Separate Ways

For the past three weeks I've been the one taking off and leaving Tara alone with the kids. This time, it's her turn. Tara headed off to San Diego this week for some fun in the sun with her sisters and mom. They've been planning the trip for months and I'm glad they're taking advantage of a girls week out.

This means I've got the kids for the week. I'd love to say that I took the week off and planned tons of meaningful activities to bond with Dede and Alex. Unfortunately, I've still got to work so I had to enlist some help. Rather than force my parents to come up from New Harmony, I've gone South. This week I'm presenting at the Rural Schools Conference in Cedar City, so the kids get to spend some good Nana and Papa time each day while I teach, but each night we've had some fun together.

Yesterday my mom and I took Kennedy to the movies. She's been talking about WALL E for the past few months, so I couldn't wait to take her. Now, I've had some bad experiences with Dede at the movies. For some reason she can't stay focused while we're at the theater. Popcorn, potty, sleep, and talking all seem to draw her away from the screen. Still, I was willing to give her another chance. She did pretty well. The movie was about 2 hours long and she lasted for 3/4 of the film before going into boredom mode. We got her through the film and I'm glad - I really wanted to see the end. I thought it was great!


Well, we're two days down and two more to go. So far, we've had zero injuries, zero accidents, one lost blankie, and only twenty requests for mom. Do you think we'll make it to the end of the week?

At Home

I don't really have much to say, but I wanted to post a few of my favorite pictures of my favorite people. After being gone so much over the past couple of weeks, it's nice just to spend time with Kennedy, Alex, and Tara.

Kennedy and the cupcake

Alex enjoying the shade

Tara

Happy 4th of July

The 4th of July is a great time to spend the day together as a family. BBQ's, games, and fireworks - of course - seem to dot the calendar. For us things are no different. Our holiday officially kicked off on the 3rd. Our neighborhood is developing some nice traditions, two of which are the Ball BBQ and the Cul de Sac of Fire. Since I had just flown back into town I was tired, but excited at the chance to see Tara and the kids. It was great to relax with friends and family and enjoy some of the fireworks fun.

For the past couple of years our fireworks watching experience has been fairly brief. Kennedy has burst into tears with the first screamer and so we've retreated back to the house without even smelling the burnt powder. Surprisingly, she actually seemed to enjoy herself this year. I think it had more to do with the multitude of friends watching the show with her and less to do with conquering any fireworks phobias. Alex got kind of nervous as the show kicked into high gear. He quickly calmed down was his "mimi" (binky) was in place and order was restored.

Today was actually a quiet day around our house. We worked on a few small projects in the morning and in the afternoon our paths split. Tara took the kids to the pool and I went and jack hammered concrete with Evan. I think I got the better end of the deal. Trust me, I would rather bust concrete than deal with the crowds at Murray Pool on the 4th of July.

After everyone freshened up the family came over to our house for a special 4th of July dinner - pizza and fruit. We played some games and waited for the country club fireworks to begin. Coleton fired off a few of his leftovers from last year as the opening act and then the real show began. It's nice when you can sit out on your front lawn and enjoy the show.

NECC Wrap Up

So, the conference officially ended today. This was the fourth time I've been to NECC and I keep wishing that I'll present at the conference one day. I went to several session on softwares or hardwares that I teach to see if I can learn anything new. While you pick up a trick here or there, most of what I've seen over the past few days is exactly what we're already teaching in Utah (although we're not too into Second Life). I guess that makes me feel good about what we're doing at UEN, but a bit sad that we can't move beyond what we've been doing for the past couple of years.

Still, there were a couple of high points today. I went to a session on geoRSS, which is a developing hybrid of technologies. Using GPS to mark a location for an object, mixed with creating an RSS feed to make those locations and objects subscribable. That's pretty cool. Think of what you can do with your FlickR photos and a Google map.

The other high point was the presentation I went to on cell phones. Besides recording your blog with your cell phone (Jott), another cool website was www.polleverywhere.com where you can create a live poll that updates with every vote. That would be awesome for a teacher looking to find some quick answers. Here's a look at some other websites I linked to throughout the conference.

I'm a Tourist

Today was my favorite day in San Antonio to date. The weather was actually bearable as a storm passed through and cooled the area down to a mild 92° - can you believe it? Since I could go outside, it was time to see some of the sites around town. I guess the place to start has to be the Alamo, right?

It was pretty cool to see where the Americans and Mexicans fought 140 years ago. I knew the same names as most of you: Crockett, Bowie, etc., but most of the history of the place was beyond me. We took a ten minute tour of the building and then it was time to take some pictures...

For the past two days I've been trying to convince Ross and Rob to avoid the national chain restaurants and try some of the local flair. So we went on an adventure, started by riding on the local trolleys, and ended at Mi Tierra - a local mexican restaurant (found courtesy of FoodNetwork.com). It was great! I tried a stuffed pepper with an enchilada, too much food - but a lot of fun.

We rode back into town and went back into tourist mode, ok so it was tourist mode with a geocaching twist. While we were searching for caches, we came across the Tower of the Americas - a giant Space Needle looking building from the 68' World's Fair. This thing was 750 feet tall and had an incredible glass elevator and observation deck. My favorite part of the tower was the wind. It was blowing like crazy and really cooled me down.


Day 3 down and now the conference is winding up quickly, tomorrow's the last full day and then I'll be heading home. I don't really like being a tourist, but I'm glad we saw the sites today - good stuff.....

Check out the ride on the Tower of the Americas