Catching Up

Well, you may have noticed the lack of posts lately. July was crazy busy for me as I decided to take on a little project of leading around 30 French Students for three weeks. It was fun, but exhausting. Hope was such a trooper and came along with me everywhere from Mission San Jose to the Golden Gate Bridge to a Giants game to LA. It was fun to get to know the students and teach them things about America and California. Here's a shot of Hope at Treasure Island...one of many stops we made with the students.What else has been going on...I started a toddler music group at church - Music Makers and we get together every week to do finger plays, sing songs, march around and have fun. It does take a bit of planning, but Hope and the other kids seem to enjoy themselves.

Hope had fun at the park during the ward 4th of July breakfast. She ended up chasing two boys around...perhaps it was because they had a ball...but we can still say she started her boy chasing early. As usual...we've been playing online - here's a couple pix of Hope trying out my headset.This was a fun summer activity - trying on Grandma's necklaces - all of them at once. Hope was so happy with herself.

Cousin Victor

We stopped by Dean's house after church yesterday and Hope and Victor played for a short bit. They're starting to interact a little more together...although during church it was really more of a Hope showing Victor her cheerios and not letting him have any.

Here they are watching the dog, Chancho, in the yard.

Victor's amused

And here's Chanco - Hope has really been enjoying seeing dogs and animals recently. The other day she would hardly focus on her lunch because some people nearby had a couple of dogs.

Just a silly face

Sweet Victor, muy guapo

Hanging with Gil

We stopped by and visited our friends, Becky and Gil, and enjoyed some time hanging out in their yard. Hope loved going up and down the stairs, walking in the grass, playing on the rocking chair - all the typical things a toddler loves. It was such a pleasant afternoon, Gil showed us his new Bose remote speaker for the yard, which Hope also enjoyed playing with. I enjoyed listening to the music of "Joseph's Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" while Becky quietly hummed along, and Gil whistled along as he was buzzing along in the yard - sounds simple but it evoked such a quiet, positive feeling for me. My mom, too, likes to hum along as she goes about her business - I enjoy that too.Here's Hope running around in their yard.Gil even showed her the hose as entertainment...it lasted a few minutes.

Happy Retirement, Dori

A little over a week ago, Dori's co-workers threw her a wonderful Retirement Party (Thanks, Kristi and Linda and Snow School Staff). Andrew's mom, Dori, is retiring from teaching this year after more than twenty-five years. She's practically a local celebrity in our small town of Newark - we can hardly go anywhere without running into a former student, parent, or district personnel. Fortunately, she's not saying good-bye cold turkey and will still be doing a little bit of part-time teaching for Snow School. In Dori's honor, people made a donation for her favorite charity - she raised $824 for the Snow School Library - what a great charity! A couple of staffers put together an amazing slideshow of pictures and comments from current students, former students, and fellow teachers. Maybe 10% of the students' comments included Mrs. Ringlein's stern view of breaking pencils...from the mouths of kids:
"Tells us not to break pencils" -Taylor
"Doesn't let us throw pencils around" -Janisa
"We can't break pencils because they cost a lot of money" -Yvette
"Mrs. Ringlein doesn't let us break pencils" -Lesly
"Broken/short pencils we can trade in for a sharp one" -Nolan
"She keeps us safe from doing bad things like breaking scissors." -Christina

Had to throw in one about broken scissors instead of pencils...but I think we've got a new title for her, The Pencil Nazi. Andrew promptly came home and scattered a couple of broken pencils around.

Does this mean we can expect more cookies?The newlyweds, Adam and Maria - looking great, you wouldn't hardly know she was 21 weeks along!

Here's our little group - this day was at the end of a heat wave week...I think Hope looks a little ragged - but we still love her!

Redneck Car

So, a while ago I pulled a little too close to the stub distributor in a parking garage, and left my mirror hanging sadly. Andrew was all stoked to help repair it and come to the manly rescue, until he assessed what he'd need. I bought said supplies, and Andrew's steam disappeared. (I'm sure if everything was on hand at the time, I'd have a fixed mirror). I drove with a dangling mirror for several months until the wind seemed particularly strong one day and the mirror dangled in newer ways. I had driven to my brother's house and asked for a quick-fix from him. Dean and my brother-in-law Jim assessed the situation and produced the man's solution to everything - duct tape. So...Andrew now believes that it's fixed, and I haven't been able to get him to truly fix the situation. I'm not sure which was worse, the dangling mirror or the duct-taped mirror.

Fun in the Park

For Mother's Day my family celebrated with a BBQ in the park. Good family + good food = good fun.

Hope had fun running over to daddy while he was sitting under a tree. I'm not sure who had more fun with Victor's little car, Hope or Aunt Renee.Julia had fun playing on the playground with Hope.
(By the way - I'm amazed with what they're doing with playgrounds these days - this was the first park I've seen that had recycled tire bits on the playground instead of sand or tan bark)

How to get ink out...

Hope, like most kids, likes to draw. Hope, like most toddlers, doesn't always render precise control over drawing instruments. As such...when I did not take the ballpoint pen out of her hand promptly, it ended up on her darling dress, the first time she wore it. Thank goodness for the internet - the solution I found that I hadn't heard before was nail polish remover. The instructions that I followed were:

1. sponge the stain with water to first remove as much ink as possible
2. allow spot to dry
3. apply nail polish remover (it suggested to back side of stain, but as the dress was lined I couldn't do that)
4. blot dry (it said to use a clean terry cloth washcloth - I just used a paper towel)
5. apply laundry pretreatment

BEFORE
I circled the ink in red, the pen she used was actually black, and I took this picture after step one - sponging the stain with water, so it's a little faded from the initial stain.
AFTER

Okay, so there are wrinkles - but no evidence of the ink. Success!

Note: As I'm writing this Hope is eating cherries in a white shirt...okay, so I'm not the smartest mom (live and learn, right)...and I'm thinking I'll be looking up a new stain soon.