Grandmas and Grandmpas

May - June was grandparent visit time. First Grandma Mary came up (apparently, I missed a picture) and hung out for a few days.

Then we had Grandma Sue and Grandpa Bruce, who helped out with Jacob's birthday party and we enjoyed a fun trip to Bay Beach and a Breakfast on the Farm in Brown Cty.



Then Grandma Darleen and Grandpa Jim visited on their way home from Yellowstone. We drove way out into the country to experience another Breakfast on the Farm in Outagamie Cty.



We enjoyed seeing everyone and having visitors to play and do fun things with. Come back soon!

Happy Day

On Jacob's birthday, Brian took the day off work and we went up to Bay Beach with Grandma Sue and Grandpa Bruce.

We got to ride the new roller coaster - the Zippin Pippin. Jacob did not want to ride it, but the kids had plenty of fun at the other rides. And at 25 cents per ride and minimal lines - they rode a lot.





It was, unfortunately, record high temps at 97 degrees, but with a breeze off the lake, you didn't notice "too" much.



Then home for cake.


Overall, a very happy birthday.

Soccer

Continuing to play catch-up, last week was Jacob's last soccer game. This is his team (minus his friend Kaden, who couldn't make the last game).



They played back-to-back games and won the first and lost the second. Jacob scored two goals, which he was happy about. It was cold at the field that night, given that it had been 97 degrees on Tuesday; it was only 59 on Thursday. Everyone is in fleece in June. Welcome to soccer in Wisconsin.

Jacob's birthday party

Again - exactly one week late.... last Sunday was Jacob's birthday party with his friends. He wanted to have it at the park and fortunately the weather was beautiful.

The main reason we were at the park was to play kickball. Jacob LOVES kickball. So here are most of the kids (from a birds eye view) on the kickball field



Jacob on base.



We also had a water balloon toss, ate cake, opened gifts, and then played "volleyball" on the tennis courts with the 34" inflatable volleyball.

All the boys:


Jacob was a little disappointed that he didn't get to do everything he wanted to with his friends (we didn't have time for soccer or football) but I think everyone had a good time.

Last Day of School

Ok - so it was actually last Friday that was the last day of school. Here is our end-of-school picture. And yes, it was doctor confirmed that Jacob is 3/4 of an inch taller than Allison (not including the 2 inches of hair - which at the time of this picture was in desperate need of a trim).



Both kids had a lot of changes this year. Jacob passed all his kindergarten goals - or whatever you want to call the plus marks they put on the report card. His teacher noted in a number of occasions that he "works slowly." He also started to read, do basic addition / subtraction / multiplication, color within the lines and "add details", and - most importantly to Jacob - learned to play kickball (the preferred recess activity). He became much more coordinated this year and has taken in interest in any and all sports. Given that a year ago he would giggle and shield his face when you threw a ball at him, he's now running, punting, kicking, and scoring soccer goals.

Allison had a lot of changes in second grade too. She loved her teacher (wants her again next year), made huge strides in penmanship, learned to write whole paragraphs of her thoughts, mastered 3 digit addition and subtraction, and learned more than I care to know about mealworms. She had her first sleepover at someone else's house and her first sleepover at our house. She's also learned to play piano and loves her piano lessons.

We gulp a little when we say "3rd grader" and "1st grader." Wow.

Brutal, but....

Jacob's team lost another soccer game last night by a fairly wide margin. Again the other team was (on average) 6 inches taller.

BUT.... Jacob had a good game, scoring 4 goals - his first goals of the season. The first one was a hard kick - from a pretty good distance away - but it went right into the goal. It was seriously like you watched a lightbulb go on with him and he was like "Hey, I can SCORE!" Confidence. Then he did it three more times in the game.

Where's the cheese?

Oh, there's the cheese....

Sometimes my job feels a little like bait and switch. In 2010-2011 academic year, I taught only 1/2 the courses I was told that I would be teaching when I was hired. The other half were swapped (often last minute) because it's easy to find people to teach intro courses and harder to find people to teach upper level courses.

This meant that each semester I taught a course via something called Wisline Web. I am at my computer in my office on a conference call and with Microsoft Livemeeting open on my computer - the students are in classrooms all over the state on the same conference call (though their ends are muted) and a computer screen projecting my computer screen. I cannot see them, they cannot see me. For me, it's like talking to a wall for 75 minutes - for them I imagine it was a great time to check facebook and write papers for their comp classes. While I was kindof game when this dropped into my lab during the fall semester.... I was considerably less excited when it dropped into my lab for the spring semester too.

Additionally, I was supposed to have been given a course release to develop a new class, which was postponed, but I had to develop part of it anyway for fall (a little uncompensated contribution to the greater good, I suppose). Add another class I wasn't supposed to teach.

Armed with the assumption that no one else is going to advocate on my behalf, about mid-spring I appealed to my department chair and official mentor to please keep me out of distance ed (wisline web) because it's not a good fit. I did NOT mention that (oh by the way) I'm actually contracted to teach online, not dist ed (and yes, they're different).

So, with immense upheaval at UW Central wrt to the online program, I requested that if an online class gets canceled that I be assigned another online class - even though this means bumping an adjunct instructor (oh the power of tenure-track). Low and behold, the belated development release was put off for another year and I am left with a hole in my fall schedule.

Fortunately, I've been granted the online course I requested. (If another gets dropped, then I don't know what I'll do...). While I worried at the time that my request would sound whiny or complainy - it got the intended results. I don't think that it actually WAS whiny or complainy, but sometimes there is a fine line between when you should be a team player and when you should be a little bit selfish. We know we cannot always get our way, but we can't be doormats all the time either.

BTW - my release is now slated for fall 2012, so I hope my cheese ages well.