School Choices...

When we lived in AZ, we had our children in a charter school. At the time, we felt that the charter school was going to offer a better education than the public school in our area (based on a not so stellar year in kindergarten with a first year teacher).

Now, I am not so pro-charter school that I'd never consider a public school. And I know that there are plenty of great teacher's in the public school system who are fantastic -- but based on that one experience -- we made the switch. It turned out to be a great experience for all of my kids - they were challenged, they liked school -- and they were happy.

We moved to Utah three years ago--on the day before school started. Unfortunately, we quickly found out how lousy our public school was when my 5th grader brought home her first spelling list. It looked exactly like my kindergartner's spelling list from the year before. I felt like the entire year was a waste for both my 1st graders and my 5th grader. It was beyond ridiculous.

I helped out in the classrooms weekly and quickly came to the realization - that at this particular school they taught to the lowest denominator. They didn't even try the middle of the road approach. And for my kids who were used to being challenged - it was disappointing.

Needless to say, I started looking hard for an alternative to public schools. By January, I had found 3 charter schools that I was interested in (one being a brand new one) - and immediately put our name on the waiting lists (which were large to say the least).

In the spring, the new school informed me that my children had made it in (they had 1600 students apply for a 600 student school) - we felt lucky. By August, we discovered one drawback to the new charter school. It wasn't finished on time - and it was going to be delayed till September 25th. Talk about one long summer!

At the end of August, we got a phone call and found out our kids had been accepted into another charter school in the area. Six families in my neighborhood have children that attend there and I knew it was a good one. I was in such a quandry. I actually had preferred this school in the first place - since it was established and the programs seemed to really work there. But, as I weighed my pros and cons I decided the only drawback to switching was that the school was only a K-8 -- and the one we were waiting for to be built was supposed to be K-9. That became my deciding factor. It was really important to me that my kids didn't have to switch over to the Jr. high for their 9th grade year.

We ended up having a good experience at the new charter. The kids enjoyed school and seemed to be challenged on a daily basis. We were happy with our decision. Then in January, the school announced they would not be having a 9th grade anymore. There were many excuses as to why this would be impossible - but I have to admit I was a little bugged at the false advertising.

Since my oldest daughter was going to be entering the 7th grade - we had a decision to make. Did we leave her at the charter school and have her switch to jr high for her 9th grade year? Or did we throw her to the wolves of jr high for 7th, 8th and 9th grade? Well, we decided to keep her at the charter - hoping another solution would crop up before she actually reached the 9th grade.

Last week, a solution did crop up. One of my friends whose kids go to the charter we had decided against last year - told me that they were building a jr high and there would be a 9th grade starting next year! I didn't think they'd have any openings. But I called the school anyway. They did have an opening for my 7th grader (not my younger two though). We applied and she's in.

So our problem for 9th grade seems to be solved. The irony in all of this is if we had based our decision on the school and its programs rather than the fact that they had no 9th grade - my kids would already be there and not having to switch to yet another school. Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda, I guess.

Until We Meet AGAIN...

Lately, I have been bombarded by so many meetings that I'm starting to get a little overwhelmed by it. I've decided meetings are overrated. Actually - I shouldn't say overrated - because I would guess that most people rate meetings pretty low on their list of fun things to do. But seriously, why do we think we need to meet for every little thing?

I know the nature of the church is to meet and plan with a purpose. But - sometimes all of this meeting and planning gets a little ridiculous. Take this past week for example - I had my RS presidency meeting Tuesday morning - it went a couple of hours. Tuesday night I had a meeting with the Bishopric, EQP, HP, and RSP about home teaching and visiting teaching. (It was 1 hour and 45 minutes of home teaching and 15 visiting teaching - a waste of time for the RS to be sure). Wednesday night I had a 2 hour enrichment meeting (although that one was my doing - we need to get our crafties planned and quick!) And starting next week I have to start attending monthly missionary meetings to represent the RS. All of these meetings - and I'm not even the president (she has to add a weekly Sunday morning meeting onto all of it). Give me strength!

I understand that meetings are a necessary evil. I've been in presidencies where we didn't meet enough - and the organization suffered for it. But, I do think whoever is calling for the meeting needs to invite only those who are absolutely needed -- and then keep it short and to the point (this coming from a girl who loves to chat-- heehee). This makes sense to me. Why have a whole presidency attend a meeting - when you can have one represent all.

This is probably naughty - but I truly believe if more people conducted their meetings through email - we'd be a lot better off. I do this with enrichment and RS a lot. Maybe I'm being totally impersonal about it - but email is a great way to keep tabs on everyone - get feedback from your committee - and make assignments - without having to call or meet.

So what's the answer to the whole meeting problem? I bet we could figure out the solution if someone would just call for a meeting.

An Overdue Issue...

My daughter is on a swim team which I pay a monthly fee for. We joined in the spring and immediately I realized the payment was going to be an issue for me - not because I can't afford it - but because they won't do an automatic withdrawal out of my bank account. How annoying is that? I have to go in each month and pay - and before you ask - yes, I even requested prepayment of a few months at a time - they said no.

So why is this such an problem for me? I must confess I have overdue issues. What can I say, I am a forgetful - sometimes irresponsible girl - in a lot of aspects of my life. I have had some late fees at the library that were real doozy's. To make myself feel better, I decided to tell myself that my overdue fines are just an annual membership fee I have to pay. You would think with all the "overdue" issues I have - that I would avoid libraries, dvd rentals and the like. But I don't. I guess I always have this lingering goal in the back of my head that I will return things on time.

Now with swim team, I did try to make a valiant effort to pay on time. For the most part I've been only a week late (which is good for me). Then summer arrived. In mid-June they switched to an outdoor pool for part of June, July and August. It's actually closer to my house - so I was initially happy with the new venue.

Then I tried to pay for swim team. It was the middle of July which meant I was already two weeks late with payment (my goal of not being overdue with things kind of took a back seat when I decided to invite Noah's Ark to float in my basement). Anyway, I went to the indoor pool to pay - and the girl told me I had to pay the outdoor pool. I was a little frustrated - and of course I forgot about it -- and a week went by.

Then, I went to the outdoor pool to pay and the girl told me I had to pay at the indoor pool (I made her call to verify- and yes indeed I was to pay at the indoor pool). Are you kidding me? Did they not realized how challenged I was with paying on time in the first place.

Two weeks passed - and again I tried to pay the indoor pool. Once again, the indoor pool told me I had to pay at the outdoor pool. Does the word sabotage mean anything to you? I imagined them secretly laughing at the crazy lady who keeps driving 15 miles between pools trying to pay for her daughter's imaginary swim team.

Finally, yesterday--on August 20th, now over a month and a half overdue with my payment - I went to the outdoor pool to pay. I had outlined my plan of attack. Plan A: Refuse to leave until they accepted my money. Plan B: Threaten to drink all the diet coke at their concession stand (which is secretly a goal of mine anyway). Plan C: Quit the stinkin' swim team that was too good for my money.

Fortunately, I didn't have to resort to any of that. The girl happily accepted my Visa. Although she did feel it necessary to point out - that "Hmmm, you are overdue a month and a half on your payments." It was smile or scream. I chose to smile - it was long overdue.

For Your Eyes Only

I go running (almost) every morning with a girl in my neighborhood. This morning, her husband (our Elder's Quorum Pres) came with us. He's a pretty hilarious guy - the J. Golden Kimball of our ward. He is coaching his son's "Ute" little league football team this year - so at the end of our run he suggested we run the "Indian drill" that he makes his 12 year old boys do (I kept calling it the Indian fire drill - we are so not politically correct).

In the Indian drill, you jog in a line and the person in the back sprints to the front and on and on and on (I'm not sure what this has to do with Indians - and I'm sure it has a more PC technical name then the one we were using - but it did make me laugh).

We ran this for about 2 blocks. I have to imagine we were quite the sight. Picture it: the Indian fire drill, being ran on a busy street with a chubby blond girl (me), chubby blond guy, and a skinny (compared to the chubbies) girl. When we were finished - I told them if we ever do that again - it needs to be on a dark, dead end street with no traffic - this was definitely a for your eyes only moment.

13th Year Update...

August Eleventh and all is well. Only 20 more luck-filled days and this year's curse - will be broken. Wishful thinking? Wish not. Want not.

The Thirteenth Year...

This is my 13th year of marriage and I have confession to make -- I am a little superstitious. Not the whole - avoid black cats and walking under ladders things - although I must admit I. do. not. like. cats. period. And I can't think of a time where I've actually walked under a ladder - so maybe I'm a little more superstitious than I thought. But, truthfully, I really am only superstitious about a few things - May 17, a purple flowered shirt, - and my 13th year of marriage.

As our 13th anniversary in March approached - I joked with my husband - that if we could survive this 13th year of marriage we could make it through eternity just fine. Two days later, we were doing a service project and cleaning our church. Aussie (8), got his finger slammed in a big heavy wood door and had to be taken to the emergency room - where we spent 6 hours. He had a broken finger and had to have his nail removed so they could do stitches. Very painful. Very ugly. Very 13th year.

One week later, DH was backing out of the garage and knocked his passenger side mirror off (luckily the glass didn't break - or this one year of bad luck could've added on another 7). I took one look at the mirror he held in his hand and said, "13th year". (He does not agree nor support my superstition - as a matter of fact he thinks you should never blame stupidity on luck - I say look at all my supporting evidence and then decide).

The month of April Aussie had a rash for the entire month - he missed tons of school. I thought it was 5th's disease - but the pediatrician didn't think so. So he was treated with steroids, antibiotics and expensive prescription allergy medicine = nothing got rid of it. After 3 weeks of numerous trips to the pediatrician and pharmacy (and lots of co-pays), I finally took Aussie to the dermatologist. He took one look at the rash and said - that's 5th disease - not contagious at this stage, not treatable - and he can go to school just fine. I thought two things - #1 webmd.com is a heckuva lot cheaper than copays and needless prescriptions and #2 "13th year."

In May, I was asked to help out with a craft night for my church. I was in charge of cutting out 2x4 blocks which could say either Family or Summer. I had to cut and sand 120 blocks. On block #119 my power sander slipped a gear and broke (yes-I had to hand sand that last blasted block). It's not a super-expensive machine - but it's not one that I will replace unless I start crafting on a more regular basis. I'm hoping it can be fixed - but you know all I keep thinking is "13th year."

In June, it really started to get kind of spooky. Of course, if you've read my blog you have heard about "Flood 2007". Naturally, on the night of the flood, only one thought came to my mind and that was "The 13th year". (which by the way - renovation flood update - all we have left to fix the flood is to get the carpets cleaned - we are hoping this happens soon - but the jokers have yet to call us - and we've been awaiting their call for 1 1/2 weeks - just chalk it up to the 13th year).

Fast forward to Thursday, July 26. We had enrichment night that evening, and it was a backyard event at our Bishop's home. That morning, at 9 am we met at the church to load up tables and chairs and haul them to the Bishop's backyard. On my way home from setting up, I drove past the church and tried to accelerate past 30 mph. The van revved like I was in neutral. I drove up another street to see if it was a fluke. Nope - still revved. I had to stop at a stop sign - and when I pushed on the gas to go - you guessed it - it revved again. I had to turn my van off and back on again to get it to click in gear. Automatically "13th year" popped into my head and I assumed the worst - the transmission was going out.

I talked to my bro-in-law, husband and dad - who all agreed it sounded like the transmission was going bad. Guess who else agreed? The Aamco mechanic - to the tune of $2,400. Gulp. Since my van is 9 years old - it was truly bound to happen. But couldn't it have waited until my 14th year or 15th year of marriage. All I can say, is this 13th year is getting might expensive - and we still have 8 months left! (Ironically, guess who is hopping on the 13th year bandwagon - none other than my DH. When I told him of the problems with the van - he said - "Nic you may be right about this 13th year).

Just call me Tevye

So I've blogged about my less than stellar book group. (We are in our 3rd month now - and are reading an LDS book - so at least I'll feel like I'm enriching my life - it's called Peacegiver by the way.) Needless to say, my love for the book group has not been great. But, somehow my oldest daughter, Jay decided she wanted to start one up anyway. Her exact words were - "Mom - I want to start up a book group like yours - only we won't read boring books." Truer words have never been spoken.

Last night was Jay's first book group. She decided on "The Secret Language of Girls". She also planned on having rocky road ice cream as dessert - because the main character in the book loves that kind of ice cream. Since she had never been to a book group she decided she'd better prepare a list of 15 questions to ask (I helped her narrow it down to 10).

At last it was time for Jay's Book Chat. 4 of the 8 girls showed (I guess we should've done reminder calls - but still with Jay that made 5 and it was okay. It was so cute - she started the discussion and asked each of the girls her questions - like "what was your favorite part", "which character do you think you are most like", "if you could rewrite the ending what would you say". She conducted that meeting like she had been doing it all her life. I was amazed at how much older than 12 she seemed. Don't get me wrong - she usually acts her age - but for some reason last night she just seemed old to me.

So, as I listened to my 12 year old act like a 16 year old - I started feel a little Fiddler on the Roofish - I thought "Is this the little girl I carried? Is this the little boy at play. I don't remember getting older - when did they." I was feeling the whole "Sunrise, Sunset" thing all over the place.

I continued to watch her interact with the girls the entire night - and I felt like somehow I had blinked - and she had grown up. I was impressed at how mature she was and that she could handle herself with her friends. I was pleased how she made sure everyone felt included. I was happy that her friends seemed to get such a kick at how wacky and silly she is (because believe me - she is completely uninhibited). But there was still this sense of sadness in me that I couldn't figure out. I guess sadness that we can never go back to her childhood days mixed with a little bit of regret that maybe I wasn't a fun enough/good enough mom.

All in all it seemed like a good time was had by all (even the mom having a pity party inside her head had fun). Jay had a blast, the girls were happy and excited for their next meeting/book (which by the way is "The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle"). And I guess I realized that even though my little girl is growing up and maturing - (and this is about to go from a little cheesy to extra cheese please) - she will always be my daughter no matter her age.