Life in the Ghetto

I taught for many years in schools in "that part" of town; you know, the bad part. Never heard of Pittsburg, California, there could be a reason. We had many a lockdown, many teacher "all calls" (meaning rumor had it something was going to go down after school and all the teachers had to report to their morning/afternoon "duty" to prevent incidence (never quite got why all the teachers had to stand outside when they thought there was going to be a shooting, or knife incident). Even in Idaho, we had a lockdown at the elementary school when a guy across the street had a gun in a "hostage like situation", and there was a gang related shooting so the high school that I taught at was always locked. Wow - what's with these schools I've taught in?
So today, I'm pulling up to school to pick up Thornley and the road is blocked with cop cars. I'm thinking, was there an accident, what is going on? And I'm getting a bit nervous. A woman pulls up next to me and says their are in a lockdown and they are going to bus our kids to another school to be picked up. I called the school office and they said to just wait, they thought it would clear up soon, the police just had to do a little sweep threw the wooded area behind the school.
According to one of the ladies in the office, the community college had an emergency test today and it was so loud that all the schools in the area heard, "Get into the buildings and lock the doors", so they did. Then I guess one of the 5th graders, who had been out at recess, said they thought they saw someone with a gun in the woods. Police came to check it out, and deemed it clear, so while Cori, Mason, Jack and I are sitting in the parking lot we see a line of cops with big ole guns doing a perimeter sweep thru the playground. Haven't seen that much action since the SWAT team came to the neighbors house.
I thought Thornley would be FREAKED out, but he came running out of class telling me that they'd been in a lockdown, but it was boring because they had to lay on the ground with the lights turned off and no one could talk.
I'm glad the school took all precautions, and of course it's always better when there is a supposed gun on the OUTSIDE of the building as opposed to the inside (another plus for the "pod"-ness of the school).
Guess I should end my post and look into some homeschool curriculum!

And the Winner is...

Not Thornley, but the winner of this heat was in the "unlimited" category which means they are no longer in Cub Scouts, but wanted to build and race a car, so TECHNICALLY he won - a hard concept to explain to a 6 year old. His car did awesome (thanks Jim & Chris); he came in 2nd in his den, which has 12 boys, so that's pretty good, and he finished 13th overall out of 42 cars. For the boy who wasn't too into the whole Pinewood Derby thing, I now think he has the bug and is talking about what he wants his car to look like next year!

Meghan Anderson and her terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

Today was just one of those days. What I would like to be doing is tucking in my 4 year old and sitting on the couch watching mindless TV, while my husband takes the 6 year old to Cub Scouts. But alas, it is Pinewood Derby night and Thornley REALLY wants me to see his car race and Jack REALLY wants to see Thornley's car race.
It is the end of a long week. I'm having parent conferences this week, which just seems odd to me that in preschool you have conferences, but we do, so I am. My class has been talking about weather this week; snow in particular, so today we were making this really cute Snowman, Snowman book; very similar to Brown Bear, Brown Bear, and a good review of shapes and colors. This morning I printed out all the pages of the book and when I got to work used the stencils to copy the shapes so they would be perfect. But, oops! Put them on the wrong page. Finally got the book put together the right way started the copying process and headed out to take Thornley to school. As we're crossing the street, the crossing guard says, "Good thing you have your coat on, there is a fire drill today". Of course, Thornley FREAKS OUT and wants me to stay with him all day. Wow, it is a good thing the fire drill was first thing, like 30 seconds after the bell rang so we were all still out in the hall listening to the fire alarm bouncing off cement walls. Finally back at work, one of the parents tells me at drop off time that his child threw up this morning, but they're sure he's ok, because after all it was only once and now he seems fine. The kid does have a cold; coughed, sneezed and generally was miserable all morning, but come to find out there was an afternoon playdate scheduled so apparently even when you're in preschool the show must go on! And how the conversation at snack time came around to the airplane crash last night, I have no idea, but I hope I don't get too many phone calls from disgruntled parents!
And the piece de resistance had to be when Jack walked into the kitchen while I was trying to get dinner on the table, with his shirt pulled up to his chin and says to me, "Look at my man boobs mom".
I could go on, but oh dear, it's almost time to go start the proverbial "engines" at the Pinewood derby.

Taking a Trip to the Impound Yard

It's Pinewood Derby time, which is a big thing in Cub Scout land. All a totally knew concept in the Anderson house, but you get a block of wood and out of it sculpt the car that will go the fastest. So Adam, Thornley, and our friends Jim & Chris have been diligently working on Thornley's car. He (Thornley) is very proud of it and looking forward to racing it tomorrow night. Last night was impound night for all the cars so after Adam's talk at youth group, he and Thornley headed off to the elementary school to have his car weighed and be assigned a number. I'll have to post an update and let you know how his car did. For now here are some pictures. Let's just hope his car is faster than fast, just like the "real" Lightning McQueen!

Deja Vu

Here is a picture of what is going on outside right now, meaning, tonight, Sunday, Jan 4th '09. Not to be confused with Dec 18 - 26th '08 when it snowed, and snowed and snowed and snowed - you get the picture...



Yep, snowing again. Adam assures me it is going to warm up overnight and when we wake up in the morning the snow will be gone and we can FINALLY get back to school. We shall see. If I've learned one thing from all of this, it's don't trust weather.com! (Oh, and I need chains for my car, and need to learn to drive in the snow).

Right after Christmas we enjoyed a visit from our friends, the Nightingales. I didn't take any pictures, I don't know why I always forget, so I have no pictures to show of their visit. We were all very excited to see them and have Matt lead worship at the 9:00 service - good stuff. It was fun seeing them and hanging out; we miss our friends the Nightingales!

Thornley got his first "official" haircut by someone other than Adam. He wanted a "Shark boy" cut and LOVES the spiked look! I think he looks so cute! Jack wanted a "big boy" haircut - shorter on the sides and longer in front - he's adorable as always. A few pictures of their new do's... (for some reason, I can't attach Jack's picture - check back later for the cuteness)


This post is disjointed and random; perhaps because I'm just feeling kind of blah. Anyway, just incase you missed it, I thought I'd let you all know - snowing again.