Hotel De Boer

This weekend, Elizabeth came up from Washington DC to celebrate her birthday weekend with us!  She traveled via the Chinatown bus, which was quite successful (although we've recently heard of Megabus and BoltBus, which we're certainly going to consider in the future if traveling near NYC).  We had a wonderful time with Elizabeth.  Our fun-filled activities included a study day, watching MacGyver, bike ride to Franklin Fountain (rain poured on us returning home...much more memorable that way!), liberti, Anna's graduation party, and simply hanging around the house.  This is a picture of us on our roof deck after/during the downpour:

Then yesterday, Matthew Perryman Jones and two members of his band came to visit.  They played tonight with another one of our favorite artists, Katie Herzig, at the World Cafe Live!  We've seen Matthew a few times in the past two years, and we really enjoy his music.  Our friend Dave Braud sent out an e-mail Sunday asking if anyone had a place they could crash.  Since we're pretty excited to share our guest room with people (hint, hint!), we quickly agreed!  To have musicians stay in our home?  Pretty sweet.  The show was awesome!  We're already looking forward to their Christmas tour in December.  Here's a picture from tonight:

Decade of searching

Google turned 10 today! Their homepage has an interactive timeline to chronicle the past 10 years. Pretty interesting...if you're a Google fan like me. =)

In sickness and in health

This weekend, I caught a bug from one of my fifth graders. Welcome back to school! Fortunately, I only had a mild case--no fever...only headache from stuffy sinuses and sore throat. Well, Sarah and I have been doing a good job at sharing recently; too good in this case: she came down with my bug today. Her doctor friends did her a favor and sent her home at 4 instead of the usual 6. So, she and I enjoyed some grilled cheese sandwiches as some comfort food tonight.

School continues to go really well. I feel like God has been very present this year in my students and even in my attitude. I haven't let class situations bother me, I'm not taking things personally, my creativity is coming out more in lessons, I feel fresh and recharged most days (well, Monday mornings are still hard!) and the girl students in my class even come up and hug me! It's a huge answer to prayer.

The Cubs clinched the division title this weekend! It's their second title in two years. The last time this happened? When they last won the World Series in 1907 and 1908. Yup...exactly 100 years ago. Go Cubs Go!

Bomb threat polar bear

This took place a few blocks from my new sister Elizabeth's apartment in DC.  Watch the video or read the news story.  Either way, it's hilarious!!

Free night of theater

This organization is promoting theater in various places in the country (including Philadelphia).  See the website for more information, but it starts in October!

DTV

A few weeks ago, I wrote how I ordered some coupons to convert the analogue TV signal to digital. Well, two credit card-coupons came on Saturday. Sarah and I picked up a converter box at Target this afternoon, and I'm watching the Steelers/Browns game on digital television right now. It's really clear! We can pick up a few more channels that before, and the main stations (NBC, CBS, ABC, etc.) are much, much clearer than with just the bunny ears. The downside is that we've added another remote, and the channels take longer to load when you change them, but I think it's worth it (we aren't channel surfers anyway). I still have another coupon, so if you need one, I have $40 off you can use before the end of November!

My 5th graders

Here are some of my fifth graders from this year, posing with our class mascot Fluffy.  Everyone who visits our classroom will have their picture taken by our class photographer.  We'll put the pictures on the back bulletin board for all to see...it'll be a visual guestbook of our visitors!

Tribute to Jazz

This afternoon, Jazz went to be with his Maker. After six years of life with the De Boer family, Jazz was put to sleep after a sudden but painful bout with his intestines. Saturday, Jazz started yelping and jumping up on my dad while he was supposed to go to the bathroom. He couldn't pee, so my dad brought him into the vet. Several hundred dollars later, we learned that he had at least three kidney stones. His intestines were also messed up somehow since he hadn't pooped in three days. For reasons beyond me, dogs have to pee every day or they will die. They catheterized Jazz, but a day later, he still couldn't go on his own. Either Jazz would have to have expensive surgery, or he would have to be put to sleep to avoid this pain. Since the surgery costs were bound to bloat, and the chance of the stones returning was fairly high, my parents opted to put him out of his misery.

To those of you who were part of puppy-sitting Jazz while we were at Hope, thank you. His life may have ended, but his tail is only beginning.

He and Handel can now rest forever in peace.

First day of school

Today was my first day of school! I was pretty nervous ahead of time, but once school started, it got a lot better. I think most teachers get nervous before the first day. There are just so many variables! Even if you have taught for 20 years, the group of students coming in is different from all of them. But that's why I think teaching is so great!


I felt much more competent this time around. After being in three different schools in three years, it was wonderful to know the system and expectations for once. I left school with more energy than when I got there, which to me signals an excellent day.

In other news Google made two big announcements today: a new version of their software program Picasa and a web browser called Google Chrome! I downloaded both of them this evenin and love the new features. Picasa is more integrated with the web and tagging, while Google Chrome was built on simplicity. It's very streamlined and quite similar to Firefox (actually, it imports all your passwords and bookmarks from Firefox automatically for you!). The two companies are teaming up (their financial agreement is through 2011) to compete with Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Looks like a good step towards that!