Tennis

We just finished playing tennis. I hit Crys in the face once and I beat her playing left handed. (I promised I wouldn't put that as my facebook status so it's a blog post now)

Las Vegas Trip

This post is not for the faint of heart! It's long, but our nieces and nephews are too cute to not post so much about them!

Truman and I went to Las Vegas last weekend so he could go to the U2 concert with his brother and their friend. I went to Las Vegas last weekend to avoid the responsibilities of my life and play with the kids.

When we got there, we immediately gave out bribes for affection. I made tutus for the girls:

Elora's was purple. She wasn't as enthralled as Annika, who barely took it off the whole time. The girls are also taking dance classes, and Annika was all about showing me her sweet moves

Don't you practice your ballet with a walking stick? Perfect left arm, stick in the right.

When there is no barre, you use what you got. Do you see the fierce determination in that face?

Nathaniel got a video game that he played a lot.

On Saturday, we went to a Halloween carnival thing at a park. The girls decorated a pumpkin, the boys stood around, and all the kids rode a fire truck. Liesel was a witch, and Elora and Annika were fairies. Just so you know, Annika is the queen fairy--so she's the queen of Elora.

Annika was too busy being a fairy to smile for the camera in her costume.

The boys did this a lot:

This is James being his regular cute self.

But, when I tried to hold him, he would immediately cry.

See that smudge in the picture? That's me trying to get James to come to me. That look on his face was pretty typical of his reaction to me. Maybe we should have brought him a present...

On Sunday I tried to get the kids to all sit together and take some good pictures. Of course, they were more into doing this:

That's the only way Elora would get with the other kids.



But, I did manage to get a few good pictures.

Doesn't Elora look 17 in this picture? She's a super model!

Nathaniel is so handsome! He's only about 3 inches shorter than me, and his feet are about 1 toe shorter...granted that's my toes we're talking about.

Thanks Ben and Marsie for everything! We had so much fun! I already miss the kids, the cinnamon rolls, and talking to Marsie the whole time. Can't wait until Christmas!

Spanish for Page

is pagina (pa-hee-nah). My 8th period Algebra II class has taken a liking to speaking a lot of Spanish during class, which I'm ok with (they are not fluent Spanish speakers--they are all in Spanish 2 and butcher it pretty badly). Anyway, after writing page 240 #.... for some homework today, a kid wanted it changed to pagina. So, I did.

Well, then squirrely P quickly yelled, "Pagina! Ha!!" BUT--he pronounced the word by making it rhyme with a female body part.

I can't even look at it any more without thinking that pronunciation.

sometimes precal gets you down...

Poor E had a bad testing experience this week. First, she had to tell me her true feelings.

Then some realizations about the future were made...

At least she's aware! And, I got a heart.

Finally, a little story for the last page. If not an engineer, maybe a budding author?

Age Appropriate

I teach an Algebra I class for kids that don't speak English at all or very well. I have a kid, previously mentioned, from Brazil.

On Friday after his test he was working on some English homework. He was given 4 ages and had to write a sentence about what happened to him at those ages. I walked by and saw for age 15: "Was the first time I get drunk at party."

I explained the drinking age in America and that he would probably get in trouble for that statement. P erased and started again.

The next time I look over I see: "Was the first time I smoke ever."

Again with the laws.

Finally, for age 15: "I do nothing at 15 that I can talk about in USA."

Then I helped P send a text to a girl and ask her to homecoming. I'm such an influence!

Hmmm

Anyone else hear "porn star" when the COIN star commercial comes on?

19 Pounds

There was a 19 lb. baby born in Indonesia last week, and I was reminded of this photo of my two nieces--