Well it has been a very sick week here at the Griffin house. With Peachie being the first to get the the flu we have all taken our turn. Wednesday we are getting off the island and I hope that a change in scenery will help kill some of the germs for us. Kodiak can be a very contagious little town. Once the germs start spreading around they see to multiply. Hopefully, this trip will clear things up for all of us.
Thanksgiving is an interesting time of year at the Griffin house. We get it twice! I think God wants to remind us how much he has truly blessed us and give us ample opportunity to count our blessings. Out of ten Thanksgivings,eleven counting while we were dating, Aaron and I have spent two together at home. Lots of couples and families work around crazy schedules and sadly, lengthy deployments. I thank God that my husband is safe and warm at his fire station just down the road and not thousands of miles and months from home. We make the best of it. This year we are cooking a ham and all the fixings to celebrate on Wednesday. We will put out the fancy plates and cloth napkins. Watch a new movie and play board games and pretend like its Thanksgiving anyway. Thanksgiving day we would usually join Aaron for a big dinner at the fire station but this year plans are a little different. The station is being remodeled and the kitchen isn't finished yet. So the kids and I were invited to a friends house. Aaron will go to the chow hall.......hmmmm. Maybe, I will bring him a plate of food from Bronwyn's house.
I added this neat program that lets you add your voice to pictures. To get the full effect click the little play button in the middle of the picture. There is about a four second delay between slides or you can click the big arrow button. This is one of the last projects for my class about using technology in the classroom. Only about a week and a half left!
I was really hoping we would have been able to get through this week without it. Early this morning it claimed it first victim in the Griffin house. Poor Peachie woke up really sick. The reason for the name is because many of the cast members in Annie! have taken their turn getting it. I guess when you spend that much time in close quarters with 79 people you are bound to get sick. I have been bleaching and hand washing all morning to try and keep the germs at bay. Tonight is the last night of performances and I plan to 1)Spend as much time as I can away from the other adults and children in the green room. 2)Bring my own snacks to avoid the community snack table where who knows what kinds of bugs are growing.
Aaron and the boys went sledding today because we got a lot of snow this week. I am sure they are having an awesome time. We think we have finally reached the point where are kids are old enough to enjoy winter activities like sledding and ice skating without melting after a only half an hour. It is going to be a fun winter this year I hope.
Last week was Caleb's Birthday. He turned 7! I can't believe he is that old already. We had a great week helping him celebrate. We went to lunch at a new restaurant here in town called Angelo's. They serve Greek and Italian food. The food was good the service needs work but hey its a new place to eat so that okay by me. We had a party for him at the bowling alley and it was a lot of fun. It was an evening party and the weather was crummy so we had almost the whole bowling alley to ourselves.
As you can see he had a Mario themed birthday!
Caleb was also Mario for Halloween. Oh yeah, I didn't post the Halloween pics...I'll have to do that too.
Being silly showing off the gifts he got from his friends. From us he got a gift card for Old Navy. He love to buy clothes and pick out what he thinks is "fashion" so now he can go and get what ever he wants with his card.
You would never have guessed that 6 years ago we arrived in Kodiak not knowing whether we would be happy here or not. God has blessed us so much in the years that we have been here. Its crazy to think that I can picture my children graduating high school here. It may not happen, God may be preparing a new place for us but for now we are content with our lives on this little island.
This is an online book I put together for one of my classes. It shows just a small abount of the beautiful sights around Kodiak.
Well, today is the day! Finally we here the end of it! Whatever way it turns out. I voted for McCain today. As Elisabeth Hasselbeck calls it I am an Americain! In fact both Aaron and I voted straight down our party line. We both voted for Don Young and Ted Stevens. Here's the thing...I really didn't want to. The problem with voting for Begich and Berkowitz is that it gives the Democrats a super majority especially if they win the Presidency and no matter how many times Mark says he will vote against his party on issues such as gun control and ANWR I don't trust him anymore then I trust the fact that Steven's should still be running. I do wish that Parnell was on the ticket.
So here is our strategy. Say Stevens makes it into office and is sentenced to prison or is otherwise unable to perform his duties. Sarah will be able to appoint whomever (Parnell) she wants to as his replacement. If Sarah is VP (fingers crossed) then Parnell as her replacement for Governor will be able to appoint whomever he wants. We shall see how it all turns out. Were going over to the neighbors tonight to watch the results come in. Were bringing a cake to either celebrate or lick our wounds. Either way we get chocolate cake!
I know I haven't been hanging out around here a lot. I have been working on several really cool projects for my education blog. One of my classes this year is based on using technology in the classroom and so I have been working on projects for that. So far we have made digital video slide shows and then working with a program called comic life. The funny thing is that Eli is in a technology centered class for third and fourth grade. It is called one to one and is mainly used in the more remote classrooms in other parts of Alaska but his teacher received a grant to try it here in Kodiak. Anyway, he is basically learning everything I am learning! So when I say I have to do a project with Comic Life he is like "Oh, comic life I have done that....." So if you want to see what I have been working on over there just click on the linky over on the right!
I did finish up the kids' Halloween costumes. I took a Math test this week and assignment, finished a tech project, and wrote my 8 page paper I thought was due next week but was due this week. Phew! I was so crazy! Thankfully, Aaron is my secretary and he typed my whole paper and played Mr. Mom at home cooking dinner and taking kids to school, piano and play practice. I love that man! I really couldn't do anything without his love and support. Baby, You Rock!
I hope to post some pictures tomorrow of the things we did for Halloween. We had a great time!
