Learning

We're all good. We're all busy. We're learning so much this summer. And we're keeping busy.

Kate has started school. She's in the first grade at our local grade school. She rides the bus. She was taking Spanish. We felt it better that she wait on that one. She's been to two of her classmates' birthday parties. She loves her teacher. And she doesnt' like it when there is a substitute.

She's rapidly learning English. She can say Gabriella and Sharpay (I'm sure I just misspelled her name) and Troy and Chad, and she runs around outside with the basketball yelling "get your head in the game".

I'm learning not to let her temper flare-ups stress me out. Fortunately we're seeing fewer tantrums. There's a power plant we would drive past every so often near Blacksburg that had a huge banner proclaiming how many days they'd been accident-free. As the days accumulate that we've been tantrum-free, I think that maybe we should post it out there for all to see. Then on those days at the bus stop when I'm looking a little worse for wear, the big zero will provide fair warning to any and all. And what a fabulous head's up for Phil. No more shocking awful when he walks in the door. To be fair, they really are very infrequent and the duration with which she puts the house on lockdown has decreased substantially.

I've been working overtime trying to get caught up on our scrapbooks. I'm currently in France and the year is 2002. Although that isn't really how far behind I am. I typically will go from the most recent and work my way back. I'm also trying to figure out digital scraping and using Photoshop. Thank heavens for all those digital scrappers that have paved the way.