OK I am a terrible blogger!! About once a year I write some news. It has been so long that I can't even remember what has happened since the last time I blogged.

JC and Stephanie had their baby, Makenna October 24, 2009 since I last blogged and Liesl and Brian had their baby, Koston on October 25, 2009. Both are now 1 year old. Wow! How time flies.

This last summer Gary and I didn't do much traveling. We went to Pinetop for a week in June to see Summer and kids and Ryan & Amy and boys. Later in the summer we were at Haigler for a week for a little family reunion with my kids and grandkids. It was GREAT to see so many of my children and grandkids. Ryan & Amy and boys came as well as Rachele & Larry and family, Terri & Cory and kids, JC & Stephanie and Makenna, Summer's children and their dad, Johnny Mc Cray. Sadly, Dawn and Dave couldn't come from Oregon and Liesl and Brian were in Hawaii on a second honeymoon. But Gary and I got to keep Koston with us. We had so much fun taking care of him for a week.

I got to go to Oregon in July to see Dawn, Dave, Ronan, and Sophia. I was there over Sophia's birthday. I had a wonderful time with them going to a museum and to the beach at Cannon Beach. That is a beautiful place even though it was foggy and a little chilly. I had a great time playing with Ronan and Sophia. I just wish they were closer to Arizona.

Dawn has been having horrible headaches for a year or more now. After many tests the doctors cannot attribute the headaches to anything. A NTE doctor said that she has something wrong with her septum and a bone spur on it that may be the cause. She had surgery this past Thursday, November 18, 2010. Today is her birthday. I wish her the best for her birthday and wish that the surgery will be the answer to eliminating all the headaches.

Tomorrow Liesl, Brian, & Koston are coming from Moscow, Idaho for Thanksgiving. I am so excited to have them come. They have been in Moscow, Idaho since August for Brian to go to law school. Liesl will be staying here until January 9. Brian will have to return Thanksgiving morning for school, then will be driving down just before Christmas. He's so busy with school that Liesl is a law widow for a time. But it will be worth it in the long run!

I am just always busy teaching school. My class this year is noisy and always bickering with each other. Good kids, but they bug each other a lot. I have lots of students new to the Montessori method (about half of my 27 students), so they just don't get it when it comes to showing respect to each other. It is taking a long time to "nomalize" them. "Normalize" is Maria Montessori's term for getting the children to act in calm, respectful ways.

I was hoping to be retired from teaching by now, but because of this great recession we are having, I have to keep working.

This year we had to short sell two rental houses. Our credit stinks now. We sold our little suv to Brian and Liesl to get out from under car payments. We also sold the older sentra. We are down to the white sentra, Gary's old beat up pickup, and his 1987 Mercedes, which I wish he could sell. We have been having $2500 worth of car trouble with the white sentra. It's the pits, but we'll survive it all.