I got to attend 2 baby blessings yesterday. Matt and Vicky blessed their little girl, Katherine Elaine, in the morning. They will call her Kate which also stands for (Katherine, Amy, Tyler, Emily). Fun, huh?
Jesica and Brian blessed their little boy, Joel Brian, in the afternoon.
Devn was in town and attended both blessings. No surprise for Matt and Vicky. It was their Fast and Testimony meeting so Devn bore his testimony last. However, he had said he wouldn't make it Joel's blessing, so they weren't expecting him. Then, as Elaine said, "he repented," and came. It was Jessica and Brian's ward conference. (Timpview 9th Ward) So Devn was the concluding speaker.
Devn told about being in Haiti. They recently spent a week there. They divided a ward. Apparently the brethren don't like dividing wards in Haiti because the church is growing faster than they are able to build buildings and more than 4 wards in a building doesn't work. However, Devn said there were 600 people at sacrament meeting. Then he divided a stake. Previously there had been only 2 stakes in Haiti. The first stake was divided the week before by another one of the 70 and Devn divided the second one. So in 2 weeks, Haiti went from 2 stakes to 4. Devn said that there were 1800 people present for the stake division. He also said that the gospel is very precious in Haiti.
When Devn, Elaine and Reid arrived back in the Dominican Republic, Reed said, "boy this place is sure rich." The Dominican Republic is the 3rd poorest country in that area, but Haiti is the poorest.
I'm happy to report that both babies are well and truly blessed. And as my mother would say "cute as a bug's ear." They are darling babies born into good families. Sorry I didn't take any pictures of them.
***
I rode my to work today. I didn't get to ride at all last week. There are many reasons I enjoy taking TRAX and riding my bike to school. 1. It's fun. 2. It's way less stressful than driving. 3. It's good exercise. and
4. It saves me money.
The downside to all of this is that if I need to bring some things to school, run errands, or I need to be there early or late, I can't ride my bike. So, it seems that 2 or 3 times a week is about all I can manage. Darn it! My goal is to ride my bike for a whole week.
***
The school district, years ago, decided that as we moved into the 21st Century that some new technology would be required. So they set aside some money. Last year they made a plan to use the money. They have or are, buying iPads and Apple TVs for all of the teachers in the district. That means that I now have a NEW ipad!
I've spent the last 2 Saturdays at district training to learn how to use the ipad and the Apple TV. I know, you wouldn't think it would take that long, but we're teachers, we can find a way to do it the hard way. The first assignment was to come to the class with a personal apple ID and password. Believe it or not, almost half of those in the class had not done the assignment. Did you know that you can only do 4 or 5 new accounts from an ip address before Apple locks you out? You would think the district could call them and tell them "Hey, we're setting up all of our teachers with ipads, how about you let us sign up a lot of people at once." But no, they couldn't do that. Getting everyone signed up was a PAIN.
As you can imagine it didn't take long to learn how to use the new technology, so they proceeded to introduce us to some great apps to use while teaching. If you don't know, the idea is that we will be able to hook up to the Apple TV so that what we see on our iPad is shown through the TV for the students to see. Which, by the way, IS really cool. They showed us dozens of apps and explained how to use them. I wish I could say that I actually understood and processed all that they showed us, but I can't. They moved too fast.
So there are many cool things that I can use this for in my classroom. There's just one problem. I don't have a place to hook up my apple TV, nor do I have wireless in my room. It was all supposed to be finished before school started, but one month later it isn't installed. It will be "Tomorrow," whenever that arrives.
In the meantime, I'm trying to learn all the new apps, find great music apps and having fun.
***
Last thing. Scott and I have been in the condo for about 3 weeks. I'm sorry to say that we are far from "settled in," but we are loving it.
***
I just wanted to let you all know that I am still alive and kicking. Life is busy and hectic, but good. If you don't hear from me for a while, give me a call. I love you all!
Mom
No comments:
Post a Comment