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"The Face"

As many of you know I am hopelessly in LOVE with my nephew Dawson. A couple weeks ago I was with him and he had a new trick. You say "show me the face Dawsie" and this is what you get...







































































SO CUTE!! I can't get enough of it. Whenever there is a camera around Dawson is smiling for it. I think he learned that from his sisters.

Before and After

Can we say 40 pounds lighter? Good job Dan! I am so so proud of him. He has worked hard and been very disciplined as I continue to eat cookies, ice cream and all sorts of naughty foods.

The Crisp Is In the Air

I love fall when you first start to feel the crispness in the air. Since we moved to Oregon we have made it a tradition to go to Sauvie Island each fall. It is a beautiful island that is surrounded by the Multnomah channel of the Willamette River and the Columbia River is on the other side. When you are on Sauvie Island you would never believe that downtown Portland is only 20 minutes away. We go to a farm that has a farm fresh produce market, barn with animals, corn maize, hay tower and free hayrides to their pumpkin patch. I love riding out to the pumpkin patch and being able to choose my own pumpkin right from the vine. I bought some acorn squash, butternut squash, delicata squash, fresh apples from Hood River, fresh apple cider and raspberry syrup. YUM-O!! Being able to get farm fresh produce is truly one of the greatest things about living in Portland, Oregon. On my way home from work I can easily drive past 2 farm stands. I LOVE it!

































Happy Fall!!

Trabajar

Work, work, work! I have been back to work for a little over two weeks and life is now crazy again. My kids come back to school TOMORROW!! AHH! I guess that I am ready. Each year it gets easier. I feel more prepared this year than I ever have before. Here are a couple of things that have happened during the past 2 weeks and 2 days:

1. I have worked at least 102 hours (plus 10.5 hours today!)


2. Scheduled 20 home visits.


3. Completed 11 home visits.


4. Attended 12 different trainings.


5. Lots of fun lunches with the ladies!


6. Two 10.5 hour days doing Orientations (why did I wear heels on those days?)


7. Planned my curriculum for the first 2 weeks of school


8. I act as the resident "computer" woman. (I work with many "mature" ladies who aren't very technologically inclined. Thus, I have to do a lot of computer stuff. Luckily, I don't mind staying late at work because Dan has been studying for finals.)


9. Many trips to Dollar Tree.

And last but not least......

10. I learned that I will be moving to a new site on December 1st! :( This is very very sad. We are opening a new site in January so me and another teacher will be going to this new site in December to get the classroom ready, do enrollments, orientations, etc. It is kind of exciting to be going to a new site and I LOVE the teacher that I am going with, but it is very frightening because I don't know what the classroom is going to be like, I have to leave my class after 2 months, and I get a new boss and lots of other new people to work with. I have had many different emotions on this subject. I have been excited, sad, angry, scared, happy and worried. Lately, I have been too busy with preparing for the kids to come back to really think about it. It is going to be so hard to leave the kids and families after two months. I have already visited lots of my families and most of them are so wonderful. I am so grateful for my job. I love it so much . I learn so much from these families and the children. I see lots of different types of families. Since I am mainly working with families living in poverty I see many families who have a lot of problems/issues/etc. I also see a lot of hard working, persevering and resilient families. I work with many Hispanic/Latino families. They have come here to give their children a better life and they work so hard and so much and they truly amaze me. I am so grateful that I get to work with them.

One last funny thing before I go. I have been using this program called Boardmaker. I make visual schedules, rules, etc. and it is a great tool for working with ESL kiddos and kids with special needs. It has over 4,000 pictures ranging from sit down, brush teeth, food items, toys, health related items and social things like sharing and not biting. I was looking for a particular picture one day and I couldn't find it. I started looking through all 4,000 pictures when I came across this:

I laughed so hard when I saw this! Why would anyone ever need this? I don't know, but it made me laugh and I hope it makes you laugh to! Happy Monday!

And in the end...

Things are coming to an end for me. It is the end of summer, the end of my fabulous life of leisure, the end of sleeping in and the end of lovely laziness. I also finished The Work and the Glory series yesterday, after starting it almost 4 years ago, and it was a great way to end my summer and a great book series.

We went to Hood River yesterday and it was gorgeous. The farther up the gorge we went the warmer and sunnier it got. (It is usually the opposite!) For those of you who aren't familiar with Oregon, Hood River is this beautiful little town in the Columbia River Gorge. It is always windy there, but it is beautiful. There are tons of fruit stands and farms in Hood River and last year I found this great little store that does a BBQ over Labor Day weekend. They have pulled pork, BBQ chicken, maple baked beans and peach coleslaw. Now, I am not a coleslaw or baked bean person, but they are absolutely fantastic. Inside the store they have a million different jams you can sample and they sell fresh fruit, pies, ice cream and gourmet mustards. I got a slice of pie, some peaches and a Walla Walla Mustard. I have been looking for white peaches everywhere so I was very excited to see them in Hood River. We ate our lunch and looked in the shop and then we took some pictures down by the actual Hood River.




























Then we drove back toward town and stopped at a fruit stand to buy some fresh apples, pears and more peaches!! We stopped by the Columbia for a bit and watched all the people windsurfing. It is crazy cool and looks so hard. I have no desire at ALL to every try it. I think I like sitting on the grass in the sun!

When I was a kid my Dad used to cut up peaches, put a little bit of sugar on them and then we would put cream and milk (or vanilla ice cream)in the bowl and it was SO SO delicious. So, last night I cut up my delicious white peaches and had them with vanilla ice cream. Oh my goodness it was so freakin good! I felt like a little girl!

So, we had a great day and I am sad to see summer end. Dan reminded me that we will only have on more Labor Day in Hood River before we move and that made me so so sad. I LOVE Oregon and I wish I could stay here forever and ever. We have officially lived here for a little over 2 years now and I just think it is a wonderful place. We still have about 19 months left in Oregon, but I don't really want to think about leaving. It makes me sad.

Thanks...

Thanks for the food ideas everyone. I am excited to try some new recipes and I think I have a pretty good list of meals for when I go back to work. If you still have any good easy dinner ideas let me know. I always love new recipes. My friend Erin, and her sisters, have an amazing blog called The Sister's Cafe. They are on my list so check it out if you want some fabulous recipes!