February's Beautiful Picture from Tennessee

January's Beautiful Picture from Tennessee

December's Beautiful Picture from Tennessee

I knitted all the "boys" camouflage ponchos and hats for Christmas.

November's Beautiful Picture from Tennessee

We adopted our beautiful Sophie on Thanksgiving Day! What a wonderful gift for us!

October's Beautiful Picture from Tennessee

The end of August (and the end of summer)

August ends on Monday. I realized today that in many ways, this month has seemed really long, which is a bit unusual for me. Then I realized that it only seems long because we managed to cram so much into just one month.

• On August 1 the girls and I were staying with my friends Kathy and Dave in Southern Maryland, getting ready for church and the start of my Joint Statistical Meetings in DC on August 2. I got to play for church that day, and the girls sang a trio. I had a great time at the meetings. The girls and I got to go out to dinner and a bit of sightseeing with our friend Monique from Switzerland, and I had a great time seeing all my time series friends at a party at Dr. Findley's house on August 5, which just happened to be my 20th wedding anniversary.
  
• In the midst of the meetings, the girls and I also managed to get in a couple trips to Six Flags America.
  
• On the way home I got into poison ivy at Mom's house and dealt with that for a couple of weeks.
  
• I had tons of work to do for clients this month, including some new clients. I've also been working on updates to the web pages for my consulting business, with help from a contractor/friend.
  
• I signed up with Creative Memories again, partly to get a discount on the pages I needed and partly to motivate myself to start scrapbooking again and keeping the house clean enough to host scrapbook parties.
  
• On August 17 the kids started school in earnest. (Fortunately, I had finished most of the planning in July.) The biggest part of planning now is planning for E's Bible course (a bit of independent study) and M's AP statistics course.
• On August 22 I was back in DC to teach a short course, staying with my friend Julie. I flew on an airplane for the first time since 2006, which might not seem like a big deal, but it seemed really big to me. I also got to play the piano for church again, and I sang a duet with Kimberly.
  
• Tomorrow I'll sing in the choir in the morning service and go to Sunday school. In the evening, I'll go to choir practice and two bell choir rehearsals because I will be filling in for Melinda in her bell choir in September.
• On August 31, I'll be driving N up to Lebanon to take her written test for her learners permit. Then the driving lessons begin for daughter #2.

Sometimes I wonder how I have time to sleep, let alone run a small business on my own. Yet somehow, it all gets done, and I have a great time doing it.

New School Year

I was looking through old blog posts about what classes the girls have been taking. Here's the list of what the girls are taking this school year.

My 11th grader is taking

• AP Statistics (taught by her mother, and not through our correspondence school)
• U.S. History
• American Literature (1/2 credit)
• Creative Writing (1/2 credit)
• Government, year 2
• Theology
• Art, Music, PE (taught by her parents)
• Latin (again, taught by her mother, who is learning Latin along with the girls)
• Maybe chemistry from a junior college in the spring semester
  

My 10th grader is taking

• Trigonometry
• World History, part 2
• World Literature (1/2 credit)
• Grammar (1/2 credit)
• Sophomore research paper (1/4 credit, required)
• Government, year 1
• Biology
  
• Old Testament, part 2
• Art, Music, PE (taught by her parents)
  
• Latin (taught by her mother)

Last year, my 10th grader took Spanish, but N wanted nothing to do with that. She says that Latin is enough for her, though she might study some Italian from the BBC web site, she says.

My 8th grader is taking

• Geometry (and she's already in Chapter 6, so we'll start Algebra II before the year is over)
• Omnibus (Middle Ages/Renaissance), which includes theology, literature, and history
  
• Spelling
  
• Grammar
• Logic
  
• Bible
• Art, Music, PE (taught by her parents)
• Latin (taught by her mother)

Next year will be our biggest challenge with all three in high school!

ttfn

August's Beautiful Picture from DC/Maryland

A beautiful friend. We don't try to dress alike, it just happens. It's no wonder that people think we're sisters. Fortunately for me, we are sisters, even if we have different parents. :-)

My 20th Anniversary

Dr. Estelle Dagum, formerly of Statistics Canada and the principal author of X-11-ARIMA, told me I was a flirt and had always been a flirt. For me, I see it as an occupational hazard of being in a mostly male profession. Is it my fault that I get to hang out with so many good-looking men?

And is it my fault that Dr. Findley had a party for all of us at his house on the same day as my 20th wedding anniversary? If I can't be with my husband, then I might as well have a good time.

The girls and friends at the Joint Statistical Meetings

With Zekie


With Uncle Brian (I love this picture!)


With John and Siem Jan


With Diane

With Monique

May's Beautiful Picture from Tennessee

One benefit of being back in the States was that the kids finally got the braces they wanted for their teeth, and then of course, off they got the braces off eventually. Here are the results from my oldest child after about a year and a half in braces. She's very happy with the results.

February's Beautiful Picture from Tennessee

December's Beautiful Picture from Tennessee

My oldest plays "Silent Night" for us.

October's Beautiful Pictures from Tennessee

Belmont University, where I teach part-time, was host to one of the three Presidential debates this year. The entire campus has been buzzing about this for months and months.

The bell tower:


The Curb Event Center, site of the debate:

September's Beautiful Picture from Tennessee

August's Beautiful Picture from Tennessee

July's Beautiful Picture from Tennessee

This weekend we went to the aquarium in Chattanooga with my mom. We really enjoyed the sea horses and the jelly fish.

June's Beautiful Picture from Tennessee

May's Beautiful Picture from Tennessee

My oldest daughter had me cut off her 18-inch-long ponytail so she could send it to Locks of Love. She got the idea when we were at the 2006 ACS Relay for Life with my dad. I'm very proud of her.

Last exam graded

N helped me grade exams today, so I got them finished in record time. Almost everyone made the grade I was expecting.

I have one student who has a note from the disability office that says I am supposed to give him extra time on the tests. Everyone else took from 45 to 75 minutes for the final exam. He took 4 hours and 20 minutes. (That's why N and I got so much grading done. We were sitting there waiting for him to finish the test.) He still scored less than 50% on the final exam. He doesn't always come to class, and he's never turned in an assignment. I kept telling him that I didn't have them, and he would always have some kind of story about his computer or my email account. I'm not at all sorry that he failed. Darin says that guys like that who know how to work the system will go far in the world. That might be true, but it doesn't mean that I have to pass them.

I had another student who had been working really hard to pull up his grade. He needed a 96 on the final to make an A in the class. (He had a C at midterm.) He made a 99 on the final. And no, Darin, he wasn't cheating.

I'm glad to be done with my first year at Belmont. I'm scheduled for 2 more sections in the Fall, and then I think I'm going to take off a semester. I'm looking forward to summer vacation also.

ttfn