I had a brief period of lots of blogs and then stopped! Oops! Guess I've been busy.

I got to start my summer job today. It was SO disorganized! Yikes! I will be teaching a bunch of students from Italy (mostly) English this summer, and the first group got here today. The first order of business was doing short oral tests with them to place them in classes based on their level, and that took WAAAYYY longer than it should have! Normally I will spend three hours a day with my group, and of those three hours today, I got fifteen minutes!! It was time enough to go over names and ask each other one question and that's about it. They seem like a nice group of kids, but 15 minutes doesn't give me a real comprehensive feel for what they're like!

So, now I have to get back into the swing of being employed! I've been wandering around in a daze ever since I got home, feeling confused about what exactly I should be doing now! Needless to say, I spent most of the day just hanging out and watching SpongeBob with the kids. Hopefully tomorrow will be better! I have to go to the store, so it better go better! We need food!

And now I have to plan lessons too! I think I'm set for tomorrow, and then I get Sunday and Monday off, so that'll give me time to plan the rest. It should be fun though. As long as they actually talk I think it will go well! The worst kinds of students to have when trying to teach a language is non-talkers!!

Ciao!

It seems like Emily and Thiago have both learned a couple of new things that have impressed me lately, so thought I'd share.

Emily has learned how to tie her shoes! Yay! We worked on this before (probly about a year ago) and it was giving her a lot of trouble, and I could see she just wasn't getting it, so I would just buy her those stretchy kind of tennis shoes that didn't need laces for her to wear to school and stuff. (Velcro bothers me. It make their feet look so blocky!) Well, she needed a new pair (don't they every other day?! sheesh!) so we got some with laces. I showed her how to tie them the same day and she caught right on! Just goes to show it's worth waiting til they're ready to learn before teaching 'em stuff!

Thiago is now putting his pajamas on all by himself! I was thinking to myself the other day how I can see how the "baby" of the family often ends up falling into that role forever, cuz they don't have anyone younger coming up behind them to force them to do things on their own cuz they're tired of waiting for mom to get done with the baby. I know Emily was putting her own clothes on at his age, and that was partly because he had come along and it helped me out by having her do it herself. So I asked him to try it himself and he did it! No problem except a little bit with the headhole of the shirt. lol He was pretty proud of himself!

Maybe not major milestones for them, but sometimes it's the little ones that actually make the biggest difference in mom's life!!

So, we went to watch the PBR in Orlando Saturday, and I think we might finally be recovered from it. For those of you who don't know (and I can only imagine there are only about 3 of you (please read this in a voice dripping with sarcasm)) the PBR stands for Professional Bull Riding. Of course it does! My husband's quite into it because there are about... 10 Brazilians or so on tour right now. There are a few Aussies, too, although one of them has a... not so nice personality in my opinion. Anyone ever heard of Troy Dunn though? He was a world champ back in the 90s methinks. Anyway, 45 guys participate on a mostly weekly basis. We usually catch it on TV, but because it was relatively close this time so we went to see it live! Whee!

Orlando's about a 2 hour drive from us, so first we had to get there. THAT was exhausting, and we're out of practice! Where we used to live, we were in the car for that amount of time every other weekend or so just to get  to the "big city", but now that we live in a city, we don't need to do that any more, so we're out of practice. Anyhoo...

We got to Orlando at around 2 o'clock and went to get tickets for the bull riding. After that we ate, and then drove around Orlando for awhile. My mom went with us, so we showed her where Disney World is. There's a place called Downtown Disney that's kind of a fun place to wander around, and that's where the Cirque de Soleil is. Someday I want to go see that show, but it's $60 a person!!!

We finally headed to the rodeo arena at about 5:30 even though it wouldn't start 'til 7:30. We got a good parking spot! They had some live music and things outside the arena, so we wandered around a bit and killed sometime before heading to our nosebleed seats inside.

I have to say I was a bit disappointed this year! Almost everybody bucked off!! It sucked! And it wasn't even close half the time! Everybody bucked off in 2 seconds or less it seemed like. I don't think I saw much of the end of it anyway, because less than half way through things, both Emily and Thiago were asking me "When is this over?" It was a loooong day! And the next day wasn't much better. They were both so overtired I think they spent 90% of the day bickering. Arrgh. I get tired of that REAL quick. I though it was funny though, that Thiago told me about 3 times that he had fun at the PBR!!! This from the kid who wanted to know when it would be over almost as soon as it started!! Go figure!

So all this was over the weekend, and here it is Tuesday and I think we're just now recovering! Hopefully tomorrow everyone will be even more rested and we'll all get along all day long. I can hope...

I'm off to watch Ice Road Truckers now!!

So, here are a couple of photos of what Juan let his friend do to his head. This first one, I can kinda see what they were going for:

Here is what was on the back of his head, that I wondered if his friend did as a joke? Juan couldn't see it, so didn't know he had a pretzel with an X for the treasure back there.

Anybody else ever used to watch The Cosby Show? Because that is my life. Except, it's not nearly as funny when you're actually living it.

Juan got a haircut today. We usually just shave it pretty short and call it good, and that's what he had done today...just, with a little more pizazz than his dad prefers. Usually his dad trims it, and I guess Juan asked him about doing it earlier today. The thing is, Juan got impatient (my husband, his dad, Genesio, works til 9 at night) and had his friend next door do it. I knew things were going to get ugly when I saw the young man making up and down motions with the clippers on the side of Juan's head. Yeah. Not pretty.

The sides don't look too bad, actually. Well, Genesio doesn't think so, but he's a little pickier in hist opinions on teenage fashion. Something kind of like tribal art was shaved into the sides of his head, triangular and lines. On the back though, yeah, that's where we've got a drunken road map to an x marks the spot that seems to have a drainage exit at the bottom of his hairline. He asked me if it really looked that bad, and I couldn't tell him no. I mean, it's not my head. If he wants a treasure hunt back there, that's his choice...

I think it's been fixed now. I haven't seen the result yet, but I have a feeling Genesio shaved it all down to about nothing to match. It is inconceivable that Juan didn't see this coming. Well, maybe it is...

I will have to write about the exercise later (basically I tried a sampler aerobics class yesterday and had fun) because Genesio wants to chat so I better go!

Oooohhh how I hate them! If there is anything I hold against my parents it is not getting me braces when that was the thing to do back in junior high! (They could have afforded it, but my mother was of the opinion that it was purely a cosmetic thing. Sigh.) Of course I loved them for the decision at the time! Who wanted owey, ugly braces when they were 13?! But NOW, when I see my teeth in the mirror I hate them. They are all crooked and awful and they rot just if I look at something sugary. Fooey. I sure hope my kids have their dad's teeth. His don't rot, and even though he never had braces either, his are pre-tty straight.

I am going to start saving for those invisalign things. Maybe I'll be able to afford to get straight teeth when I'm in my seventies.

Thought I'd some photos up for a change of pace instead of trying to write about it! Please don't think I purposely leave Juan out. He just doesn't want to play with us!

Thiago and a tough puzzle! (100 pieces and needed help)

A new way to get clean!

Emily's really NOT shoving him in. Or is she...?

Okay, here is Plankton speaking the language of thugs, attempting to get them to join him in stealing the secret Krabby Patty formula:

Felicitations malfactors! I am endeavoring for the misappropriation of the formula for affordable comestibles! Who will join me?!

I'm totally off schedule and discombobulated right now. I haven't done any real writing in a couple of weeks, and the little bit of work from home I have to do has been pushed aside for some time now too. What's wrong with me?! Aaahhhh!!! I feel a bit out of whack to say the least. Ah well. Such is life, I suppose.

It keeps making sounds like it's gonna rain, but hasn't happened yet. I wouldn't mind a little, especially if it cooled things off. It's gotten hot! I like hot, but even I get tired of sweating from just doing nothing!

I would like to share my favorite SpongeBob quotation from Plankton when he is trying to round up some thugs to help him do his dirty work. (He is proud that he speaks the language of thugs.)

Oh fooey! I wrote it down and everything and someone threw it away! Well, I remember it started with "Felicitations malfactors!" That might be enough to give you and idea of the rest of what he said. Very much a man of the people, that Plankton.

I practiced the piano some today, and I should get back to that. I'm working on Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata". I love it, but not necessarily when I play it. I need some easier songs, cuz all the ones I'm working on right now make me feel like I suck. Blerf.

I suppose I should go see about getting some of that writing done that I mean to do all the time. Or something...