Done Testing For the Year!

Thursday I finished up Jedediah's testing. So glad to have that done for another year. Forgot how much more energy goes into testing grades under grade 3 - much of the test instructions you end up reading! (For Josiah's test, I think I put in 1/2 the effort!) The tests were put in the mail Friday for scoring, and will be returned to me in about 6 weeks. Hopefully sooner.

Last year was my first year as a tester. It seemed so stressful figuring it all out. This year, although there was some anticipation, there wasn't nearly as much stress on my part. Hopefully I can remember this for next year. And I may end up testing a few more kids before the summers over.

My non testing kids really seemed to suffer - not. They spent the day out at grandma's working in the garden and swimming in the pool. They've really been enjoying Grandma's new saltwater backyard pool.

Besides testing, here are some things I accomplished this week that are relatively significant. Hopefully some of this will help me free up some of my time:D
*Baseball wrapped up this weekend.
*Testing the boys was finished this week.
*Teens Rafting trip on the Wenatchee River Saturday.
*Horsecamp plans.
*Figured out an answer about a computer issue.

One another note, a friend of mine lost her father to cancer this week. Knowing that this day could come doesn't really take away the surprise. Most of the time I really spent around Bill I simply knew him as Shawna's Dad. There were so many good things I saw in their family when I was young that I hoped to have in my own one day. Shawna's parents owned the local Homeschool store. They showed me that homeschooling in general as well as homeschooling through high school is a reality. I will always have her parents to thank for that. Bill, you will be missed.

You may have noticed that there haven't been pictures in my last couple of posts - I'm hoping to get into a habit of watermarking them before posting. I don't mind my friends having my pictures, but I don't just want whomever to have them & use them as they please - so i'm planning on watermarking, for now anyway.

One of my dreams, is about to come true!!!

This weekend, Saturday, we are going to take a group of 15 people over to Leavenworth to go white water rafting with YD Adventures. I am really excited about going Rafting, can't believe it's the day after tomorrow! Really wished that some of our teens were able to figure out how to pay for the trip - but we'll have a great time anyway.

Josiah has been asking me for the last two weeks, if we would ask if they would make an exception to the age rule, so that he could come with us rafting. I finally gave in - the worst thing they could say is no, right?

Well, about the time I decided to ask about them making an exception (this week), we found out that Josiah has a baseball tournament this weekend. Snafu. How do we decide??? Josiah's the size of some small adults. He's a month and a half short of 11 (the required age to be able to go Rafting...). (If I would have known the age was 11, we would have seen if we could have gone rafting later in the summer... I don't even know though, if they raft that late...) We've been planning this rafting trip 6 weeks, the tourney only 2 days...

Well, the YD Adventures leadership came back and said, yes, he could go! Completely surprising us. So we had to choose between a brand new tournament that we found out about a couple of days ago and going on a once in a lifetime trip rafting. Reality, he plays baseball daily, Rafting - never been. Who knows if we'll be able to even go next year.

Honestly, I've dreamed of this weekend since before the day he was born. I was a student leader with Youth Dynamics back in the day. It was my home, I loved our people and I love our YD Adventure trips. We went white water rafting, repelling, camping and so much more. I made friends, we went on adventures.

Rod & I were volunteers at YD for some time. Since then Rod & I have gone on the day paddling training trips a few different times since we've been married. I love to Raft. I've watched as other parents took their sons on their first river adventure & couldn't wait for my turn... I kept thinking, one day, one day... And Saturday is going to be our turn.. Seeing something come to reality brings tears to my eyes!! One of my dreams, is about to come true!!!

That usually means... Cellulitis!

(Julia running the bases at Bakerview Park, just like her big brothers! June 2009)

I don't feel particularly witty tonight. There's a lot going on. I'll feel like I got some things finally checked off of my list though, after this week!

I have a few projects that I'm working on... Rafting with Youth Dynamics Adventures is this upcoming weekend in Leavenworth, WA. Trying to get that all together. One of the teens emailed me seriously wanting to go rafting again this year. I wasn't planning on it, because I hadn't gotten much of a response before. We're doing it, in the Lords good graces, because I haven't had the time or energy to get it together!!!

Really glad that we are going, I just don't particularly like all of the work involved in organizing something like this. Especially when I haven't had the time to do a good job. We've only been planning on going about a month, and tonight, I sent out the final info - which I usually do eons ago... Better late than never, I guess :D

Another thing that I'm doing this week - I'm a certified tester for homeschool testing - and i'm testing two days this week. I usually stress out about testing, but once i'm doing it, I really enjoy it. I can test a couple different tests, but I like the Iowa ITBS - because I like the results that I get back. I don't make a ton of money from it, but since i'm testing my own kids anyway, I figure I might as well serve another family & take care of their testing needs at the same time!

Personally, I'm a little concerned about Josiah's test scores. He's not really up to grade level - or I don't think so. I'm testing him at grade level this year to see how I'm doing. Then for this next year, I'll make the adjustments I need to make. He was a late reader and that affected so many things involved in schooling.

Feeling quite thankful that Jedediah is reading already. Josiah took off about the same time Jedeidah really got readers. Now Jedediah is beyond readers - and I'm feeling really good about having two down. Two to go!

Sunday morning Rod got up and he had a fever. That usually means cellulitis. We watched it allll day & didn't see any signs of it on his right leg. After Urgent care closed, we finally notice that yes, he has real signs of cellulitis. So he & Josiah went over to the ER to get Meds. About an hour later (quick trip) he came home with plenty of medication. He took today off. I'm feeling quite good about the whole thing though, because it's the most mild case of it he's ever had! In that, there's a blessing!!

What I do feel bad about is that he can't really take any more days off of work - I'm pretty sure that he doesn't have sick pay. But he did get a good two days rest & should be feeling much better tomorrow ~and he'll be feeling better in time to go.. Rafting!

What HAS Rod Been Working on at Xbox??

(Julia & what she referred to sweetly as her baby slug!)

Many of you have asked about what Rod's working on at Xbox. For those of you who don't game, it's a division of Microsoft :D Well, this week was a big week in our house because WE finally found out what Dad's top secret project that he's been working on at work is.... It's called Project Natal.

From what I understand, it's a voice, facial and gesture recognition camera that works as a controller - and will be used to play video games on the 360. Rod's the DevKit guy for Project Natal (Development Kit) - which means a lot and then not so much. He was so excited to finally be able to tell us!!

Branden, a friend of ours, co-worker of Rod's, got to go to E3 - a big electronics conference in California - and was one of the guys in charge of putting on the live demo with all of the big names - and it appeared to come off seamlessly. I watched the demo online and it was exciting to realize that Branden was backstage putting it on!! Woot! Woot!

This week also hails the end of another quarter at Skagit Valley College for Rod. He's supposed to have one more quarter where he will be taking Adobe Flash, Adobe InDesign and Advanced Webpage Design. The webpage design might get swapped out for another class - but probably not.

I am just feeling like it's a good end of week for our family. Finally Rod can tell us what he's been up to and since it's the end of a quarter, we'll be getting our evenings back with Dad!

The two webpages that he's been working on for his MIT classes are:

Our photography: http://www.herronpoint.webs.com

Our cakes: http://www.bluevaser.webs.com (this isn't even alllll of our cakes! I didn't realize we'd done SO many until I had to dig up pictures for this site for his class!!)

If we decide to actually use these sites, we'll probably change them over to their own named sites, for class they wanted us to use a freebie host. We will also probably make quite a few changes after the class has been finalized - and then much more after he's worked on the Adobe Flash. You can do some fantastic stuff with flash. These sites are basic, supposed to show, what he's learned in his books...

What A Nice Surprise!

We have the kid's school pictures taken every year. We started when Josiah was K/1st grade & have been doing it ever since. This year, we had pictures taken in the Fall - at Friday School. First Class Skagit County has had Lifetouch come in for the last few years to do school pictures/student id cards. This year - we were just going to get the most basic plan because Rod was on unemployment. Turned out that the photographer put our info in wrong - so I said I'd order them over the phone.

Here, MONTHS later, in April I ended up ordering them. Easy enough to order them over the phone. I ordered the packages I was planning on getting last Fall. When they arrived, I realized that I ordered the package that I wanted when we were on unemployment, not the package that we could afford since Rod's working... So, I had Rod (yah, I know, I give him some of those kinds of things & he's such a good sport about it!) call them & get it fixed.

They were more than happy to help us out. We realized that if we paid $9 more than we originally paid per kid, that we could get the CDR's with reprint & viewing licences. So, we paid the extra $9.00. I was kinda frustrated in figuring out the CD's & downloading each of the photos - but each of the kid's picutres came in Color, Black & White as well as Sepia.

I went ahead and uploaded the pics to Costco - to see if they would print correctly. And they did! So, I have photos that look like they came from Lifetouch at a fraction of the cost! Woohoo! I was a very good girl and took in the licence agreement - which basically says I can use the photos for whatever I would like... within reason.

Awhile ago, when Julia was 9 months old or something, we had Sears pictures done, and they gave us 10X13 Sepias for cheap or free with package. We bought frames & put them on the wall. So when I saw that I could update the wall photos - at that size for $3.00 a kid - I ordered them from Costco. Now my beautiful 10x13 frames are updated with current photos! I never thought I'd be able to update those because of their size - so that was such a nice surprise!!! I would also not ever thought to actually order a package with reprint/display rights - but i'm thinking that I like them well enough, I could do it again next year!!!

One thing that was memorable about photos this year, was that the photographer took like 10 shots of Julia to get the right one. The last one (above) was best. Her shot was 1162 or something. Then the boys, in succession Jaden, Jedediah and Josiah each took ONE shot to get the above photos - uh, that's uheard of! And what great shots - on the first try! So their shot numbers I think were 1162, 1163, 1164 and 1165 - in order! That made reordering very easy! (Photos: 2008-2009 School Pictures by Lifetouch)