Happy Halloween! Marvin and I spent the day in bed, we both have a cold, or is it the flu? We turned off the lights at night so we wouldn't get trick or treaters since we didn't feel well enough to go out or to "treat" the goblins.

Did any of you get dressed for work? What did Tristan chose to be this year?

Don't forget to change the clock back one hour tomorrow. I think in Europe DST was last week.

By the way, today was a totally gorgeous Fall day, in the high 70's and sunny. No snow for us.... ;)

OK, back to bed. Hope your day was fun!

Weekend in Encinitas

This weekend we went to Encinitas, Berkley Hart had a show Saturday night which we have seen already twice, called "O Berkley Where Hart Thou?" It is a great show with music and fun, and it just seems to get better every time.

Marvin and I stayed in a great little Bed & Breakfast called Moonlight Inn. We were upgraded to a suite, it had a queen bed and a single bed, and a full bath with tub and shower. We had a nice view of the waterfall from our room and we fell sleep with the sound of water running, very tranquil. The beds were super comfortable, and in the morning they served a wonderful breakfast of freshly baked croissants, eggs, yogurt and a plate of fresh fruit, cantaloupe, strawberries, grapes and honeydew. Yummy.

On arrival to the B&B and after resting for a while, we went out for lunch to a funky restaurant called "El Callejon", Marvin had cochinita pibil, and I had chicken tacos with guacamole. After lunch, we put the top down in the SSR and cruised down the coast to Del Mar. It was such a lovely day, the sky and the ocean were deep blue, the temperature was about 75 degrees, gorgeous day.

The show started at 8:00 and we left the Inn to meet Jennifer, my friend from school. We got to the venue and Lizzie was there to welcome us. Jeff's mother and step dad were also there from Florida, also Jeff's grandfather. We had good second row seats and met a few of the performing artists. They all told us how wonderful Lizzie is, as if we didn't know that already :) She did a great job or organizing and getting things ready.

The show was great, Dakota Berkley and Miranda Hart sang with their respective fathers who couldn't be prouder, they did a nice job. We sang along to a couple of songs, and the grand finale had us all standing up singing "You are my Sunshine". Everybody enjoyed the show very much.

On Sunday, Marvin and I drove to San Diego via La Jolla, again with the top down, and visited with Lizzie for a while. She was a little tired because she stayed up cleaning after the show was over. Soon after we went back home.

It was a very enjoyable weekend.

Changing rooms

I think I already wrote we were thinking about changing the "office/futon" room into a "study/bedroom". What I had not thought about is all the work it entails. Marvin and I have been working moving stuff around, oak furniture is heavy and we seem to have lots of it too!
So far we have moved Marvin's desk and file cabinets into his bedroom. We had to move some of the other furniture around, and it will go into the other room. We had decided to get a sofa bed rather than an actual bed because most of the time nobody will be sleeping there, and that way it will be just like a sitting room and it will be easy to convert when we have guests :) We went out looking at furniture stores and found one we both like, it's corduroy sort of light brown and converts into a full side bed, it's pretty comfortable, Marvin said he can see himself sitting there reading. We would also have to move bookshelves around etc etc. And also we have a little dilemma...will the sofa fit through the door?
I'll keep you posted.
On to a different subject. I have read 55 books since January 1, pretty good eh?
I have read 2 books lately written by Catalan authors, the setting is Barcelona. One is called "The Gaudi Key" is sort of similar to the Dan Brown books of Templars and knights etc. but the central figure is the Sagrada Familia and works of Gaudi, so I enjoyed that part http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/e/martin-esteban/gaudi-key.htm.
The other book is called "The Angel's Game" which is a prequel to "The Shadow of the Wind" http://www.carlosruizzafon.co.uk/
That's all for today, have a good night everybody :)

My Kinder Team

It seems like every year my Kindergarten team changes. This year besides Gloria and Norma, we have Jessica (I worked with her in kinder several years ago) and her partner Dani, who is 6 month pregnant. They share a classroom, Jessica works in the morning and Dani in the afternoon.

We had a fun Back to School night. All the parents (but one) of the kids in my class were in attendance. Today the super intendent came to visit our school, he visited every room and he was very complimentary about the way my class looked. Wish I could say the same about my 15 kiddies's behavior lol.

Such a small class and such a great difference in skills. One boy can read fluently at level 6 and he already can read 72 of the 100 high frequency words they need to know by the end of kinder. The other extreme, is a boy that cannot write or recognize his name, and can't tell the difference between letters and numbers.

I was thinking the other day, that since I became a kindergarten teacher at Jersey School, I have taught about 700 children. And I am not counting Idaho...

I am now teaching the children of some of my students. Fun!

Hello Autumn!

Summer is over and is back to the work routine. We had Back to School day on Wednesday and it went very well, I put some pictures of my class in Facebook, as you can see, I changed things around a little, I get bored with the same thing all the time. My friend Jennifer came to spend the night Wednesday and Thursday, it was fun to chat with her and catch up.
Marvin went to San Diego last Sunday to help Lizzie with her truck and spent the night there. On Friday I went with Marvin to Kaiser where we had some more surgery done, it went well but he has a black eye now, and his lip is puffy. Saturday I went to Huntington Beach to water Norbert's lawn and pay some of his bills. Then I went shopping, yes shopping, fun! not.
We are still working on putting things back in the kitchen, it takes a while to have everything exactly as we ant it. But we are really liking it, is nice to have the extra space too.
Tonight we talked to Tristan for a long time while Sandy and Marty went to The Killers concert, he was bored he said. He's such a great kid!
Well this has been a little random but I felt like writing before the month was over :) Have a great week everybody!

It's finished!!!

Finally the kitchen is all done, all is left are just a few tweaks here and there, some curtains and accessories, but the main thing is finished. Now comes the putting things back in the cabinets, drawers etc. , this will take some time. I really think it looks good :)

We've been having a lot of eating out and take out, so now we can go back to our regular routine. Today Marvin is grilling pork ribs, to go with gratin potatoes and southwest salad.

School is going well, still 15 kids, not too bad lol. Next week is our Back to School meeting with parents, our new K team is working out OK, although I would much rather have Jennifer back.

Summer is almost gone, the Autumnal equinox is just around the corner, I hope that means cooler days, we had a very hot August and September, but it seems to start cooling down a little bit.

I will post some more kitchen pictures in Facebook.

Have a great week!!!

Back to work

School started early this year, September 2. I only have 15 children in my class, so far. That's the smallest class ever for me, and I like it! We only had 3 days of school, and then the long Labor Day weekend. Back to the grind tomorrow.

On other news, our neighbors Patty and Leon moved out also on September 2, and the same day, the new neighbors moved in. They are a young couple with no children. I already met the husband but not the wife.

The kitchen is not yet finished. Hopefully they can finish it tomorrow. They need to finish painting, I'd like the gray to be a little darker, maybe it will be with the next coat of paint. They need to hook up the stove top, change the hinges in the cabinets and put the knobs on. So far it looks very nice. I will certainly take pictures when is all finished :)

Marvin is planning on going to Utah on Thursday for a couple of weeks, if the kitchen is all finished.

The fires around Los Angeles seem to be under control, and today was a most wonderful bright sunny day!

And I agree with Sandy, every week should be a 4 day work week :)