Double Nickels

I have now reached the advanced age of some of my colleagues and friends. As Tammie said previously, it is hard to believe that we have reached that milestone. Of course, I'm not complaining. I wouldn't have been at all happy with the alternative. The sad part of this is that I did something to my back yesterday (the big day) and have been groaning around ever since. I wish I could say I was lifting Ian, or playing soccer or working in the yard, but I can't. I was brushing my teeth. BRUSHING MY TEETH!!!!!!! Can you believe it? I was reaching to put my toothbrush back in the holder and felt this pain.

Of course, one of the things that made it all better was the call from Dr. Ganus. He is the one who made the comment about reaching "double nickels". He is such a great man. I am so honored to have worked with and for him.

Thanksgiving was survived and is now the stuff of legends. When I get old (OK, when I get older) remind me that my role is NOT to make things difficult for Ian.

Room Karma

My friend Beckie always accuses me of having "room karma" because I usually end up in some pretty fantastic rooms. I was afraid I had lost it because Beckie has topped me the last several meetings, but I profited again at the ASHA meeting in Miami. I arrived early to prepare for a meeting and they upgraded me to a "premium" room for the week. The only sad think was that I was there by myself. It was a very good meeting and once again, I wish I could convince our administration that our students profit from our attendance and participation. We did squeeze in some good Cuban inspired food and someone even tried to teach me the Salsa. I made it back to Little Rock yesterday at Noon (meaning I left the hotel for the airport at 4:15 AM). It did give me time to meet Keri and Ian for some Cub Scout activities.

Ian is trying to earn some special Arkansas patches that have been discontinued. He completed requirements for the Arkansas Heritage patch on Saturday with his Mom and I joined them on Sunday afternoon as he worked on his Toltec Mounds award. It's all about archeology and artifacts surrounding these ancient site outside Little Rock. We were looking for animal tracks and we discovered two pottery chards. We followed all the rules and reported them to the Park Ranger who took us out to the site. They were bagged and documented for study but the archeologist said that they appear to date from about 700AD. We are going to try to follow their study and find out more about them. Can you believe Ian got to report a pottery find on the day he was there studying archeology.

Harding is off this week and I hope to spend time getting ready for all the students to come over during the next several weeks. It is hard to believe that we are going into the final weeks of the semester. When I think how much I must cover in the next several days, it makes my head spin. Hope all have the best Thanksgiving ever, especially those of you "stranded" in Italy for the holidays!

Grizzlies & Jets

We had an exciting weekend. Ian won a trip to the Grizzlies (professional basketball) game in Memphis as a reward for his magazine sales at HA. We were proud of him (thank you purchasers) and Keri and I went with him to his game. We rode a bus to Memphis for the game and returned to Searcy Friday night near midnight. Ian was so proud of taking us to the game.

Unfortunately, Keri had to work Saturday so Ian and I went to the Little Rock Air Force Base 2006 Air Show. We have tried to go every year, and I must admit that this was the best. Ian was fascinated with every single detail of every single plane (and we toured them all). He watched with fascination each demonstration and took several hundred pictures, including this one of the Navy Blue Angels. I have seldom seen him as excited. I just sat down and let him watch to his hearts content while I watched him. I wish Keri could have been there. She would have enjoyed it.

Keep us in your prayers as we continue to deal with health issues!

Halloween

I really love Halloween! As I said previously, I have such wonderful memories of childhood Halloweens. We had the freedom of going anywhere around where we lived and all the family friends had special homemade treats for trick-or-treaters. We didn't have to worry about "individually wrapped" treats. We got homemade popcorn balls, fudge, cookies, and candy as well as store bought candy. There was a Halloween Carnival at school with each classroom having a booth. It was great. I have continued to enjoy the holiday. I even remember a haunted house that some of us created in a certain trailer on Old Taylor Road in Oxford, MS. (Reagan, it's an area of condominiums now.) I relived it all last night. We had 59 ghosts and witches, etc. and as I previously mentioned, Keri decorated up the front and the entryway. Even Hattie (our large black cat) kept watch at the door. Seeing the holiday through Ian's eyes made it all come alive again. We even used the new department popcorn popper and had free popcorn for all the students in the Reynolds Center. It was a fun day. We topped it all of with soup and fellowship at some friends house while all the kids played in the playroom.

I feel sorry for those that are so opposed to Halloween that they see evil in all aspects of the event. It must take a lot of work to have that many strong opinions about everything.