We haven't written for several weeks so we need to catch up, but luckily for you it will be the highlights. One of the reasons we didn't write was because we were busy, and the time on Sunday to do it seemed to not work out. So anyway, have fun. (Also, the lateness can once again be blamed on me as my husband so lovingly reminds me each day that I need to either write on the letters or just send them out. You probably won't get many comments from me now anyway, because by now, I can't remember what I have done.)
June 15-July 5
Beginning on June 8, I was involved daily for four weeks in the Purchase Area Writing Project (PAWP) as a co-director-in-training. One co-director, Ted Brown, is relinquishing his 15-year role in this project because he hasn't been able to commit his all to it and be the Dean of our college at the same time. So last year he asked me to take his place. He was fully involved this summer, but will pull away over the next year so that next summer will be left to me and the other director, who has been doing it for 3 years. PAWP is a regional site for the work of the National Writing Project, which has been going on for 30 years or so, seeking to integrate meaningful writing-to-learn activities across the disciplines into K-12 education. The central aspect of it is a summer institute for K-12 teachers. For our program, teachers from Western Kentucky apply for a spot, and if they are accepted, they are able to attend the 4-week institute for which they receive 6 hours of graduate credit and a stipend of $850. This year we had 19 teachers.
The institute, held on Murray State's campus, goes from 9-3:30 Monday through Friday. The directors give a couple of presentations each, and we have some guest speakers on different topics, but the bulk of the time is for teachers to each do a 90-minute demonstration of a class activity and assignment that uses a writing task to help students understand the concepts. Also, there is allotted time for teachers to complete their institute assignments -- a few papers. One of my duties was to be a writing coach for a few of the teachers, so I read their work and offered suggestions, but I was also able to do some of my own writing based on demonstrations or other ideas. So I wrote some poems, some short, short stories, a short play, and other things. (He did not bring any of these things home for me to read and I was not the recipient of any of the poems. What kind of husband is that? :) )The teachers really get into it and love the institute, and it is fun to be together that much and get to know each other well. During the next 11 months, we will have two follow-up meetings and I will observe several of them in their classrooms.
So anyway, that is what I did for most of the month of June. We had some hot, hot days in there with about 3 weeks of no rain, so my peas didn't do so well, but everything else in the garden is doing all right. The one week of hot weather was fairly miserable, and it didn't ever cool down, but that ended and it hasn't been too bad otherwise. The best times of day are early morning and just before dusk. I have been getting up at dawn to run and read, and then just before dusk all the fireflies come out in our yard, which combined with the pleasant temperature as the sun goes down makes that time of day what we call the magic hour. (I love the fireflies. Claire says it look like twinkling lights and it really does. I try to enjoy them now, because as it gets hotter, they start to disappear. The only problem is that they come out right at bedtime which I think is a cruel joke because I want to sit and relax and watch them, but am thinking the whole time, "I've got to get the girls baths and in bed before it gets too late." If I wait to watch the fireflies, it is way too late and bedtime turns into a nightmare, if I try to do it before, I will miss the show because the girls just don't want to go to bed while it is still light out. Someday, I will get to sit and fully enjoy the show - in about 18 years)
Claire and Rachel have been enjoying the summer, being able to play with Katey and Paige outside a lot. Claire has had quite a summer so far. She has learned to ride a bike, and after one week of swimming lessons that didn't seem to us to do any good, she is now swimming underwater and doing pretty well without arm floaties. She still uses the floaties most of the time, but each time we go she gets a little better. She has also been reading to us and herself, doing quite well in that. She is most proud of herself learning how to whistle, though. It has been fun to watch her learn and do so much, especially because it seemed so sudden that she could do all of these things. (It is her summer of learning!! The bike was pretty funny. The letter awhile ago told of what happened, but the funny thing was that I had the video camera out and was ready to catch it all on camera and Paul turned around to watch some birds, I was looking through the camera taping Rachel and all of a sudden we look up and there goes Claire pedaling past smiling and laughing. I missed it! She hasn't stopped pedaling yet )
Another bit of good news was that we finally got a new computer about mid June. Our old computer wasn't that old, but it was unfixable so we bought a different kind -- still a Mac but a Mac Mini and a separate monitor -- a big one. We pulled the hard drive out of our old one and so now we have two hard drives to back up things and use the space. We had our laptop computer, but it is old enough to only be useful for a few things, and J.J. didn't like to do anything on it -- what a computer diva :). (I am not going to even defend myself against that one - it's just a pain to type on and I can't do all my things I need to for Relief Society and everything on it, it didn't have all my pictures on it and didn't have e-mail addresses, I could go on and on, but I won't. I do like it to watch/listen to movies when I am working on a project downstairs - like snapping green beans. I am glad to have our old stuff back and a new computer)
With the hot weather, we went swimming at the city pool at least once each week after my PAWP was over, and J.J. also had the little pool in the backyard up several times to keep the girls cool. My PAWP ended on July 2, just in time for the July 4th weekend fun. We didn't have a lot of plans, but it turned out to be a really fun weekend. The one thing we had planned was a barbeque at the Munoz house in Benton, and so when we were invited by my colleague Squire to go out to his lake house on Saturday, we had to decline, so he invited us on Friday instead. So on Friday afternoon we drove out to his house to hang out with him and his daughter Hannah, whom we had met before. She is 13 and has down syndrome, and she loves playing with Claire. We all went on a boat ride in Squire's boat on Kentucky Lake, and we stopped in a little cove and swam around a bit in the pleasantly warm water. Claire did a lot of jumping off the back with Hannah, and we enjoyed the ride and swim. We had lunch when we returned, and then we headed home. For J.J., there isn't much better than spending time on a boat on a lake. (AMEN!)
Saturday morning, the 4th, I rose early and ran in the 5K race, and took 17th out of the 150 racers. I thought I had won my age group, but found out later that I took second. I didn't know then because I left before the awards ceremony to take J.J. and Claire to the start of the Main Street Mile, which they ran/walked ahead of the parade. Rachel, Maggie, and I stood on the parade route to watch them, and Rachel joined them for the last quarter mile. The parade was fun, and the overcast sky made it nice. We went home after the parade and relaxed a bit before heading to Benton for the barbeque and swimming at the Munoz' house. It was threatening rain the whole time but held off mostly until after we left. By the time we came home, it was starting to pour and there were tornado warnings around. (I tried to get the fireworks out before the storm came, but we only got to set off 2 or three and do one sparkler before it started to rain. Much to the relief of Rachel who hates fireworks and becomes hysterical when we set them off. - the reason we don't go as a family to watch the big fireworks) It was a strong storm and we received a couple inches of rain and the fireworks were postponed until Sunday night. We weren't planning to go and then Katey invited Claire to go with her so she did and then stayed the night with Katey that night.
July 5-July12
One of the things I had to finish up during PAWP and at the end was a custom textbook for all the freshman composition sections for the Fall. I headed the committee to put it together and wrote some of it and did the final edit on it. I received a grant from the university to do it this summer, and it worked out pretty well. It is not perfect, but it will be updated each year, and I expect by the third edition it will be pretty good. I finished up the final edit on Tuesday and sent it off to the publisher.
I worked at the office for most of the day on Tuesday, and then played tennis with Ted -- he beat me and I think I didn't play very well because I would hate to beat the dean before I get tenure :). I then met the sister missionaries -- we have sisters now and they are great -- at an investigator's house and had a nice discussion with this guy even though he ended up not being interested. On Wednesday J.J. had a Relief Society activity after she worked so I invited Angelo Munoz over to play ping pong and have pizza for our bishopric meeting since our bishop is gone for the month. It worked out pretty well even with all the girls at home. (We are making newborn humanitarian kits. We set up this night to make the receiving blankets. We have not had great turnouts at our activities lately, so I was excited when we had about 10 women and three young women show up. We were able to make 21 blankets, so I was very excited. We will put the rest of the kits together later.)
Thursday I had a meeting in the morning at the office and then J.J. fed the missionaries for their zone conference, and then we took off for our early anniversary present. We asked Rob and Meghen (two kids in the Young Single Adults group who recently got married) to babysit for one night while we went Lake Barkley State Resort Park, about 45 minutes away. We got out there and just relaxed, playing 12 holes of golf (Paul's choice activity), reading by the pool, eating a nice dinner at the lodge dining room, which overlooks the pool that looks like it hangs over the lake. All the rooms have a nice lake view, but they are somewhat dated to the 1960s. It is one of those resorts that makes you think of the 60s, with little activities and certain times for meals and all. But we had a great time and it was so nice to be able to sleep and read without worrying about the kids. (I was so excited to sit by the pool and read a book - next best thing to being in a boat on a lake. And that night I was almost giddy that when I was tired, I could get in bed and read and go to sleep without having to get anyone else in bed!) We were going to rent a jet-ski the next morning (my choice activity), but they were booked for the day, so we had to just swim and read instead. We met Rob and Meghen and the girls halfway at about noon and ate at a popular drive-in and then took the girls with us for the next night. We spent the afternoon in the pool and then after dinner the girls played on the playground. They did okay sleeping, and the plan was to swim some more the next day after breakfast but the sky was cloudy and the pool was closed. I took the girls for a hike and we played in the playground, then we checked out just as it started to rain. All in all it was a great little getaway, and we can see week-long stays at someplace like that in the future.
Saturday afternoon, J.J. had a bridal shower for Meghen, who is already married but couldn't figure out a date before she got married so it was a post-wedding shower. (There were only about 5 people there because of people being out of town and the fact that we are a small ward and there have been quite a few baby/bridal showers lately. But, we still had a fun time and laughed a lot.) I took van for an oil change and then later took Rachel in the bike trailer on a bike ride while Claire rode her bike.
We are now getting ready to go to Oregon -- we fly out on Thursday morning for 9 days. But we hope not to take so long to write another letter. (So much for that!) We love you all.
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