Life with Luke

So here are some of Luke's favorites. I sat down across from him while he was playing some video games. It was like pulling teeth sometimes, but I managed to find out a few of his favorite things.
Luke, what is your favorite...

song: "I can't think of one. Seriously, what music do I like? I don't know." Maybe some of you out there will be able to help him out. If we were judging based on what song he listens to the most often, I might say his favorite song is the theme from "Oblivion".

game: Monopoly, or as Luke calls it: "Monotony"

sport: football

drink: milk

food: KFC original recipe chicken thighs

color: chrome (is that a color?)

super hero: Iron Man

time of day: "9:00 pm."
"why?"
"fun stuff happens at 9:00."
I'm not sure what this fun stuff is that he's talking about, and since he was playing a video game he wasn't too specific. Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure I'm not apart of it, considering that's about the time I get tired.

season: summer "because of all the free time."

free time acitivity: playing video games. I saw that one coming.

cat that you own: Han.

Snow Day

Our first snow day of the year! I'm pretty sure we'll have another one tomorrow. Besides being able to catch up on daytime TV (Days of our Lives anyone? Patch and Kayla are back?), I've been well-rested, and have had lots of interaction with my cats. Luke did something amazing today. In the blowing and snow and frezzing-ness he went to the store to get milk and Diet Coke. My hero! Now I'm ready to be snowed in for another 12 days.

Just something I liked

I've been watching the new season of American Idol and loved this performance. It was aired last week sometime. I'll share it with you because I thoroughly enjoyed it.



Three of the four guys are still in the running.

I haven't picked a favorite to win yet. Sigh...no one compares to Taylor. Have a mentioned that I picked Taylor to win from the beginning? This is my favorite performance by Taylor last season. He's coming to Sioux City in March. I HAVE to go. Anyone want to contribute monetarily to my quest to go?? Anyone want to come see him with me?? I need company!

Valentine photo gallery

Maybe you were like me. When I was in elementary school I loved Valentine's Day parties more than any other party of the year. I don't know why that was. Maybe it was the excitement of delivering mail, the pretty Valentine boxes, or the wonderful feeling of getting something special from everyone in the class. I remember pouring over those Valentines for hours at home. Liz and I would compare our Valentines, and trade candy, and laugh really hard at the things the boys wrote. Yep, we were silly little girls.

I've decided one of the good, no, great things about being a teacher is that one still gets to experience Valentine's Day parties. The whole elementary school went crazy with pink and red as you can see in the pictures. These are some of my kids and some of their boxes...glimpses of the best party day of the year.

Check it out!

Check out what I did this weekend. It was amazing. I think my friend Kelli did an excellent job of putting it all down in words, plus every picture I have from this weekend is in her post. So I'm going to refer you to her site if you are interested in my weekend.

Also this weekend:
I got to congratulate my nephew on becoming potty trained.
I played the fun new version of Cranium.
I ate my mom's great home cooking.
I drove three hours straight without drowsing.
I went to see Peter and the Wolf as performed by the Sioux City symphony--I fell asleep.
I was in my house for a total of 20 hours.
I enjoyed my church's service--this week everything seemed more familiar. A wonderful result of my weekend spent doing Echo. Praise God.

Echo

This weekend Luke and I got to lead a small group at our church's weekend retreat for 6-12 graders. We got to stay in an amazing house with 10 juniors. Our group turned out to be really fun. By the end of the weekend I felt like I was just getting to know them, so it almost didn't seem long enough. However, I was exhausted, so I was glad it was time to go home. We got to hear a really great speaker who talked about our freedoms in Christ. We have freedom from legalism, but it would be foolish to use that freedom to do whatever we want. The Lord wants us to use our freedom and make the choice to obey Him. When we obey we are able to experience the best God has for us. I thoroughly enjoyed the band that played. We got to sing some new songs that were really good and meaningful. We had some late nights, great conversations, time to be creative (see everyone bending over our large mosaic that didn't win a prize, but should have), and an awesome time bowling.
The interesting thing is that I was not always enjoying myself, because there were times when I was taken out of my comfort zone. Luke had many students that were there, so often they would crowd around him and I would be left without a familiar face. My small group was off conversing with all their friends, and I was faced with the realization that this is the first time in a long time that I have felt friendless. I pretended like I had to go to the bathroom. I drank so much water from the drinking fountain that I actually did have to go to the bathroom. I couldn't wait for the social hour to end. I froze. I suddenly felt so self conscience and started to be irritated with kids. I got irritated with our church because it is so big and even though it's been a year and a half since we started going there, I still don't know anybody that I can just walk up to and start talking with. Or can I? Of course I can. The truth is I froze. I realized that I seem to always have Luke with me. When he's taken away with such admiration by his students with no love or attention given to me I wallow in self pity. I start to doubt that I have meaningful and interesting things to offer to those around me. The speaker had just gotten done talking about walls that we build to keep the bad out, but the problem with those walls is that they don't let any of the good get in either. Bingo. I've built walls. I was conscience of my wall-building during those moments and I was ok with it. My irritation with my surroundings made me ok with it. I realize now that I need to tear down some walls at church.

So it was a good weekend...exhausting, but really good.

While the students make Valentines...

Live from 4th grade...

"So, how was your lunch today, guys?"

murmur, murmur, murmur.
And emerging from the murmur: "Sucky!"

"Brady, you should never say that. Even if you don't care for what was being served, you should never say the food was bad."

"No, I said Slucky."
"What?"
"I said Slucky, which means good in my language."

"Oh, ok."

I looked around at all the kids and no one was without a blank look on their face. I'm sure they were thinking, "you have your own language?"