Sack that Quarterback and High School

Every Friday Night and Saturday morning are games.

This was a nice drive 1 1/4 hours from home.

We have a decent JV, they will be really good as juniors and seniors

Falcon 74 is the Moose Man!

Where's Kota?

Kota ended up sacking the quarter back twice this game.

48-0 Falcons vs. Rootstown

Kota ended up with playing time the 3rd and 4th quarter of the Varsity game against Mapelton. We won that game 43-14. Mapelton scored twice when they had out mainly freshmen. We'll let them have those 2 touchdowns though. (for a morale booster, at least).

Who knew your 14 year-old would still want a binki?

It's hard to believe that my kids are getting to be so grown up. They are both in high school now. Kayla non-stop chatters about her day when we get home from work. She is going over to friends house to study already. You know they used to ask us for help on their homework.

It seems like time is just flying by. I wake up listen to Kyle teach seminary as I'm getting myself ready for work. It seems like my school day is a constant shuffle of students since I have 2 grade levels this year. (I'm more like a middle school teacher than an elementary teacher.) It has its pros and cons, but with my days going so fast, it seems like my children are disappearing right before my eyes.

Kota is doing better at being a football player this year. He is becoming much more aggressive. I was laughing with a co-worker earlier this week about; we spent his whole childhood telling him to play nice and not hurt other people. Then we spend his whole football season telling him that he needs to be more aggressive. Go after that kid, knock him down, not only knock him down, but make sure it hurts a little too! What contridicting parents we are. :)

2010-2011 School Year off to a Start

My classroom is in the front, top, left corner.


Today was my first day back to work. It started with a meeting at the High School with the whole district's teachers. We had a pep talk and a summary of how last year's test scores went. We did well as a district. I am proud of us. Our building meet AYP, which means each student did better than the year before. That's what we want to hear! Our principal had an AYP congratulation party for us. That was a welcoming way to come back! It's nice to be appreciated.


Then we went back to our building and had another meeting. This is wear we got our chore lists, if you will. We got the list of all the behind the scene things teachers do. It's a pretty lofty list. But, just like everything it all gets done.


Then we got to finish getting our rooms together. We get our finalized class lists and get to put name tags out for the students; make last minute copies and lesson plan changes. Then we get to meet all the students and their parents at open house. I had 24/28 of my students show up. It was fun meeting them all. They are so little this year. Sometimes 6th graders are taller than me, not this year. I look forward to getting back on my schedule, even though it means sometimes running faster than I can. I'm really learning that when I leave my room not everything is finished and it will still be there tomorrow. :)

Falcon Football, Hut, Hut,.....Hike

Car Wash at the American Legion

Nice soap job boys.

Number 74 is Kota

When ever I remember football it's the cool, crisp air, bleachers, blankets, and popcorn. Once I have a son playing its, running around in the car and delivering him places. It's hot and when he gets in the car, Oh my Gosh, does he reak. I never knew he could stink so bad.

Actually, I'm looking forward to watching the team get started this year. We just watched a scrimmage Friday. They played Crestview, which they beat during play offs last year. They didn't win this time, so we will see if they will be a repeat in the play offs this season.

Yesterday, Kota had a team car wash, they collected money for the Athletic Boosters and had meet the team night. Needless to say, this weekend was devoted to football. It's fun to watch Dakota get better each year. It appears that he will be starting for JV this year for Offense. (Left Guard) Hopefully, he'll get some playing time on Varsity. Either way he's on the field every Friday night and Saturday morning.

Fall for us, is turning leaves, apples, pumpkins, and football sweat!

Cajun Crawdad Boil

Here is the second attempt. We learned from our first mistakes.

It actually looks good this time.

Kyle, Dakota and Kasey digging in. This is a finger-dive-in with your hands community meal.
I even made homemade jalapeno poppers for Kyle. They weren't too bad, I tried a couple myself.
Our nieces Kody and Presley. Doesn't Presley have a million watt smile!


Kyle has an infatuation with the Food Network Channel. I have to admit I also enjoy the shows where they are cooking, but I don't really like watching the ones where they are eating food only. In his watching of the channel he encountered a cajun crawfish boil and wanted to experiment. With all experiments the first one was a huge failure; as far as Kayla and I were concerned. We dumped the whole bag of crawfish in the boiling pot and ended up with antenna and claws dangling from our potatoes and corn. Kayla and I were so grossed out we ended up with something like PB&J. The boys were troopers though and plucked their corn and potatoes and ate everything.

Kyle wasn't willing to give up on the first try so we did try it again tonight with Kasey and Jenna being in town. This time we didn't dump the entire contents of the bag in the boiling pot we only pulled out the crawfish. It wasn't nearly as disgusting without the antenna and claws hanging off the potatoes. Although I have to admit I still didn't try them. I made BBQ chicken wings and salad for the girls.

Who knew we had cajun cooking in the roots, must come from the hillbilly lineage.

Lions, Tiger, Bears, Moles, OH MY!

Columbus, Ohio Zoo

Kayla spent the day with mom yesterday at the Columbus zoo. She talked about it so much for the past two days. She is my girl that loves animals. She really wanted to see Giant Pandas, but Columbus doesn't have any. Oh well, she couldn't talk enough about the Polar Bear exhibit. They got to go under where the bears swim. She got to see it chase fish for dinner. She really enjoyed it.

Dakota got a mole removed from his neck that has bothered him since he started shaving. We heard back that it was not cancerous today. Something to celebrate even though it wasn't a conern. Anyhow, it was the funniest thing I've experience with him in a long time. Here is my 15 year-old young man who puffs up when you talk about manly things. You know he thinks he's braver than what I do....He sees the nurse draw the needle full of novacaine....(now you see the toddler coming out, hehe)....He asks me when the nurse leaves, where is he going to put that...my arm or my neck? I said in your neck by the mole. His eyes get huge! Anywhere, but my neck. I said well it's your neck or keep your mole. Huge dilemma.

When the Dr. comes in Kota my big, strong, young man, says, Mom will you hold my hand. Wow. I wish I had a recording my son needs his momma when he's scared. Love it!

He did too, he held my hand all through the procedure. I thought the Doc was going to have a hard time containing the laughter, but he sat through the whole procedure with a huge grin. I bet that was the most fun he'd had with a patient in awhile.

Fast and Furious

It seems like since we've gotten back from vacation my life has switched from relaxed and stress free to running fast and furious.

It seems the list of demands are higher then the minutes in the day.

Thank goodness relief society is quiet this week because my family life and work life are taking over right now.

I'm getting my classroom ready and for anyone who hasn't set up a classroom it would seem like that wouldn't take very long. At the end of the school year we take down everything in the room and clean out shelves and desks so that the custodial staff can come in and wax, wash, and polish the room. It sure does sparkle when they clean it. But, the trade off is like having to move your kitchen every year. You know when you pack a kitchen to move how you have so many little things that it takes forever to unpack a box and put all its contents in the proper place? Same in the classroom. I spent 4 hours on 4 boxes the other day. Needless to say, putting up posters, returning, pens, pencils, etc to the proper locations has taken an additional several hours. Then we need to talk about all the books, binders and papers for lesson plans...My mom inquiring why I needed to spend so much time in the building yesterday...it just takes that long I guess. I still have several more hours of work to be ready for parent open house. In reality is takes about 20+ hours to have the room ready to go, just depends on what year you are in teaching. The more years, the more stuff to put away.

Kyle's grandpa Beninghof is not doing well, so we have some family in from MN. Kyle has been going to visit often. Plus, football 2-adays haven't stopped yet. We have had 4 Dr. appointments this week in the mix of everything.

You know, I'm not complaining I'm just saying life is busy this week. I'm glad I'm in good enough health to do it all in and have a great family that turns the other cheek when I'm tired and cranky!

New Driver on the Road

Kota in my Yukon on the way to football practice.

According to the State of Ohio he can drive with me or Kyle.

Kota sat down next to me about 10:30 last night and said, "Mom, will you quiz me so I can take my permit test tomorrow?" The answer I wanted to give was no way, I don't want you driving, but I said sure. He did rather well, so I couldn't put it off any longer.

We were up an at 'em this morning and had him into the driver exam station behind Buehler's at 9 am. By 9:30 my 15 1/2 year-old has a permit stating he can drive with his parents now. So here I am in my Yukon with a newly permitted driver wondering, how much can I trust my son. I'm literally putting my life in his novice hands. I told him I wanted this to be a positive experience for the both of us...so when I say stop you stop and ask questions later. I also told him if I feel nervous for any reason, I'll ask him to pull over and I'll take over, we can argue about it later. If he didn't agree to these terms he would have to wait and drive with his dad.

Needless to stay the anxious teen took over the wheel agree to all my terms. You know, he did okay for a first timer. I was only nervous once when we went passed a bunch of cars parked on the side of a country road because of a yard sale. Other than that he listened (with out argument) to everything I said. (I'm very impressed, bet it only lasts a couple of weeks!)

I hope I don't get too many gray hairs over this, it's hard to watch them steadily gain independence and not need you so much anymore. I suppose this is what we've raised them for to be responsible adults, now we just need to sit back and watch them fly and only give advice when they need it.

Happy Birthday Kayla

Kayla turned 14 today. Wow, it seems impossible that she is going into high school. We had a busy day today. We finally got in from vacation at 9:30ish last night. We were so ready to be out of the car.

Today we slept in, because it was so good to sleep in a real bed. I took Kayla into get a state id, and opened a checking account for her. We did this for Dakota and it worked out so well, we thought we'd do it for Kayla too. This will give her a chance to get used to banking with our help. That way when she gets to college it will just be second nature to her. My mom got me a checking account when I was 16 for the same reasons.

So she has money in the checking account, a new wallet that holds checks, and a cool new id. What else could a 14 year old want? She is going to have a Hawaiian Luau party with a couple of her closest school friends on Thursday. I knew I'd need a couple of days to get things in order from the vacation.

We have the camper all unloaded and cleaned out to return to our friends. So vacation is offically over. We sorted through the mail, emails, and schedule today. Kayla and I went grocery shopping and filled up the empty fridge. Life back to normal starting tomorrow.