Quick Successions: New Mexico Edition

I didn't have to work on Memorial Day and we have never been ones for picnics, barbecues, or other socializing. But we did go to Historic Far West Missouri and look at the Temple site there. Hannah wore her Batman costume. It took about 90 minutes to get there. We ate lunch before and stopped for dinner on the way home. The site was smaller than I would have thought. The cornerstones are under glass. There are leaves under the glass too. I wondered why they didn't dust them off first. There were about 5000 people living in Far West at one point. There were pretty good records of who bought what land. Most of it belonged to some guy named Railroad, but there were also others.

After AERA things generally get quieter for me, but not so this year. We are moving to New Mexico and Hannah finished preschool and we sold our house and so there has been quite a lot of chaos.   Hannah and I made a list of stuff we wanted to do before we left the area and one of them was see a few more baseball games. The Royals were playing the White Sox and the seats were cheap so we went out to the game. Hannah really likes watching and playing sports. She wants to go to a soccer game, a tennis match, and learn to bowl too. Here is the Running Han instead of the running man. She painted this in Preschool and they hung it up with the others in Art Center for all to see. We also had a lot of birthday parties and graduation get togethers. This was taken at a party for a one year old. The end of school also means field trips. Hannah's class went to the KU Museum of Natural History. It was a rainy day, hence the McIntosh. Yes, they are eating their snac...

After the Council for Exceptional Children meeting in Boston, I went to the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. This year, San Antonio, Texas was the host city.  Here is Hannah and I sitting on the plane. We flew Southwest so we were lucky to get our seats together.  When Hannah found out she was going to Texas, she put on her hat and boots. People thought she was amazing. Here is an artist's rendition of me right before I went to present. The accuracy is astounding. In the interest of saving money, we went to a mall food court for most meals, except where I had to go and eat fancy stuff with colleagues. Hannah liked the mall pizza just fine. We took a boat ride on the river and Hannah liked it, but the soft rocking made her go to sleep. She perked up towards the end, though.  We hung out a some at Alamo plaza. She liked to feed the birds there. Then we have this tradition of going to Macy's while at AERA. H...

We celebrated Easter with the usual fanfare. Hannah and I died eggs. We used natural dyes and I think they turned out pretty. Hannah is actually a good egg dyer. She is gentle with the eggs and patient. She also filled colored eggs with candy. Right before Easter, Hannah had her annual preschool art show. The children got the art ready and they prepared the snack for there reception. Then the children served the parents the snack. We also did our annual visit to a friends house for sandwiches and a easter egg hunt. Hannah is by the white laundry pole. She ran around and found about 40 eggs. At one point she formed a team with another girl and they looked for eggs together and then split the spoils.  The night before Easter, she wrote to the Easter bunny for extra KitKats. 

Conference season began with the annual meeting of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC). I went to this conference last year in St. Louis. This year, Boston was the host city.  Being unwilling to spend lots of time here, I flew to Boston on Thursday morning at 5 a.m. and presented at 3 p.m. Then on Friday I did an 11 a.m. presentation with two colleagues and 4p.m. presentation with about three others and then I ran to the airport. In between presentations on Friday, I went to the Brasserie Jo. This is a French restaurant I found the first time I went to Boston several years ago but did not get to eat at. This time, I entered and sat at the bar and they served me seasoned carrots and a baguette. Then I ordered an French omelette. It was amazing. At 7p.m. I was at the airport and on my way home. Then the rain came in and my plane could not take off. After an hour, we got airborne and they took us to New York-LaGuardia where we arrived around 11p.m. We circled the a...

Hannah's preschool has a bear that they send home with the kids. It was her turn to get the bear on Monday, but the child who was supposed to bring it back, did not. She was so sad when I picked her up. I tried to distract her by getting her to show me her craft from the day, but she was still upset.  At the store, we found a $10 giant bunny and we bought it as consolation. She now keeps with with another one that her Grandma Aldred sent to her.  On Wednesday, the Bear was finally in Hannah's possession. She wrote in the class diary about her experiences with bear. They rode in the truck and watched YouTube. They also read together. The book she is reading is about a bear. Corderoy. She and Bear also ate macaroni and cheese together on Thursday and they did art amidst the packing for moving we were doing. Her egg turned out very nicely. Bear did not get injured. He went back to class on Friday to go home with another child.  Her sadness rea...

Hannah has always been really conscientious about learning her numbers and then her letters. She likes to read and write. I buy her little notebooks and historically she has mostly written stories about mom and Hannah and the details are squiggles. She would also write alphabet letters in order. But lately she has taken a leap where she has written words she likes and copies others that she wants to learn.  We also went to a performance of Peter and the Wolf. It was originally written by children in 1936 to help them learn orchestral instruments and the differences in the way they sound. Peter is "about 6" in the narration, the same age as my Hannah girl. Here is an illustration of the different characters and their instruments. We were on our way out of the performing arts center when one of the dancers got Hannah's attention. The actor engaged her in conversation and introduced her to the others. She was so happy. We had a long week with having to leave ou...