It's Fall...finally!!

All I have to say is that it's about freaking time! For the first time today it felt like Fall outside. Too bad it has to come with the rain, but I hope it stays cooler. It's my favorite season, and it always seems to be short changed. More and more often september it too warm, and half the time there is already snow in November (and that's only when it hasn't already snowed to ruin Halloween!). I'm just asking that Fall get its fair share of the year. Instead of one month it should get 3 right?!! I'm pretty sure I did the math right. If it were up to me we would have Fall for 5-6 months, and everything else could fight over the remaining months. So anyway, happy Fall!

Emma Update

I know you've all been dying to hear more about Emma since I hardly mention her in this blog (ha ha), and I realized that I never posted anything about her birthday party with my family, so here are some random pictures to catch you up.

Here she is sitting in her favorite chair opening presents from my family.

Getting plenty of help from her cute cousins

Enjoying her new Tinkerbell pillow from her aunt Jill

The other day she was pretending to be a baby who was sleeping so Eric would carry her into the house.

At Gardner Village during our Witch Hunt the other day.

Do You Know Praying Mantis?

I learned something new today. We were out at Gardner Village looking for ghosts and witches (of which Emma found many), when we came to a little boy and his family looking at a rock. Apparently there was a praying mantis on the rock. This boy, who did not know us and could've just let us go by, was kind enough to warn us about the great danger we were in. Did you know that a praying mantis can kill you? Oh yes. According to this boy, this kind wonderful boy, we were not to go anywhere near the bug because if we got too close it would punch us really hard. Yea, I didn't want to get killed or anything, so we made sure not to go too close. This post is dedicated to all nice children who look out for us dumb adults. =)

Perspective

My parents were recently getting rid of some old stuff in their garage and the came across a box that was mine. There were some books in it, a couple pictures, and my A.P. English & A.P. European folders from senior year in high school. I didn't really want to keep them, but I thought it would be fun to look through them first. Apart from a treasure trove of old inside jokes, I found a bunch of papers I had written. I always thought I was a fairly good writer in high school. My teachers almost always seemed to like my work, and I consistently received scores in the 90's. Of course, I feel I have become an even better writer since then with the training received in College and the general life experience gained (and no judging my writing skills based on my blog - it doesn't count), but I was not prepared for what I would find reading these high school papers. Now, keep in mind that these 'A' papers helped me pass my classes and A.P. tests, so they couldn't be that bad right? Wrong!! I was in histerics as I read them. It was laughable that I would be given good grades on these things. Were my teachers crazy? So you don't believe that I could have written anything sub par? (Don't worry - hee hee -I know no one out there thinks that). Well, here's an example. This particular sentence stood out to me as being especially rediculous. I don't remember the topic, but I was writing about Russia (for A.P. European History), and mentioned Ivan the Terrible. Here's part of what I wrote: "Blah blah blah something about Russia, starting with the reign of Ivan the Terrible, so named because he was terrible." What the?!! Wow. I must not have gleaned too much from that chapter if all I could say was that Ivan was called the Terrible because he was infact terrible. I did actually go onto say a little more about him, but still! And that paper received a 94%! I wonder if todays students are held to such obviously low standards? Hmmm. It makes you wonder how anyone could be "left behind" when this is as far as they are expected to come. I never realized just how easy life really was in high school. If only life could be that simple and easy now. =)