Kindergarten Assessment

This afternoon we took Taylor into her assessment with her teacher. All the children in the class get 15 minutes of 1:1 time with the teacher so she can see what they know, what they don't know and how to best to teach each child. Taylor did VERY well in her assessment, a few things she missed were pretty much nerves. She spelled her name (but missed the "o" even though she's spelled it correctly 100 times). The teacher had her stop counting at 31 (she only missed #16 which she has a tendency to do ... not sure what she has against #16). She knew all her uppercase letters, but skipped a few of the lower case letters. She recognized numbers 1-12, she knew all her colors and shapes. Overall the teacher said she is right where she needs to be and in a few cases knows more than some of the other kids in the class. She also said Taylor was a pleasure to have in the class, very well behaved and always willing to help. Courtney and I are VERY proud of how well she did! We've always know she was smart, but sometimes it's nice to have independent validation. =O)

2.5 months of Catch-Up

OK ... so I am a little delinquent in getting an update going, so here it goes. To start with, the family is doing great. We sept the month of August moving into SLO from Santa Maria. SM just never really felt like home. It was a beautiful house and the landlords were great, but it just felt so temporary. Add to that the commute, gas, wear and tear on the vehicles, the schools in SM and our doctors, my job and everything we did in our down time was in SLO and it just made a lot of sense to pull the trigger and move into SLO. Immediately we knew it was the right thing to do. The house is older and smaller (a bit of an adjustment) but it is so much better. We still haven't completely "re-organized" everything but we are working on it a little bit ever day. Courtney is doing an excellent job of turning it into a home and making it feel comfortable and more like "us". It is 3 miles from my work which allows me to come home for lunch most days and gets me home a lot quicker. So I get to see A LOT more of my family since moving to SLO.

Speaking of the family, TJ has started rolling over and in poised to start crawling. In fact, he has reverse down quite good. We put him down on his back and in no time he's rolled over and scooched himself back until he inevitably bumps into some piece of furniture and then begins to fuss because he can't go anywhere. He's like an early version of the radio controlled cars that only went forward. If you can into a wall, you had to try and "bump" it away from the wall or go over and turn it around (completely negating the purpose of having a radio controlled car in the first place). To add to his newly developed skills, he's started eating cereal. And he really loves it, though he seems to eat it better for me than for Courtney. We think, however, it is because he's trying to figure out why mom isn't giving him the "good stuff". TJ is getting so verbal he and I like to have early morning conversations by trading "raspberries" and then he fills his drawers (I try not to participate in this particular activity). He's quite the intellect.

As for my little sunshine, Taylor is poised to finish her first week of school!! I can't believe my little girl is already starting kindergarten. She was a little nervous during the orientation and the first actual day, but by today (3 days into it) she's pretty much taken to it. She goes in, gets herself ready all without needing assistance from Dad or Mom. I am so very proud of her. Without a doubt she is showing signs of using all the lessons we've been teaching her for the last 5 years. She is sharp as a tack, has an independent streak and knows she is completely capable. Now we are trying to teach her that, on occasion, it is OK to need some help from Daddy and Mommy. I guess we did too good a job of teaching her that she is capable of doing anything she puts her mind to. Since we only live 3 blocks from her school we get to walk her to and from school and it's faster than if we packed everyone in the car, drove over there, unpacked everyone and walked her to the door. That is one of the things we really wanted when we moved to SLO, walking distance to a good school. God is so good to provide that for us.

We are still looking for a church, we are going to try a new one this Sunday, don't know what it will be like but we'll give it a shot and see what happens. So many of the church's in SLO take the HUGE approach and Courtney and I have both come to appreciate a more medium size church between 200-300 people. Something where we can really build relationships, where the pastor will know us. That was something we had so special in Sacramento, Mike wasn't just our Pastor, he was our friend, our good friend. Trying to duplicate that will be tough to impossible I know but that won't keep us from trying ;O)

For now, that is about all, I'll try and hook up some pictures I know that everyone has been very patient and it is appreciated.