We're Growing

Neelly is needing a little assistance to sit up but is doing well for not quite 6 months old.  Braden isn't so sure about the whole sharing thing.  If I am holding Neelly, he crawls over and pushes his way on to my lap too.  His new thing is to say, "No, no, no."  What fun!

This Girl

This girl is engaged!  Wow, how did time go by so quickly.  She loved the Power Rangers, playing with any ball, and being outside.  But something happened and she grew up.

And got engaged!  Abby and Derek will both graduate from KSU in May.  She has applied to different physical therapy schools and will find out where she has been accepted in December or later.  Derek is in Industrial Engineering and will wait to see where she ends up.  He is from Yates Center and they have a lot in common.  He is a FarmHouse man which fits well in our family and an old 4-Her.  Welcome to Derek!  Hope he is ready for us.

But if you think all the outdoors is out of this girl, you are wrong. 

New Season Review

I have been eagerly awaiting the new TV season.  I have to wait one more day for Modern Family and The Middle.  Colby and Bridgette got me started on these when they talked about DVRing them since we met for our classes every Wednesday.  Now that we are done, they are not to be missed shows.   Eric Stonestreet wearing a PowerCat lapel pin to the Emmy's was just icing on the cake.  A couple of new shows I have watched are:

1.  Up All Night

I thought I might like this show given the recent additions of Braden and Neelly to the family.  However, I thought it was terrible.  The parents must have used a lot of bad language because they put bleeps in front of their mouths like that was supposed to be funny.  I didn't make it a half hour with this show.

2.   Two Broke Girls

I thought this one last night on CBS was kind of funny.  The blond has recently lost a bunch of money and the dark haired girl never had any money.  The work as waitresses in Brooklyn.

3.  Two and a Half Men

We watched this last night.  It was funny only if you like thinking about Ashton Kutcher running around naked in a house, and maybe you do.  Not sure I did. 

Tonight - Glee, Parenthood, Body of Proof, Biggest Loser, my DVR will be spinning!

Thoughts

We went to Morganville this afternoon for the parade to celebrate the town's 125th anniversary.  We have a lot of memories of being so close to Morganville and Kyle and the kids all attended grade school there.  Kyle's family even lived in town for a while where he and his sister had a successful lawn mowing business at a young age.  Paige and Neelly also went and we were remember how $.25 could buy you a pop for ceramics class and I think the class was only $.75 or so.  The kids were at best, only fair painters, although Abby had a little more promise. I have some lovely pitchers that can't seem to find their way to Blake and Paige's homes.

Also have thought about 9-11 and that day at school.   One of the paras in my room came down the hall between the first and second hour classes and said a plane had flown into the World Trade Center.  I turned on my Channel One TV and the newscasters were still unsure about what happened.  It was hard to decide what to do with the kids since we didn't necessarily want to alarm them but knew by later in the morning that history was being made.  I had the TV on for about half of each hour for the 7 and 8 graders but also gave them some quiet work that they could do if they didn't want to watch.  We had some really good discussions about what was happening and what the USA reaction might be.  These kids are now 22 to 24 years old.  Abby was in 6th grade and I didn't have 6th graders at that time.   I don't remember that any parents came to pick kids up that day but I suppose a few did.  We did not have the open house that night that was scheduled.  For my students now, they were born but so small they don't have the memories of the day.

I think I have finally talked Kyle into going to see the movie "The Help" with me.   I said President Schulze went with his wife and said he enjoyed it so I was sure Kyle would too.  But with no guns, horses, or fast driving, it would a whole new experience from his usual movie choices.  Then we called to see if Blake's were busy since I knew Tamara had read the book too and wanted to see the movie and she went with me. The boys hung out at the house.  I really enjoyed the movie, but looking around, there weren't too many men.  A few high school boys but I chalk that up to they were with a group and were going were the girls were.

Loving the weather.

No more thoughts.
Later

Birthday Boy

Braden's birthday was Aug. 20th but it worked out better to celebrate on the first KSU game day and he didn't know the difference.  There was a houseful of people to celebrate with him and he performed well for not understanding what was going on.  The two and three year olds who were there certainly knew what it was all about so it won't take long.  Like usual, he got many toys and I can well remember the feeling after birthdays and Christmases of where in the world are we going to put this stuff.  He finished off his big day by going to the game and spending the first quarter with us, the second quarter with his Bowles grandparents, and the last half with his parents. 

Happy Birthday, Braden! 

EcoKat

I finally read a little this morning about the controversy with KSU and EcoKat.  According to Pres. Schulz on FB this was the intent.

"EcoCat was always meant to be a fun, local, way to communicate creatively about energy savings. It was never meant to be "national". We rolled it out 12 days ago - and things just took off. We aren't going to do anything which will put K-State in an embarrassing position."

I guess some KC stations really had fun with the super-hero looking woman and even suggested she would replace Willie.  Twitter was blown up with all sorts of tweets. 

Why did they not take a picture of me?  I dutifully recyle paper, plastic, cans, glass, cardboard, and aluminum.  However, I'm not sure the average college student will seriously be into recycling or turning off lights. 

It took two hours after the introduction for it to be all over the social media.  Now that says something about the speed of communication today.