Puerto Rico, 2009

Jose, Joshua and I went to visit Jose's son, Antonio, in Puerto Rico from July 9 - July 13. It was very nice to see him, but a short trip. We had never seen him before, so this was a nice opportunity for us. We also got to see many wonderful places on the island. We stayed on Isla Verde, which is close to Condado Beach. The first day we went to get Antonio's passport and then went to the beach. Joshua had so much fun on the beach it was hard to get him to leave! The next day, Saturday, we went to Antonio's birthday party. The family had reserved the pool at his grandparent's subdivision for the party. It was really nice. Joshua once again had a blast at the pool. He pretty much taught himself how to swim. Joshua and I went to the Walgreen's by our hotel that night to pick up a few things. The next day we went to El Yunque, which is in the Caribbean National Forest. We walked up a trail and saw some of the forest. It took us forever to get home because of traffic, so we went back to the hotel and then out to eat at Chili's. The boys practically fell asleep in their chairs! The next morning Jose took them swimming while I packed our bags. Our flight home was good, no turbulance or anything. It was a short trip and we look forward to go again and spend more time there.

Blogging again

Wow, I have not blogged in a long time. Not since Christmas! I really enjoy reading these after I've written them, it's like a diary for me. I don't even care if no one else ever reads it. I want to keep it for myself. I have so many things I want to write about - my kids, my husband, school, etc. Just life in general. Anyway, I'm going to try to be much better with keeping up with this blog thing. I'm going to try to add a photo today, so we'll see if I can do it correctly. We have decided to get a dog from the humane society. His name is Bo and he is currently in foster care. We are going to get him on Monday, so 4 more days. I just added a photo and I think I did it so that you will be able to see it!!

We are watching my sister's son Brendan right now. He has been here since last Wednesday. He'll be here for about 10 days total. That's why we are waiting to get Bo. We think that it will be easier to introduce Bo to our family once Brendan is back home with his mom and dad. So I'm going to post this and see if it looks right. Wish me luck!

Chrsitmas 2008

Well, my goal of all this blogging stuff was to write at least once a month. The last time I wrote was November 1st, and it is now December 26th, so I guess I'm okay so far!
As you all know, yesterday was Christmas and now that all of us kids live in different places, Christmas isn't exactly the same as it used to be.
David and Jeannie came over to my house Christmas Eve so Jeannie could open her presents. Then on Christmas we Garcia clan opened our own presents, ate a ham/hash brown casserole that we're trying to make a tradition, then hung out and played with our new toys!
Mom and Dad called and said they would be at my house at about 1 p.m. So about 1 they pulled in the driveway and they were unloading presents for a while. After everyone had been in the house for a few minutes, the doorbell rang. I just figured it was Little Josh messing around so I told Sophia to go open the door and it was my brother Josh!! We thought he was in Australia, so that was a big surprise! He had shown up at my parent's house the night before and they didn't know he was back, either. He had planned on staying in Australia until about March, but he wants to start his master's in the fall and you have to interview in person for that, so he decided to come back in time for Christmas.
Aside from seeing my brother, my best present was a portable hard drive from my big brother David. I'm so excited to use it!!

Dia de los Muertos classroom story

We celebrated Dia de los Muertos yesterday at school (I'm a Spanish teacher) and one of the teachers had an alter set up in her room where students could put up pictures of loved one who had passed away, as a way to respect the dead. I don't have my own room, so I couldn't do anything like that. So during my 9th period class, I took my whole class down to the other teacher's room because a couple of my students had prepared letters for their loved ones.

One girl had written a long letter to her "papa", who was her grandfather. She had also brought a photo of him from when he was young and in the Marines. The letter was absolutely beautiful!! The entire class was silent as she read her letter. She started to cry at the end and everyone was just watching her because it was just so emotional and moving. When she finished everyone clapped and she seemed very happy to have honored her grandfather in that way. It was such a lovely thing to see and I think that the class sort of bonded with her on a level that they could not have done had she not read that letter.

I'm not Catholic, but I think that the idea of remembering the dead is great for Dia de los Muertos.

So during 10th hour today, Cathy, one of our secretaries, comes over the intercom and asks me if I have a brown leather bag. I say yes, and she tells me that she thinks she has my bag in the school office! I was very surprised at this because my bag had been in the foreign language office. So after school I go down to the office and sure enough, there is my bag! Someone had stole my bag and rummaged through it and then left it in one of the girl's bathrooms! It was not my purse, just my school bag, so there was no money in it. So that was a relief.
But then after that, I talked to another teacher who had been in the office today as well, and she is missing her wallet! She didn't have a lot of cash in her wallet, but she did have credit and debit cards in there. So I hope this gets resolved quickly . . . we have cameras and I'm going to file a report tomorrow morning!

New Job

So I have not written in a long time, so sorry for starting this blog and then not keeping it up to date! Well, the first nine weeks of school is already over and it is going great. Even though I don't have my own room, it's great. Hopefully I will have my own room next year or the year after, and I don't mind paying my dues.
Joshua had his last soccer game on Saturday. He has 2 goals for the season. I think that's pretty good for his first season! So now, we're going to see about signing Sophia up for gymnastics. I just talked to my preacher's wife tonight about where she takes their daughter, so I think I'm going to go check out their website and call them tomorrow.
The kids and I went to my parent's house yesterday after church and hung out all afternoon. We went to eat at Wheeler's for supper and then I went home. All three kids fell asleep on the way home and stayed asleep for the night!! That was nice! I dusted the mantle and all the photos above the fireplace in the kid's living room, which Jose has been complaining about for a while. I picked up all the toys and stuff downstairs, too, and then still had time to chill out and watch some TV!
This week is the Educator Discount Week at Barnes and Noble, so I went tonight with Joshua to buy a couple books. I saved a lot of money! I'm going to go back when I get paid to buy some more!

Freddie Meowie

So we have a female cat named Freddie Meowie. (Don't ask, Sophia named her.) She was limping around Thursday night and meowing really loudly, so I figured out that something was wrong with her left front leg. I grew up on a farm, so I didn't really think a whole lot of it, I just decided to wait until the morning. Well, she spent all of Friday under the couch in the kid's living room. So I took her to the vet this morning to see if they could make a diagnosis. She broke her leg in 2 places!! Now I think that Joshua had something to do with her injury, but I'm not totally sure. The surgery to fix her leg was going to be around $800 so we decided to take her home and just let it heal crooked. I know it sounds mean, but we got her some apin medicine so she won't be in pain the whole time. She actually seems a lot better today. I am going to talk to some people at church tomorrow and see if any of them know a country vet that can maybe just put her under anastethia and then splint her leg or something. I'm sure that would be cheaper than a surgery with pins and plates and wires.