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Ryan at the cabin   (Swanton, MD)                         Found the private neighborhood beach!

Inside the cabin                                                  Walk up and down (really up and down!) the side roads.        Snow

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Great weekend get-away!

Nick clearing leaves off the porch  Side roads had amazing hills!

Monday morning walk

Swallows Falls pics (Oakland, MD)

Cooper’s rock pics on the way home (Bruceton Mills, West Virginia)

Chris we love to see smiling as he enjoys things in his life, visiting with family, as we all share his care along with his aids that he has, and we are grateful for all who love him! He is in adult workshop now, and we are glad the transition was smooth without a long waiting period. Chris’s graduation was a high point of the year with a lot of events and good food to eat! Chris also got to go on fun trips to Atwood Lake Fall Festival and our trip to Kraynak’s in Sharon for Christmas. We are also soon choosing new applications for his IPad for his communication needs.

Colleen continues to have a very busy life with college, her boyfriend Scott, and all her animals. She is seeking another job that is year-round and right now is enjoying her Christmas break. I recently heard her sing, and I must say she has a beautiful voice, and she sings well with her boyfriend who also has a great voice! She had an awesome graduation party with Chris – can’t believe our oldest are both done with high school! Her current menagerie consists of two cats, two geckos, two guinea pigs, two betas, six goldfish, about six frogs and two crabs.

Ryan is unbelievably in his last year of elementary school – 5^th grade. Academically he continues to excel, and he is putting more and more complicated puzzles together in only minutes. He still loves the Incredibles movie and also greatly enjoys the cameras on his IPad, computers, and the TV. Latchkey kept Ryan busy two afternoons a week last year through the spring, and he will be starting back at that three afternoons a week in January for my spring semester. (I didn’t have any afternoon classes this fall semester.)

We are still carrying out 3 two-day trips every quarter, totaling 24 days away a year! We are busy all day with data entry then have some time to ourselves in the evening – the last one was December 19, and we did much of our Christmas shopping in Steubenville at a cute mall in the hills. I am in my last semester of “pre” advanced study special education courses at Kent, and hope to find classes next year for advanced study that are NOT at night – as at first glance at the catalog for THIS semester most are at night! That would make the next two years such a struggle with child care. I graduate now officially in spring of 15! I also am still working as a home health aide. Rog is hoping to return to school soon to major in human services.

I began the summer break on approximately May 1, 2012, with the completion of 4 classes – the most I’ve ever taken – centered on teaching itself (prerequisites done!).  I took Democracy and Education, Special Education, Motor Development, and Speech and Language courses, and with the heavy focus on writing in general in these courses I managed to get a 4.0!!!  I was so excited as I never did that before.  Next semester math comes to challenge me again (Math for Teachers) and I will have to take two courses in it, so my expectations of 4.0 for next year are extremely slim – but it was nice to do it once in my college career!

May 1 we went on the first leg of our summer business trip – the three southern Ohio counties we do the first day – Monroe, Guernsey, Morgan – this huge coal shovel is down in Noble County, at http://www.noblecountyohio.com/muskie.html – we see it every time we go down the winding Route 78.  We stopped on the way home this time, which we usually don’t get a chance to do.  Another view from it – so pretty! 

June 25, 26 we had our first part of our summer business trip, and went to Jefferson County, OH; Jefferson County, PA; Forest and Warren Counties, PA. With this being our anniversary we also went over to Salamanca, NY and ate at Napoli’s pizza and visited our old camping favorite area at Allegheny State Park. July 3 we went on the second part OF the first part of our trip – ha ha – with the addition of 3 counties we had to have an additional one-day trip, where we went to Greene County, PA, and ate dinner with our friends Pat and Tim in Uniontown – we called this our SECOND 25th anniversary dinner

Mid June brought the beginning of summer camp as well as the full-fledged prep for our graduation parties!

We also had two attempts to see fireworks, (poor Ashleigh had three attempts), all of which were canceled due to weather – storms or wind.  Meanwhile the state has been in a drought otherwise.  So we’re going to give in one more chance August 5 when we attend the Fest — http://www.thefest.us/. 

We attended 2 graduation parties and had our own, and it was really fun but very very busy – and so so hot!!!  So far this summer we have had 19 days above 90 degrees.  We are hoping for another day of swimming soon as we only so far have gone on June 10.  I am sure we will go again…

After all that excitement the past few weeks I have been attempting to do a lot of paper sorting, and also cleaned the kitchen, and am going to make some plans for the next paperwork projects and what other cleaning projects I can complete before school starts.  I have gotten nowhere near done what I expected to, but have enjoyed many moments with the family and out in the community, and have met all the paperwork deadlines I had for the kids and college, of which there were many, and many more immediately forthcoming!!  My Better Homes and Gardens goal, however, has again been put off…. early this summer I had the full expectation of having the entire house cleaned and organized by now…

What I’d like to do before August 27, when I start school?

• Finish all the filing in the office (it’s already sorted by drawer now – yay me! – and all recycling is ready to go across the street).  Clean out files if possible.
• Almost forgot this one – a big one – try and get 1/4 to 1/2 done with course on educational psych for fall that is already on line – that will put me so much ahead for fall where I’m also taking math for teachers, educational technology, and American sign language [only class on campus, rest online!]
• Prioritize all paperwork and put on the calendar and make sure it’s done on time.  For Chris, Colleen, Ryan, my college, Rog/Colleen’s college, and anything else I need to do…
• Sort all clothes in the three bedrooms and give away the tons we don’t need.
• KEEP deleting emails I don’t need – in the last week I have gone from 18000 emails to 2,000 emails, and still deleting.
• Go through freezers again and plan more meals to use up what we have.
• Complete the deep-cleaning of the kitchen by scrubbing out and sorting all cabinets.
• Finish straightening basement, clean out the fridge bins that are down there for the downstairs freezer
• Pass out Avon books again.
• Finish painting living room?
• Work with Colleen on sorting 4 years worth of school documents and organize them into bookcase and filing sorters.
• Probably many more ………

As always the summer is flying by.  I go back to school August 27, Colleen starts August 25 (Mon/Wed. 10-4:45 (big break in the middle so far where I’d like to help her schedule a voice class at Fine Arts!), and Thurs. 9-12:50), Roger will start the same week but I’m not sure yet what classes he’s taking – majoring in human services at Lakeland then most likely finishing at Cleveland State.  He already has his arts degree (so he’s farther ahead than I was) so hopefully will finish before me maybe – we hope to finish up by 2015 anyhow!!  Then I’ll be a teacher and he’ll be a special needs social worker.  Colleen is starting her graphic design degree.

Chris is doing well and all kinds of plans are in the works with his I/O Waiver and workers, and he starts workshop in the fall!  He is doing well, praise God! 

(Lilacs at Kent)     Hard to believe I only go down to Kent 5 more times, to the Main branch, before summer break.  I have enjoyed my year at main, but saving on the gas will be good.  In Fall so far I have 3 online classes, and my only class I have to drive to is ASL and it’s either at Ashtabula or Twinsburg.  So that will save a little gas and even more time!  My other classes will be math for teachers ( fear), educational psychology, and educational technology.  I will be getting math tutoring at whatever branch my ASL is.

I am taking a bit of a break from Facebook at this point – as I’m heavily into finishing all my papers, etc. for my present classes, and have a ton of reading to do.  So just a little catch-up here before I have my last sprint to the end of my year, and then summer break!

Colleen and Chris are both graduating this year, so we will be planning a graduation party this summer – unbelievable!  My two oldest, such memories, so many years — They looked like twins back then.  Not anymore!  We love them both so much and am so proud of them – may their lives get better and better —

We’re still in the process of finding Chris’s own home that he can have 24 hour care in – the search continues – there are several possibilities – prayers appreciated!