Man stuff

I was watching Boaz play the Wii, Star Wars Legos. He was picking up purple pearls behind his X-wing. The purple pearls were bombs.

I made the mistake of saying, "How cute." Boys do not like the word cute.

Boaz told me, with a bit of disgust, "Mom, this is man stuff."

Craig just laughed and shook his head and left the room to get ready for work.

At school

 

He didn't notice how long I stayed in the door way and watched him. He didn't watch me walk away. He said he loved me, and he was off to explore new things.

When I picked him up 2 1/2 hours later, he was full of his day at school. He has waited years to be able to go to his own school. I guess that's what I get for taking him with me when I did some things at Josh's school. He's been in and out of schools since he was one. Now he finally gets to have a school and his own classroom and his own teacher and his own time too.

He can't wait for afternoons now. A happy boy.

First day of Kindergarten

 

Wearing his heavy backpack with all his school supplies.

 

I wanted him to show his teeth. He is a goofy boy.

 

In his new class room

 

Wearing his name tag.

Josh starting 4th grade.

 

Craig made school house pancakes for our big boy.

 

He's been waiting months to wear this shirt to the first day of school. (Homework kills trees. It must be stopped.) This one will be worn so much there will be nothing to pass on to Boaz.

 

Sitting at his desk in school with his school supplies all around him. I told him I loved him about 5 times, and he would say, yea, I love you too. He totally didn't need me there. He's getting so big.

I can't believe it's been 17 years!

 

Happy birthday to Karlynne. It's been 17 years here on earth for you. I remember when you would pound your heals into the floor. We'd try and put pillows under your feet, but still the downstairs neighbors didn't like you very much.

I remember going to the laundry room. Your feet were bare and you were just walking and talking. The grass was prickly on your toes. You said, "Sowry, sowry, sowry" because we always said sorry when you were hurt and mixed you up a bit.

I remember your delighted smiles with each new thing or accomplishment. I remember you in the talent show and sewing dresses for you and having you come and visit us in Madras and riding the horses or the tractor or learning to drive the car.

Now you are driving the truck (standard transmission)and starting your senior year tomorrow. How did I get so old?

I love you.

Sing choirs of angels

Our Stake President thinks big. Last month he started spreading the word that September 2 is the Stake Temple Day. He wanted to fill the chapel, all 250 seats. We were reminded every Sunday.

I don't know why I was surprised that parking was difficult tonight. I ended up in the overflow. I never park there. I don't know why I was surprised by the long lines, getting in, renting my dress (I still have to make me a new dress. My old one no longer fits.), etc. I got a locker when somebody said, "Here, you can have mine, I'm getting ready to leave." I was very glad I had give myself extra time; I just barely made it.

The chapel was filled. I sat up front, because those are the last seats to be filled. I looked back down the aisle, and people were standing near the doors. We had more than 250 beautiful members all dressed in white and sitting in the temple.

Our lovely Stake President had to take at least a minute before he could say, "I'm so glad you are here." He had tears in his voice, I started to cry. The temple workers were smiling and smiling and smiling.

The member of the Temple Presidency said they had been there for 2 years, and this was unprecedented. He thanked us for following our shepherd to the temple. I cried again.

We sang Dearest Children, God is Near You. From the opening note, it sounded like I was in the middle of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. The voices were strong and beautifully on key and filled the third floor chapel of the Portland Oregon Temple. I'm sure that choirs of angels sang with us. I don't think I've ever been in a song like that. And I mean, been in the song. The music seemed to fill my veins and pulse with my heart. At the end of the song, I cried again. :)

Taking tests

It has been decades since I've last taken a test. Lets see, I graduated from BYU in December of 1993. This is 2009. Okay, not decades, but a decade and a half. Sixteen years, almost.

Today, I went to a testing center and took a three part, four hour test. Ick!

I had a reading section, a math section and a writing section.

The reading went fairly well. I was very confident I could read selections and answer questions from the reading.

The math was a bit problamatic. I couldn't take a calculator. Last night I used Josh's multiplication flash cards for a quick freshen upper. I commented to Craig that for some reason 7 x 8 was hard for me. He responded immediatly with a 56. Show off. The questions were long multiplication, long division, percentages, ratios, fractions -- all in story problem format. I felt very good when that section was done. I felt I had done well.

The writing section consisted of two essays. In school, that had never been my strong point. And I stressed about not knowing what the questions were. I do much better with lots of time to think before I write something. So I tried to budget lots of time at the end for the writing section.

I finished with 40 minutes to spare. That is after I had reviewed the reading section. I ended up changing one answer. I tried to skip the math section and reveiw the writing section again, but the computer based test didn't allow that. It was review the entire test or nothing (because I didn't flag anything specifically or leave any question unanswered.) So with 40 minutes to go, I ended the test.

I got a preliminary score. My reading section Scaled Score is 75 and my mathmatics section Scaled Score is 58. Those numbers look absolutly horrible. There were 50 questions in each section, and looking at the numbers as a percentage meant I had failed. I asked the test administrator if the numbers were percentages, and they didn't know. She refered me to the web site. So I hurried home, thinking I am going to hate taking that test again.

Do you know, the scaled score is the craziest method I have ever seen. The scores are scaled from 20 - 80 with 41 being a passing grade. So to put it in letter grades, I got a solid A in reading and a B+ in math. Math without a calculator.

Now if I can just get at least a C in the essays, I passed the test. Yea! I'll have to wait until September 23 to know. Don't you just hate waiting?