Birthdays

I've celebrated a birthday this week! As I get older it seems that 'the day' rolls around all too soon and I keep watching my age go up and up and up!! I don't mind getting older, quite honestly. Oh, I wish there weren't so many gray hairs or creaks in my joints but on the whole, I like being the age I am. I was touched that my first grade class joined me at the front as everyone sang happy birthday to me. They are such a neat group of students and I felt their love!!

My birthday has always produced a mixed bag of emotions for me. Certainly, as a child I was feted with parties and gifts and all sorts of fun things. And I enjoyed every minute of it. But there was always a bit of melancholy mixed in--'something' was missing. I was often ill on my birthday and as I entered my teens and young adulthood I began to feel a profound sense of loss.

What loss? Well.......it's this. I was adopted as an infant. I was loved, nurtured, appreciated, spoiled, and any other adjective you care to think of that suggests love. My parents, grandparents, and extended family were and are awesome. I never felt unloved or not a part of the family. But there was still something not quite right--a hole in my heart, a missing link. I found that missing link in 1999 when I found my birth family. My birth mom was deceased (since 1988) but I found a large group of siblings and finding them put the final piece of my 'puzzle' together! I found wholeness!!:)

So when my birthday arrives, I am thankful. I'm thankful for the woman who chose to give me life. I'm thankful for the parents that took me home from the hospital and raised me as their own. I'm thankful that God put me in that home to be loved and nurtured. I'm thankful for my family--husband, children, grandchildren. I'm thankful for my brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews. And I'm thankful for the children I'm privileged to teach and the colleagues I work with. God has richly blessed me.

PSIA District Competition

We spent all day at the PSIA competition in Giddings. It was a very long day and a very busy day as well. Our students did quite well. Twelve individual students placed in the top six in their respective events. Three students placed high enough to advance to the state level in four different events. I'm SO proud of them.

But I'm equally proud of those students who went and came home with a participant ribbon. They did their best. For those of you who are reading this and don't know---PSIA events are strictly extra-curriculur. Students (and their coaches) either work before school or after school to prepare for these events. It takes dedication on the part of the students and their parents and a serious time committment as well.

I'm also proud of all our students for their good behavior. There were students from several other schools and our students interacted with them and were good friends! I wish you could have seen the 'pick-up' football game this morning. Boys of all ages (from 1-8 grades) were involved and while it was definitely a rough and tough game I never saw anyone get angry and the most touching sight was a big boy who picked up a little boy who had the ball and together they scored a touchdown!! That's teamwork!

I want to say a special word of thanks to the parents who attended the event with us. I'm sure there were other things you could have done but you took time to invest in the life of your child and all the other children as well. You were a good example!

I'm happy to say that I am not done with that extra hour of practice every week! Cody and Alecia will be joining me to work some more and prepare for that state level competition in Maps, Graphs, and Charts.

God bless you all!!

Sharing Time and Space

First Baptist School has been in existence for 30 years and for all but the last 3 of those years, we shared space in the main church building. That meant when there was a funeral or other activity in the church during the week we had to creep around and be as quiet as church mice! I must say that our students NEVER let us down! They have always risen to the occasion and have done as we asked! That's a tribute to their raising!

Having a funeral in the church no longer requires us to be super quiet (although we still sometimes have to alter chapel or lunch arrangements) but if often requires some of my time. I'm the audio/video engineer 'in residence' and the administration has always been very good to understand that it's a part of my ministry right along with being a classroom teacher.

We had a funeral in the church yesterday. It was a service to honor the memory of a precious soul and I needed to be there. And I was. But I have a few more gray hairs on my head for I discovered during chapel yesterday morning that there were some technical issues with the sound board. I can turn it on and I can adjust the sound but I'm not very good at troubleshooting. I gave my first graders some work to do, opened the door to second grade (thanks Mrs. K for covering for me), phoned my husband (who truly understands all that equipment and is very good a troubleshooting) and sorted out the problem. It turned out to be fairly simple and I felt more than a little inadequate but my sweet husband was very nice about it and didn't fuss at me for not seeing the problem.

It takes all of us to make FBS work! It takes dependence on each other and on our Heavenly Father. It's nice to know that when we hit a roadblock we can stop and pray for guidance and know that someone is going to stand by our side and help us over that bump in the road. That's what friends are for!

Another Field Trip

Students in grades 5 through 8, along with three teachers and several parents, visited Museum of Natural Science in Houston this week. Getting there was a bit nerve-wracking as traffic going into Houston was appalling. It never actually stopped which probably means Houstonians thought it was a good traffic day but for those of us from the country, it was terrible! But we made it and do appreciate St. Paul's United Methodist Church of Houston for allowing us to park in their parking area.

The Museum has a traveling exhibit about the Civil War. It's sponsored by the National Archives and Records Administration and was everything it was advertised to be! We also had time to visit several of the permanent exhibits at the museum. And we ate our picnic lunch on the floor of the great hall because it was raining outside! We certainly did not complain about the rain.

I am very proud of our students. They behaved as ladies and gentlemen in the museum. At one point, there was a brief power outage. We were smack in the middle of the tour through the Civil War and although there was emergency lighting, it was mostly dark. Our students very calmly stopped and stayed put. Other groups of students didn't behave so well! We heard screams and such--all unnecessary. We complimented our students on their excellent behavior.

I'm posting a few pictures that I took. I didn't get a photo of every student so forgive me if you don't see your
child's smiling face!! They were on the move most of the time and I captured the moments as best I could!