Father's Day Tribute

Jim was asked to create a "slide show" to be shown during our church service on Father's Day. There weren't any other stipulations or requirements, so he really did it up right. He spent one Sunday morning taking pictures of all the kids in their Sunday School classes, and then added the music (used with permission) and the effects. I think it looks great and I've already had my cry so I'll hope I can hold it together when it's shown at church next week.

Esme Graduates from Preschool

Esme graduated from preschool on Thursday 29 May 2008. It has been a quick and interesting three years, and Esme has attended three preschools! She started as a two-year-old at Immanuel United Methodist Church's Sonshine School in Lakeside Park, Kentucky, one day a week. Thank you, Mrs. Pratt and Mrs. Dietz! When Esme was three, she attended John Knox Preschool in Kentwood, Michigan, two days a week. Thank you, Mrs. Sandy and Mrs. Laurie! And this year, Esme has had the pleasure of being a student at Zion Christian School, twice a week. Mrs. Miedema and Mrs. Vos are amazing, terrific teachers and we thank them! Esme will begin kindergarten in the fall, at "Aidan's school."

Esme said "I want to be a nurse because nurses are cool!"

Waiting patiently for her turn to say her verse: "J! Jesus Christ is coming in the flesh!"

And Esme graduates with hug from Mrs. Vos...

...and one from Mrs. Miedema!

After receiving her diploma, Esme went to stand in line next to Esther (who also wants to be a nurse), and Hannah (who wants to be a science teacher just like her daddy).

Esme's class just got a brand-new loft - next year's class will be able to use the top as a reading spot, and the underneath will be their pretend kitchen.

Nurse Esme, sitting at her desk one last time.

We love you, Mrs. Vos!

Mrs. Miedema, we love you!

Aidan Wins The Bee!

Aidan M. Lowry, speller extraordinaire, won the second-grade spelling bee at his elementary school today!!! Hooray Aidan!!! We made it through all 1600 spelling words at home, practicing for today's event. This morning he and I went through his regular 10 spelling words for next week's spelling test, and that put him in a foul mood, because he was having trouble with some of them. So he was all freaked out about the spelling bee - "I'm going to get out right at the beginning," and other such negative thinking.

When we arrived at school for the bee, he filed in with the rest of his classmates, looking nervous and tense. After the first couple of rounds, though, he relaxed. There were twelve finalists (three from each second-grade class), and it took only about 45 minutes to decide the contest. Aidan won on the word "opposite," which he spelled correctly after a classmate spelled it incorrectly. You should have seen his face when he realized it was over and he'd won! Everyone clapped and he was bursting with pride. So were we!

Aidan and his classmates Becca and Lee wait for their next turn to spell.


Aidan grinned big when he knew he was the winner.

Aidan's "Stellar Speller" Award:

The Mark of Excellence has left the building!

It's official. Dad is retired. On Monday, I'm told, he left with "an air of quiet dignity" - he gave an ape call on his way out of the building. Many, many people asked my brother Scott, who works in the same building, "Was that your dad?" and "Why?" Sorry, folks, it's a Hollopeter thing. You wouldn't understand.

Speaking of Hollopeter things, at the Binder Park Zoo on Saturday, we saw some Guinea birds. (When I was a kid I always thought it was "ginny," but that's neither here nor there.) I was reminded both of Grandma McEowen's old Guinea bird that hung around the farm years after all the other animals had gone, and of Dad's perfect impression of its obnoxious cluck.

What is it, that makes Dad so good at amusing animal sounds? We don't know, we just enjoy it.

Aidan has qualified (along with two others from his class) for the all-school spelling bee tomorrow. He is practicing at home with the 1600-word list that will be used for the bee. I think as long as he doesn't get the words "receive" or "received," he will do great! For some reason he has a mental block with the "ei". We're really proud of him anyway, though.

In a little over a week, the second graders will be dissecting a sheep's eye in science class. Aidan is so excited. I hope he isn't put off by the smell...

Esme has to have a vision and hearing screening today for kindergarten. I imagine they will come out just fine. She still seems to see okay, and though she sometimes has a listening problem, I'm pretty sure her hearing is fine!

Cheetahs and Peacocks and Giraffes - Oh My!

Last Friday was Aidan's school Field Day. He had a great time and did all sorts of races and games. They had good weather, too!

On Saturday, we visited Binder Park Zoo in Battle Creek. On the way there, we stopped at Schlotsky's (silly name, serious sandwich!) for lunch - Battle Creek is the nearest Schlotsky's, and we miss it. (We miss Skyline, too, but we don't go to the one in Lansing, since my parents got food poisoning there once.) Anyway, Binder Park Zoo is GREAT!!! Jim took a ton of pictures - so we have a selection here.

Saturday night, Jessica came to stay with the kids (thanks, Jess!) while Jim and I went out for dinner (Panera, mmmm...) and to see Prince Caspian. Good movie. We realized we hadn't been out without the children since January, when we went to the Bahamas. It was quite nice. Fortunately, we get to do it again for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Hooray!

Monday one of our neighbors stopped by to invite Esme and I to McDonald's and the PlayPlace for lunch, with a bunch of other neighbors! We had a terrific time and really enjoyed getting to know them all. The kids - Caleb, Connor, Lauren, Ellie, Nick, Olivia and Esme - got along pretty well and so did us moms. How nice! We're looking forward to getting together as a neighborhood more often.

Today Esme's class went to John Ball Park Zoo. Esme's mom has now pretty much had enough of zoos for a while. It was nice, again, though...we even saw the wallabys, which we somehow had always missed before.

The Glander book is done!!! The Glander Family of Preble County, Ohio: The History and Genealogy of Four Generations of Descendants of John and Rebecca (Kehlenbeck) Glander (how's that for a mouthful of a title?) is complete, and I took delivery of 30 copies yesterday. It turned out just beautifully, with a silver-colored hard cover and black-leaf printing on the front. The book itself is printed on heavy bright white paper and the pictures turned out perfectly. They're so clear and crisp, it makes me wish I had found more! Four hundred twenty-four pages, with a table of contents and an index - wow. It doesn't seem possible that I did all that work in a little over a year. I still have 27 more (one's mine, one is for my grandma, and one was donated to the Preble County District Library in West Alexandria, Ohio) - want to buy one?

Here's Aidan's official spring 2nd grade picture. I just got an email from his teacher - he's qualified for the all-school spelling bee on Friday. I'm excited.

Here are Aidan and Mason at Marketplace Day, working hard at selling their Happy Pops.

At the Binder Park Zoo, we spent the most time, I think, at the cheetah exhibit. They were really active and gave us a ton of photo opportunities. Aren't they gorgeous?

The cockatoo looked like it had just been groomed for the season. How does a bird stay so white?

I know, a chipmunk isn't really exotic zoo fare, but this one was cute.

The peacocks all over the zoo were REALLY LOUD!!! And quite colorful, as well.

Aidan thought it was really cool that he could get so close to this peacock.

HEE-HAW, HEE-HAW!!!

We waited for the zebra tram to take us to Wild Africa! It was very neat - they pretend they're taking you to Zuri National Park in Africa, and you have to go through "customs" and everything.

We got a six-pack of giraffe biscuits and got to feed the giraffes! It was amazing.

For the rest of the day, Esme talked about how she fed the "giraves" - her version of the plural of "giraffe".

Aidan's giraffe was really short, because it is still little! But it's still WAAAY taller than us.

"What was that?"

There were about a hundred lovebirds in this cage. Aren't they bright?

Oh, look - a cebu!

Here we are, back at the "research station," waiting for our "flight" back to the USA!

Economic Woe

Yesterday morning, when I picked Esme up from preschool, I saw gasoline for $3.83 a gallon. My little needle showed me I still had about a quarter of a tank, so I thought: "I'll wait. It can't get worse than $3.83, maybe it will get a bit better before I run out of gas."

Yesterday afternoon, when Esme and I went over to the elementary school for the second grade Marketplace Day, I saw gasoline for $3.99 a gallon. All the stations raised their prices around noon. $3.99. *Gasp.* Remember Operation Desert Shield, in the fall of 1990? That's when I got my first car. Everyone, me included, was SO astonished that gas cost as much as 99 cents a gallon.

Batch those errands, folks. We'll be riding our bikes to town this summer - at least the high gas prices will keep us buying things locally...

General Motors is forcing retirement on many of their high-level, high-seniority employees - Dad's retiring. He has about a month of vacation yet to take, so he will be actively working about one more week. He will still be officially employed by GM on his fortieth anniversary with the company next month. "Retirement" is a funny word to describe all the manual labor that Dad will undoubtedly be doing, but I think he has been waiting for this day for a long time. For our part, we will sure be looking forward to getting together with him more often.

The second grade Marketplace Day at Aidan's school was so much fun. What a lot of work those kids did! Here are some of the goods we saw for sale: bracelets, books and magazines, candy of many different kinds, popcorn, root beer floats, pet rocks, decorated bags, WebKinz beds and chairs, homemade WebKinz cards... But not only were there goods for sale, there were also services! You could have a massage, have your fingernails painted, play several different kinds of games (with prizes), have a design painted on your face... WOW!!! There are sure a lot of talented and imaginative kids in the class of 2018!!! Esme and I had $20 in Elementary School Bucks, and it went pretty quickly. Aidan and Mason made fifty chocolate Happy Pops, and each of them took home three, so they sold 44! Good job, boys!

The sprinkler system is fixed, but fortunately for our water bill, it has been raining on a regular basis and we haven't needed to "sprink". Everything is so very green and flowery this spring!!! I'm not sure what it is, but other Byron Centronians have noticed it too - everything that's blooming is blooming like it never has before! It's super beautiful around here this year.

Aidan has only 16 days of school left before summer vacation; Esme has only five. Each of them has one field trip coming up - Aidan's class is going to see a Whitecaps baseball game and going bowling, and Esme's class is going to the zoo. I had a parent-teacher conference with Esme's teacher yesterday, and she is doing REALLY well at everything except following directions. Hmmm...that is also what Aidan's last report card said... These two often seem to think they know better than the authority figure what they should be doing. Straighten up, children!

I am looking forward to a summer of sleeping in...all the way 'till 7:00 a.m., probably. Esme still sometimes sleeps in really nicely when she doesn't have school - today she didn't get up until 9:15! But Aidan, no matter how late he stays awake, is always up at the crack of dawn - which in summer is pretty early.

Spring Blossoms

The trees and flowers are in bloom! Here's Aidan, just before going to school, in front of our crabapple tree:


And Esme, just before going to school, too:


Here are Aidan and Mason giving their cheetah and jaguar presentation at school:

Little Newsy Items

Today Aidan's class invited their parents to school to hear their animal presentations. The kids all did a lot of research about a particular animal - Aidan's was the cheetah - and they had to do written reports, a hands-on project, and a PowerPoint presentation. They made their own PowerPoint slides, complete with pictures, sounds, transitions and lots of information - and then they had to present the slides orally using a microphone. All the students did a great job, and even though we were a friendly audience, we were probably pretty intimidating! Aidan's report was great and we could all tell he put a lot of work into his presentation. Good job, buddy!

Anyway, the reports were all done by about 2:45 - and that counted two of the reports being done twice, as those kids' parents were late arriving due to other commitments! So as we were all there already anyway, and as Mrs. Schmuker had planned for that to take a lot longer, most of us just signed the kids out and came home! That was an unexpected treat!

So we had a fun afternoon and evening of doing things we don't normally have time to do. We came home to drop off all of Aidan's stuff, and then went out to the Hallmark store to add to our collection of WebKinz. Aidan chose the Pet of the Month, a panda, which he named Bamboo. Esme chose the girliest thing she could find, a pink poodle, which she named Polly. Then we stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things - which turned out to be mostly fresh fruit and a lot of unnecessary snacks. This is why I don't normally shop with the children! They are good snack-pickers, though...they choose things like blanched almonds, multi-grain crackers, BabyBel cheese and yogurty raisins. Ahhh, I have taught them well. Perhaps to temper my claims, though, I should also mention that when it's Aidan's turn to take a treat to school, he always picks chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting; and that when Esme eats a doughnut she eats it from the top to the bottom - frosting first (yes, it's quite possible, apparently). So our snacking habits aren't ENTIRELY without indulgence...

We stopped at home to drop off the groceries (frozen foods, you know...) and then went to Jimmy John's for sandwiches for dinner. Good stuff! I can't believe we've been eating Subway for so long. And they really are "freaky fast". I honestly don't know how it's possible for one person to make three sandwiches in less than one minute, but they do it every time.

When we got home we took a few minutes to sign Bamboo and Polly up on WebKinz, and then we made popcorn and watched The Muppet Movie. Esme freaked out when Mel Brooks was about to fry Kermit's brain, but we convinced her to stay and watch, and she found out that Miss Piggy would save Kermit and there was no reason to worry.

On the medical front, apparently there is nothing wrong with me, so who knows what caused the heart-racing a week ago. I am all clear to go to the dentist without antibiotics, but I've been advised to wait a month before giving blood again. I also have to continue taking the atenolol (or whatever - I might not be spelling that quite right) until I see the doctor again. As it makes me really tired and gives me a headache, I will be seeing the doctor on Monday, and hopefully I can stop taking that medication.

My book is still at the "publisher," but I have had reports on its progress and it appears to be making some. Yesterday I had to go in to check that it had the right number of pages (it didn't, so I uploaded a new file for them), and tomorrow I am going in to check that the cover is as I requested it - they're printing a silver cover with black lettering! Shouldn't be too long now!

I know Mother's Day isn't until Sunday but I've already received gifts and cards from my family! Esme made me a beautiful cutout profile of herself at school, and a pretty card with a poem on it. The profile is black construction paper but it is so nice I am going to get a frame for it. Today Aidan brought home a little fabric basket he made, with silk flowers and Hershey's kisses; and he wrote me a little letter to go with it, too. (Earlier in the week I did a lot of fabric cutting for Mrs. Schmuker...but she didn't tell me what it was for!) Also, this afternoon when we got home from Aidan's presentation, there was a pajamagram on the front porch from all of my bofas! Happy Mother's Day to all the moms in our lives!

Weird Wild Stuff

Esme just popped out of the bathroom, half undressed, to tell me that two plus five is seven. I guess it was important! After she was finished washing her hands, she came out of the bathroom and told me that a million plus a million is a million. So she hasn't quite gotten the finer points of addition, but she has the basics down!

Monday we had a GREAT time with my Aunt Rose and my mom and dad. Rose is visiting from Idaho and I was thrilled that they could all come over Monday. Jim even got to change his work schedule so he was home on Monday, instead of Friday. We all (except Aidan, who was in school) went to Jimmy John's for lunch. Esme began talking as soon as our company arrived, and didn't stop until she fell asleep Monday night. She and I took Nee-Nee and Aunt Rose to a little quilt shop near our house, just to check it out. Of course not only did they both find some nice stuff to buy, but the owner of the shop knows Gretchen, the owner of the shop where Mom works. If you think it's a small world in general, the world of quilting is even smaller! Anyway, we had a great visit with Aunt Rose and it was great to have everybody here for the day.

I dutifully wore a 24-hour heart monitor for twenty-four hours, and the little cassette tape (technology has apparently not reached that particular part of the medical industry) has been duly mailed off to wherever they read those things. It was quite uncomfortable and I still have big red patches on my skin where the leads were attached. I called the doctor's office five times before I finally got the blood test results at 10:30 on Wednesday that I was supposed to get at 9 a.m. on Monday. Everything was normal. While this is good, it brings me no closer to knowing what the problem was on Friday. And I was just sure it was my thyroid medication... Anyway, I still have several questions for the doctor, which his assistant promised to get answered by this afternoon. So I think I am okay, and I feel okay, and hopefully that's the end of that.

We are, by the way, quite enjoying Series Four of Doctor Who, Series Two of Robin Hood, and Series One of The Sarah Jane Adventures. What would we do around here without British TV?

The Zoo!

The zoo was slightly more interesting this time, as more animals were out and about. Jim was disappointed that the zipline wasn't open yet, though! The kids were glad to see the brown bear and the grizzly bear sunning themselves...

...and thrilled to have a camel ride!

Awww, the sweet little penguin family statues!

And John Ball himself, of course.

On Friday evening my heart started racing and I felt short of breath for what seemed to be no particular reason, so Saturday morning I went to see the doctor. He did an EKG (normal) and drew blood to test a variety of things including my TSH (thyroid hormone) level. As it is the weekend, the results of the blood work won't be available until tomorrow. He also put me on a beta-blocker, a type of heart medication to slow the heartbeat, until he figures out what is causing the tachycardia. Now I feel fine, just a little nervous! Anyway, tomorrow I have to go back to the doctor for the blood results and to have a 24-hour heart monitor put on. My personal uninformed non-medically-trained opinion is that the dosage of my thyroid replacement hormone is probably too high, causing me to have symptoms of hyperthyroidism instead of my usual hypothyroidism. I'm hoping, anyway...!