First Day of Kindergarten

We got the call yesterday at around 11 that the district had worked out all the necessary stuff for Norah to start school with her class today, along with all the other kids instead of having to wait on more evaluations. Yeah! Good thing we were already out and about buying school supplies and school clothes. School clothes shopping ( or any clothes shopping for that matter) with Norah is an......umm.....let us say adventure in and of itself. No, we are not trying to kidnap her or beat her into submission. We just need to see if this skirt will fit her.  Anyway, last night we spread out all of the supplies and made sure we had everything on our list. We made Norah's lunch and layed out her clothes for in the morning. Then after bath and story time we turned off everything and I do mean everything in the house so that Norah would go to bed at a reasonable time. Glen said that according to the Mayo Clinic, kindergarten age kids need 10 to 11 hours of sleep each night. She finally managed to give up and go to sleep after about 35-45 minutes, so around 9:30. We didn't wake her up this morning until 7:05, so she ended up with 9 hours and 35 minutes of sleep. Not bad for Norah, at all. There have been some nights that she hasn't passed out till after 1 am and then is back up again at 7. Yikes! Our new strategy of total blackout in the apartment seems to be working so far.
We found lots of cute clothes for Norah but had a hard time finding hair bows that will stay in her hair. She needs the kind that are shaped like alligator teeth to grip onto her hair. Oh well guess I will just have to make some.
Once we saw that it wasn't raining this morning we loaded up the bike carriage with all of the supplies and headed out for school. Norah was very excited about school. She was jumping up and down and kept grabbing my face and turning my head (may be why my neck hurts now) to look at all the other kids arriving at school. The teachers and staff all come out to greet the kids every morning. Norah's kindergarten teacher, Ms. Fuson, was there too. She is the perfect teacher for Norah. High energy, super smart, fun, and not about to take any crap. We LOVE her! With Norah if you don't have those qualities as a teacher she will take you down like a hungry lion after a bunny rabbit (it is not pretty, we have seen her do it). Here's hoping for a productive and fun school year.



 Norah's kindergarten supplies.


 Norah in the bike carriage with a death grip on my iphone.

 Glen trying to remove Norah's helmet without messing up her hair.

 You have no idea how hard it was to get her to hold this sign up and smile at the same time. She LOVES messing with me when she knows I really want her to do something.

Made it into the classroom with all of her supplies, no problem. She had no issues at all with us leaving her there for school. I guess those two weeks of summer school REALLY paid off in the security department.


Lori

Phones, Beads, Books and Hippos in Drag OR Another Typical Sunday

 Norah multitasking. Reading a book in the little rocking chair Popi made for her AND watching Tom and Jerry on her "phone" on You Tube.

 Reading to the hippo.

 "I said pay attention. How are you going to know what is going on in the story if you don't pay attention to what I am reading you!"

 Hippo in drag! This is one of the 7, that's right 7, outfits the hippo wore yesterday.

Norah sitting quietly stringing beads. I know I couldn't believe it either, that's why I took a picture.  Lori

Photo Friday: With a whole lot of words

We are in the process of setting up our bikes to be used for fun and business. We sold our second vehicle in order to make the move out here easier and make our bills much lower. I think we figured out that by the time we cut out the car payment, insurance, upkeep, gas, and licensing fees we ended up saving around 400.00 a month. So now all we have is the truck. We are also trying not to use it unless we have to, so we are riding our bikes for short trips to the store, bank, park, school, ect. We have a trailor for Norah but don't yet feel comfortable taking her in it to some places. Amazingly the most dangerous place to ride out of is Central Market (like an upscale Whole Foods). You would think these people would be watching for bicycles but oh no. Anyway, I needed a basket for my bicycle in order to carry purchases in and "viola"  (I know it's not spelled right. That's how I say it.) Glen found me one online. YEAH! He also found an electric bike kit for his bike. He has some trouble with his back and all and he needed some extra ummph to get up all the steep hills around here hauling Norah back and forth to school.

 My bike is a close replica to the bikes that are sold in Holland and I love it. It rides great!

 Glen and Norah checking out the electric bike stuff. That is not a sweat band on Norah's arm it is a huge piece of gauze and tape to cover the tiny scratch that she found on her arm the other day.

 Norah wanted her picture taken with my bike. She loves wearing these little spandex shorts because they look similar to Glen's underwear and she is all about being the same.

 Glen's bike before the electric kit was installed.

 Glen's bike after the kit was installed.

Our apartment here does not have airconditioning in it and it has been HOT lately. Well for us anyway. We are air condition babies and make no excuses for it. Since we can also be cheapskates and don't want to go buy a window air conditioner right when it is going to start getting cooler again. We came up with the retro style air. A giant bowl of ice with a fan. We like to keep our house cool enough to hang meat in in the summer and the last few weeks have been a far cry from that. There has also been a lot of hanging out in front of the fridge.  I have started trying to walk/bike a few miles every morning to get ready to go back to work AND cause I am old and totally out of shape. I always go on the trail behind our apartment and I see interesting things each time. So I thought that I would share. Today I saw: a woman getting on a city bus with no pants on (just a shirt and panties), about 10 different people picking blackberries, found some blue berry bushes, a drug deal, and 1 very badly dressed hooker. I also met a nice woman who was picking blackberries. I told her where we found all of ours the other day. She took off to go fill up her buckets. It is always interesting.   Lori

Sybil....Is that you?

These pictures were all taken in a three minute time period. No joke! All we were trying to do was get Norah to smile so she could show off some of the blackberries and flowers we picked today.

She has her leg up on the table to show off the mortal wound she received while picking berries today. In reality it is three little scratches but you would never know it from the amount of hobbling around here she is doing or from the size of the band aid she picked out to cover the above mentioned three miniscule scratches.
The trail behind our apartment is COVERED in blackberry bushes for miles. I saw several families and individuals out picking them this morning when I went for a walk. I told Glen when I got home and he was dressed with a bag thrown over his shoulder before I even knew what happened. We walked down a little ways and found the mother load. I would guess that we ended up with about 3 gallons of blackberries. WooHoo! Free fruit!

Glen even made a blackberry cobbler for dessert. It looks really good! I will have him take a picture of it to post later.

We have been meeting here and there with school district officials and special ed coordinators trying to get Norah's IEP started.

Norah has had the sniffles for the last few days. She doesn't seem any worse for wear, just a snotty nose and slight fever. I am really not surprised that she caught a cold. We have let her play at any and every playground we have come across, the five second rule has been indefinetly extended, and we are even encouraging her to go up and shake hands with everybody. Oh well. Her immune system should be strong enough to take down the seagulls at the beach by next year.

Lori

Photo Friday: Fun at the Zoo

Little of this, little of that.

This stuff makes the best iced tea! Found it at a sandwich shop where we stopped for lunch and they were out of regular iced tea so the person behind the counter made me this. Heaven!

Norah is still obssesed with mermaids. She made this all by herself. Very creative.

We met up with Sammie (very nice Mom of two adopted boys) at the park the other day. She is a wealth of information and a great person as well. We have been very fortunate to cross the paths of amazing people here and Sammie sure does fit into that category.

Lori

Photo Friday

Apparently the time to put your "I'm a princess" sleep mask on around here is midnight!

Lori

The Burke Museum

We went to the Burke Museum on last Thursday. It was FREE DAY, our favorite two words. Apparently a large portion of the museums around here are free on the first Thursday of the month. So you can pretty much bet that we will be trying to attend them one at a time each first Thursday. We were also very fortunate to have one of the teachers from the school go with us. Hi Barbara! It was really fun and we were able to see so many interesting things. They had a big exhibit on wolves. Ever since our trip Norah has been howling like a wolf several times each day. It's really funny when she does it out in public because she totally expects Glen and I to join in, which we do. If you see the three of us out howling at the moon don't think we are crazy. Norah has just learned a new sign and sound that she can make with her voice. Join in! Some of the notes that the kids at the museum left on the "Your Thoughts About Wolves" board are hilarious!

The downstairs of the museum had great displays from different places. Japan, China, Taiwan, and many more. Norah was fascinated with the Korean wedding display. In particular the well dressed chickens.

We are still setteling in. Going from a 1200 square foot house to a 600 square foot apartment has not been easy. Not everything has found it's permanent home yet. I think a couple more days and we should have it as good as it is going to get. We still have to get a insurance policy for Norah's CI's but other than that I think everything has been registered and licensed. We have our library cards (big deal to us, we LOVE the library). I am still trying to find a grocery store that I like. I did find several really good Asian markets in the area. We are still looking for a place to get our hair cut, auto mechanic, towing company, and clothing stores but I am sure that will all come with time. Now I just have to work on brushing up on medications and Washington State Nurse Practice Act so I can find a job that suits me. I think I might be interested in OB/GYN. (Hi Melissa!) That is about as far from heart surgery as I think I can get. Plus I am getting old and kind of mushy about babies now (Thank you Eli!).

Lori  

Photo Friday (Trying something new)

I am going to try and start posting just a photo with maybe a small caption under it every Friday. Nothing major just something from our week that made us smile. Since I am about as consistent and motivated as a dead snail right now we will see how this goes.

Here we go!

Lori

Beautiful weather and fun at the park.

I am pretty sure that it has not gotten above 80 here. When we left Arkansas it was 104 with 80% humidity. Everyone here is complaining that they are not getting a summer but we are LOVING it! There are so many things to do here and festivals in the local parks that you could very easily find free or really cheap stuff to do all the time. There is also such a diverse community here. Everywhere we look are people of different ethnicity, religion and orientation it is fabulous! We were in Target yesterday and I heard 4 different languages being spoken in the first 10 minutes. We also see people signing everywhere! Bonus!