Kuel

Have you seen this word yet? It's apparently the cool(spelled the right way) thing among the 'tweens'. Today was the last day of school, the kids brought home little yearbooks and Katia's teacher made laminated scrapbooks for the kids! I was very impressed. Her teacher was really good, always going the extra mile. At thanksgiving, the kids all dressed up in parts, some indians, some pilagrams(that's how Katia pronounced it:-) and some turkeys, her teacher prepared a dinner for the entire class and the parents that was served after the play!

Tyler struggled a bit this semester, just since around April. He went from straight A's to mostly B's and one C. It's hard to not make a big deal about it when it's so odd for him, but his teacher had told us at his last conference to not be surprised as it was going to get harder and that she suspected Tyler, being the perfectionist that he is, would take that very hard. And he did. He seemed pretty depressed last night about it.

Katia did well, she doesn't get grades yet, just S's and that's all she got. She's reading at a 2nd grade fifth month level which is about 80 percent above other kids her age according to this star test she took. She goes to second grade next year, so she has really taken off with reading. Tyler is reading at a 7th grade level which has always been a strong area for him, thankfully.

It was a cloudy day here today after thunderstorms last night. I think our VCR/DVD player got hit as it won't work today at all. The state is blacktopping our highway to our house- M-35. It will be changed into a scenic lake route and is supposed to encourage more tourism. It's a pretty drive anyway, but from here to Gladstone, they are making all kinds of little asthetic improvements. It will be nice when it's all completed. I will appreciate the new road with my old Cutlass. I have biased ply tires that tend to get trapped in the grooves of old roads and make it hard to steer. Anyway, we now have long waits to get to town and home again as the highway is down to one lane. I think it will be done relatively quickly though. The kids are enjoying the semis honking and Tayton is amazed at their size and sounds. I can't imagine the noise without our woods to buffer it, so thankful for those trees.

Well, we all get to hopefully sleep in tomorrow- yahoo! Poor Katia had three woodticks tonight. It's been so mild that they are just thriving. I will be glad to get a few 90 degree days so they will be dead. I can't stand those things. Paul's dad just got his second run of blood poisoning/lyme's disease from them. It seems to get him fast. I will be keeping a close eye on Katia tomorrow. The news said that the risk of lyme's disease from ticks is super high since our winters have not been cold enough in recent years. Kind of weird theory. At least we don't have those nasty ear-wigs that we had downstate! Those things are so ugly with pinchers. And we don't have cochroaches either, thank goodness! But do you all remember June bugs, yup we have them now too. Or as my family likes to remind me of a time of fear as I had one on the back of my neck under my hair and shreiked, "Ah! A bug with big feet!" At least they are harmless, just yucky. And then being out of town, we get the wonderful shows from the lightening bugs. Those are kuel!