sort of a wash. We had reservations for the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue at the Fort Wilderness Campground. After supper we took the bus to Hollywood Studios for the Fantasmic show.

TUESDAY: This was our whirlwind day as we were sort of a slave to the schedule of show times. We spent most of the day at Hollywood Studios. Our table service meal was at the Sci-Fi Drive In. It was the only table service where the Cotters joined us. After supper we went to Epcot where we saw the Illuminations fireworks show.

WEDNESDAY: This was the only day we went to Animal Kingdom. Our big meal here was at the Tusker House restaurant. Animal Kingdom closes early (due to the animals) so we went back to the resort and let the kids swim. They were playing Toy Story as a pool side movie.

THURSDAY: By now we were trying to go back and catch attractions we had missed earlier in the week. We started at the Magic Kingdom and ended at Epcot. We scheduled our one character meal this day, dining with five Disney princesses at the Akershus rastaurant.

FRIDAY: This was the one day the Cotters didn’t meet us at a park. We went back to Epcot and the Magic Kingdom. We also had to check out of our resort so we spent the night with the Cotters.

SATURDAY: We started the day meeting Aunt Linda and Uncle Bob at Cracker Barrel for breakfast. Of course, no trip would be complete without van trouble. Our check engine light came on so Jim and I took the van to a Toyota dealership while Vicki and Dianna took the kids to Epcot. As justice would have it one of the rides they were on broke down while they were on it. By the way, Toyota estimated $865 to fix the van. We drove home with the problem unfixed (I’ve gotten cheaper estimates here). Jim and I had a good time visiting as we walked around Downtown Disney and waited for our families to leave Epcot. Then we parted company and headed home. We spent the night in Tifton, Georgia.

SUNDAY: We got home around 4:15.

By Thursday Nate was starting to get a little homesick and Ben and Jenna were starting to miss our cat, Lilly. By Friday we were all pretty tired. It was a really big trip for all of us. We got a good laugh as we were passing through Valdosta, Georgia, and Nate asked with weariness in his voice, “Are we on Disney property still?”

Joe

Our Disney Vacation, Part 2

As I said Sunday, our Disney vacation is something we started working on more than a year ago, so this is all about planning tips. Bear with me. The trip details come later.

RESEARCH. If you are planning a trip to Walt Disney World (WDW) you need to do some research. The Internet is the best place for that. Of course, it’s always best to go straight to the source and visit the Walt Disney World Resort web site. It is loaded with information. EVERYTHING is listed here. You can order the vacation planning package from here as well which includes a DVD. I had two problems with this site: I felt it could be organized better, and even with broadband it loads slowly due to all the Flash animation. A lot of times our research turned to a third party site or two. AllEars.net is really good. It has lots of info, is well organized, is updated frequently, and loads quickly.

BOOKING. We booked our trip with Sabrina Freeland. For those of you who don’t know Brent’s wife, she is a stay home mom who home-schools her kids (there is a link to their blog site from ours). In her other life she is a travel agent for Gulliver’s Travel. We booked the trip a year ago.

LODGING. We are fortunate to have relatives who live just minutes from WDW, and we could have stayed with them. However, we decided to stay on property and booked five nights at the All Star Music Resort (we did stay with Jim and Dianna a couple of nights though). The nice thing about this was that we parked the van and left it. The Disney transportation (bus, monorail, boat) took us everywhere we needed to go.

Our room was a two bedroom, two bathroom suite with kitchenette. It was basically a nice clean place to sleep which was all we needed. We got up early, ate our breakfast, and headed to the bus stop...not to return until late that night.

MEALS. After looking at meal prices we opted to get Disney’s basic meal plan. I would say this was one of the best things we did. We were stuffed the whole week and came out better than if we had paid for food as we went along. This also saved us from having to pack lunches, though you are free to do so.

The rule about the meal plan is that you have to purchase it based on the number of days you stay in a Disney resort. We stayed five nights so we had to purchase five days of meals. Your room key doubles as your meal card and is good almost anywhere whether it’s a restaurant in an amusement park or at a resort (I’m not sure about restaurants at Downtown Disney). Our plan gave us one table service meal, one counter service (fast food) meal, and one snack each day. You can spend these however you want. Eating at a really ritzy restaurant will cost you two table service credits.

You can begin to make reservations for table service meals 180 days before your trip which you really need to do. We were not on top of this back in the spring (life was happening too fast) so our choice in times were limited somewhat, but we still enjoyed everywhere we ate.

PARK TICKETS. Pricing admission tickets for a Disney park will give you sticker shock. The per day amount gets better the more days you purchase. We got seven day passes. Then there’s all the add ons. Want water parks? Cha-ching. Park hopper option? Cha-ching. No expiration date on unused days? Cha-ching. Fries? Cha-ching.

We did spring for the park hopper option. If we had only planned to be there for four days we would not have done this. Changing parks is nice, but be warned that it will take a 45-60 minute chunk out of your day, not good if you don’t have a lot of time. Moving between the Magic Kingdom and Epcot is by far the easiest due to the monorail.

Our room keys tripled as our park tickets. For Vicki, Jenna, and I this was also tied to our finger print.

Your ticket can also be used to Fastpass rides where this option is available. Fastpassing a ride holds your place in line so you can go do something else while waiting (see the Fastpass article on Wikipedia if you want to know more about how this works). This was where doing Disney with the Cotters was really nice. We would walk into a park and Jim or Dianna would grab all the tickets and Fastpass a really hot ride while we went to do something else. I don’t think our boys ever really knew what was going on behind the scenes for them with Fastpasses.

MEMORIES OF YOUNGER DAYS. One day Jim, Vicki, and I were reminiscing one day about Opryland in Nashville and how much we miss it. I found this web site where you can go and relive your Opryland memories. Of course, back then visiting an amusement park was a one day event (and it seems like we had to BEG the adults to take us).

Joe

Our Disney Vacation, Part 1

I can’t remember how long our school system has been scheduling a Fall Break into the school calendar, but it’s a great time to take a vacation. We’ve just gotten home from the best vacation ever!

Back in 2004 we went to Florida. While there we took the kids to the Magic Kingdom at Disney World. We said then that when Nate was old enough to really enjoy it (he was one at the time) we would come back and do Disney World right. Well, this was the year. We got seven day passes and stayed five nights at Disney’s All Star Music Resort. We’re worn out, but we’ve had a blast.

This trip has been in the works for over a year. As plans started to fall into place we’ve been getting more and more excited. I found a Disney Vacation countdown widget for the computer so the kids and I have been keeping track of the days until we were to leave since February or March. It was about that time that the Cotters bought season passes in preparation for our trip. They live roughly 20 minutes from Disney World, so they’ve been going to one of the parks most every weekend. Just as our kids were getting excited about going to Florida, Alex and Chris were getting excited about being able to show us all around Disney World.

The week leading up to Fall Break was packed full of activities. Of course, getting ready to leave on vacation adds a lot to the normal routine. On top of that, Jenna participated in her last class performance for the PTO at her school on Tuesday the 7th. And Friday the 10th, Nate’s class went on a field trip to the Nashville Zoo. That afternoon I was able to get off work a few hours early. We pulled the kids out of school at 2:00 and by 3:30 we were Florida bound. We got back home this afternoon. The grandmas and the cat were all happy to see us.

There is no way I am going to be able to tell all about our trip in one edition of our newsletter/blog, and having driven from Tifton, Georgia, today I’m a little too tired to write much more. As the title indicates, I am going to break the telling into several parts. You can look forward to the next installment tomorrow or Tuesday.

Joe

A Touch of Color

We are beginning to see hints of fall colors in the trees, though it will be a couple of weeks before the green fades to reveal the trees in all their glory. The mornings are crisp and cool and big brother Ben loves showing Nate how he can see is breath as we wait for the bus. All the farmers have been busy harvesting their corn.

EVENING WALKS. Vicki and I have been trying to find time to do some walking in the evenings. This has been hard to do with all the activities that fill our calendar. We’ve been up to Kilgore Park once where they have a really nice walking trail around the perimeter of the park, but since Bill Chatman (or maybe it was Jackie) ran the bush hog over all the farm roads we’ve enjoyed walking from our house to Mr. Bill’s and back (about a 1.7 mile trip).

DANIEL SMITH DAYS. Daniel Smith (1748-1818) was, among other things, a US Senator from Tennessee in the early days of our nation. His estate, Rock Castle in Hendersonville, exists today as an historical landmark (see the Rock Castle web site). Last weekend we went to Daniel Smith Days at Rock Castle where many people had set up a fair to commemorate the history of our nation as it was some 200 years ago. There was even a re-enactment of the Holston Treaty of 1791. We found many things of interest as we wandered around the grounds. We enjoyed food from the period as well as see how things were done back in that day (like making soap or pewter spoons). We were also introduced to an interesting board game of the time called Shut the Box. Read this article from the Tennessean to learn more about the event.

The really odd thing was that Ben didn’t go with us. He had been invited to Wil Swann’s birthday party last Friday night and the festivities went on for most of Saturday so we went without him. I say it was odd because we all commented several times about how much we missed Ben. I think his absence even hampered Jenna and Nate’s ability to fully enjoy themselves.

We told Ben about how much we missed him later. I think it really pleased him to know because he kept turning his head away so we couldn’t see his face. However, I though I saw a smile from the corner of his mouth.

DINNERTIME HIT. It’s always a struggle to get kids to enjoy healthy food. Heck, its a struggle to get me to eat fruit. But we had a meal the other night, salmon, that seemed to be a hit with Ben. Vicki noticed him shoveling the salmon in like he was starving to death and asked him if he thought it was good. His, “Well, I guess so,” let us know he hated to admit the fish was good but couldn’t deny it ether.

BWOC. Since Jenna is a fifth grader this year she has had several opportunities come her way. Nothing really big, but several things that have made her, and us, feel really good. For example, when the photographers came to take pictures they needed some student helpers. Jenna was one of the students the principal asked to help. She was also elected by her classmates to be the secretary of their class 4-H club. It makes me proud to know that both her peers and the adults at school think so highly of my daughter.

This also reminds me of a comment one of Jenna’s old teacher’s made to me a few weeks ago. All teachers keep a folder in their desk for a substitute teacher. This teacher kept a note in her sub folder that read, “When in doubt about what the class did the day before, ask Jenna Swann.”

A BIT OF A STRETCH. Jenna and Vicki were talking about birthdays today. Jenna said, “You know Nate’s birthday is on a holiday (Valentine’s Day). Well, mine and Benton’s birthdays are on holidays too.”

This got a silent stare from Vicki as April 18 (Jenna) and August 3 (Ben) are not on any holiday’s she could think of.

Jenna went on to explain herself, “My birthday is on the day of Paul Revere’s ride, and Benton’s is on the day Columbus set sail.”

A FORMER STUDENT. I only taught high school for four years, but even at that I am always happy to see a former student. I ran into Charlye Ramsey last fall. She had just returned from serving in the Peace Corps in Zambia and was doing some consulting work at one of our schools. Now she is serving with Volunteer Service Overseas in Papua New Guinea. This is not something I would have predicted Charlye doing when she was in high school. I have enjoyed reading of her adventures in the Robertson County Times, and I thought I share the link to her blog, Looking Through Another’s Eyes, in case you’re interested.

Joe