Darr Family Blog – Page 17 – The place to follow the Darr Family

A Little Bit of Everything

This past week help a little bit of everything. Joseph had his first recital/concert, I got report cards finalized and over half of my parent/teacher conferences taken care of, I got a new student, Abigail started attending the Learning Tree program after school (which makes my schedule sooooo much easier), and Paul? Well, Paul got diagnosed with pneumonia. He’s been sick for over a month and waiting it out (thinking it was a cold/allergies) and a round of antibiotics (for what they thought was a sinus infection) didn’t work. He went into Urgent Care again and they did a chest x-ray. They diagnosed him with pneumonia and were able to get him on the right antibiotics. It has taken a few days, but he is slowly getting better. We’re gearing up for Halloween and trying to take deep breaths because once November hits, it’s a whirlwind of holidays. Then before we know it, spring will, well, spring…and then it’ll be summer vacation before we know it. Hooray?

Giving us his “Cheese!” face (he’s fourth from the right).

Getting set up to play. They did just beginning percussion in this recital and had separate recitals for the other parts of the beginning band.

Showing off his awesome sense of rhythm and beat.

I got a multi-pack of some cute Halloween earrings. I think these are my favorite. Also, please take note of how tired my eyes are in this picture. I’ve been pulling 11.5 hour days at work. Parent-teacher conferences dip quite far into my afternoons, so that pushes back my prep time, which then pushes everything back.

Paul improved upon my earlier design by replacing the wreath door hangers with hooks screwed into the door. It’s so much better. Before, it would slide back and forth as we would open and close the door and sometimes even get jammed a bit. This is a vast improvement!

A Somewhat Celestial Event

I think the highlight of this past week was the annular eclipse. San Antonio was right in the path for seeing the complete “ring of fire”, so all we needed to do was make sure we had our solar glasses and then step out onto our front porch and look up. It was partially cloudy, but luckily it was also breezy, so we had plenty of opportunities to see it. I didn’t have a filter for my phone, so I didn’t take any pictures (taking pictures of the sun isn’t a good idea for the camera on one’s phone), but I had friends who were able to take pictures and said I could share them with family and friends. 🙂 Other than that, our week was pretty typical. I just finished up report cards and have most of my parent-teacher conferences set up. Paul is keeping busy at work and both kids are keeping more than busy at school.

I stopped by the store one evening to grab something and was greeted with this sky. We live in a beautiful world!

Abigail kept herself busy one afternoon by asking me to print up a picture of a bat so that she could draw one on my mini whiteboard. I think she did a pretty stellar job!

Checking out the “Ring of Fire”. It will be cool in April when the total eclipse happens. We’ll be right in the path for that one as well.

The shadows looked really cool during the eclipse. Like little crescent moons…

One of my friends was able to get this shot with the clouds and the eclipse. Pretty cool!

Another friend got this shot and the next one.

It makes me wonder what ancient people thought about celestial events such as this one. I learned that the Navajo regard eclipses as sacred events, but it would be cool to know what other groups of people thought when they saw something like this happening.

Last Christmas, I decided to print up some pictures of past Christmases to display. A couple of weeks ago, I ran across a really cute Halloween picture (it’s the one of Joseph dressed up like a Pokemon trainer and Abigail is dressed up as Pikachu, sitting in her stroller) and decided I wanted to do the same thing for Halloween. It took a couple weeks before I finally had time to send the photos off to be printed, but once I got that accomplished, it came together pretty quickly. I think I might do this for the kids’ birthdays and maybe for our anniversary as well.

Sooooo Busy

This past week was a bit on the crazy side for me. Report cards are coming up and we’re starting small group instruction in earnest, so I’ve been pulling late days almost every day trying to stay on top of it all. Paul has been an immense blessing (as have people who have stepped up to help with the kids). He took them to National Night Out (an annual event at our park), he’s cooked dinner pretty much every night, he’s just…stepped in whenever I’ve needed him to, without complaint. I am so blessed with my helpmate! Consequently, most of the pictures this week are ones he took.