Last month I went to a training in Houston for a wonderful writing and spelling curriculum called, Johnny Can Spell , by Alice Nine, and I wouldn't be a good friend if I didn't recommend it to everybody I know. I got my introduction to this curriculum from Brandon's first grade Language Arts teacher who is every bit as dynamic as Alice Nine herself. Brandon left first grade diagramming sentences and loving it, and he is able to answer every single language arts question correctly on "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?" Anyway, "Johnny Can Spell" is a multi-sensory program based on teaching the 70 phonograms as the building blocks for words, which can be strung together to make phrases and sentences. It's just English in its truest form with no fluff. It's not "cute," but there's *zero* wasted effort. Every stroke of the pencil counts toward learning something meaningful. And it's something the kids are proud of knowing/learning too, which is highly motivational.
*end infomercial*
While I was there, I stayed at the Element Houston hotel by Westin. It's a "green" hotel and I had to do some serious soul searching to decide if I wanted to stay there or not as I'm not into the whole "green thing" (aside from recycling strictly for recreational purposes). But I am into free enterprise -- and Element Houston had the coolest product for the best price, so as a matter of higher principle, that's where I spent my money. (The only thing I found slightly annoying was that the two best parking spaces closest to the side entry were reserved for hybrids. But other than that it was a very neat experience.) The studio suite was in the shape of a square with the bed/nightstands and the kitchen each taking up a wall. The third wall was half living area and half office. A large flat-screen TV sat on a peninsula between them and could turn 360° to be viewed from any direction. It could also be hooked up to a laptop and used as a *HUGE* monitor at the desk area. The bathroom had a waterfall shower as well as a handheld sprayer and also had soap/shampoo despensers on the wall instead of tiny individual bottles. Breakfast was pretty good in the morning too, with breakfast burritos, muffins, cereal, yogurt, etc. Would highly recommend this place, even to a super-conservative Republican.
I got home on Friday night, completely exhausted. My grandma was in town visiting her sister and we went to dinner at their house Monday . . .and then had them over to our house on Wednesday. Karlon made fried chicken (he makes the best fried chicken ever) and we all had great fun visiting together.
Ashley and the boys were invited to attend VBS on Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday night and Sunday morning at Ashley's best friend's church. They did a really neat "overcomer" theme that was sort of like "survivor," and the kids had tons of fun.
The following Monday through Thursday the kids went to VBS at Calvary Austin. It was $30/kid, but it ran from 9am - 3pm. I've never had a day that long to myself since before Brandon's birth. They had so much fun and Brandon won the Hero of the Day Award on Wednesday for taking time out from his own race to help two preschool children that were lost from their teacher. I was so proud! I wish I had been there to see him receive the award. They said he was so tickled over it that he ran all the way up to the platform and gave a happy hop when they presented it to them.
On one of those days, my dad was in a thrift store somewhere in California and found Disney VHS tapes for 50¢ each and Little Golden Books for 10¢ each . . .and cleaned them out of titles I didn't already have. . . enough to begin a collection of live-action Disney movies. Sixteen videos and twelve books for under $8 with his handy-dandy senior citizen's discount.
So that brings us to this most recent weekend, where I had the idea that I wanted to paint the french doors that lead to the back yard red. It only took five trips to Lowe's, four paint colors and about seventeen coats of paint to get it the way I wanted it. . . And I'm still not sure it's exactly what I had envisioned. I couldn't figure out what I didn't like about it for a long time and then decided that I needed to paint a white stripe down the middle to define where one door ends and the other begins - and it made a world of difference. I used "Frog Tape" and *highly* recommend.
Sometime in the middle of all this, I got a response from a local guy about an artificial turf remnant for Ashley's outdoor-themed bedroom. He actually brought it over and sold it to me that very afternoon. Super-nice guy.
Today I *had* to go get my nails filled as it had been three weeks. Tomorrow I'm getting up early to buy school supplies before the rush. Plan to go to lunch with my cousin sometime this week. Other than that, it's back to business in the area of deep-cleaning. I've made it all the way into the formal living room!
Will post pictures of Brandon and his award and the painted back doors as soon as we get a new camera.
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