Yesterday I passed a teacher in the hallway and casually asked "How are you today?" as I walked by. Her answer surprised me: "Blessed."
Maybe her response is common in this area, but it was the first time I've ever heard anyone answer "How are you?" by saying "blessed." It made me think about how, regardless of how crazy of a day I'm having a work (even though that particular day was actually great), that I really do enjoy an abundant life. I'm so glad to have a college degree and a job. More importantly I'm thankful for a loving husband and family as well as the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Feb 3, 2010
Jan 24, 2010
National Zoo
Of all of the free things in DC to do,
Our number one vote is the National...
They have quite a few demonstrations throughout the day. I'm not sure what it's like during spring and summer, but we had a lot of fun watching the elephants eat and we were able to ask one of the zookeepers lots of questions. Did you know... that an elephant's trunk has at least 40,000 individual muscles in it? African elephants have two fingerlike projections at the end of their trunk and Asian elephants have one. According to the zookeeper, elephants fall in line after dolphins as far as intelligence rankings go.
We found this Panda at a nearby Marriott. I think the pandas have been a big attraction in DC (the metro cards have a panda printed on them) and one of the Zoo's pandas will be going home to China soon so we're glad we made a trip to see him even if it was a little cold!
Our number one vote is the National...
If I was really cool I would keep the rhyme going. Instead, here are some pictures from our fun visit!
This is me standing under the Orangutan Transport System, or "O Line". The orangutans have a system of cables and towers that allows them to travel 500 ft back and forth between their home and the "Think Tank" exhibit. The orangutans are allowed to travel at will between 10 am and 2 pm... right over the heads of the zoo visitors! Six of the eight towers have wide wire skirts charged with enough electricity to deter the orangutans from climbing down. It's really fun to watch the orangutans go back and forth and hang right above you.
Jan 15, 2010
Enjoying and recovering from Christmas break
Right now it is 54 degrees outside... in January!! What a great way to start a 3 day weekend.
This week was especially tough at work. I had several IEP meetings, progress reports due, and a billion other things it seems like. The goal I set with my CFY (clinical fellowship year) supervisor for the month of January was "Have fun in therapy." I don't know if I met my goal on Wednesday and Thursday this week, but the other 8 days since Winter Break have been good. I have definitely come to love my kids, even the crazy ones. My favorite memories of today are 1) the kindergartner who calls his classmate "Heptor" instead of "Hector" (sounds like a nickname for a velociraptor with hepatitis) and 2) another kindergartner wiggling in his chair repeating "boogie" for 5 minutes after he learned the synonym pair dance/boogie.
Stephen started school again this week. He's taking Program Evaluation, Project Management, and Public Budgeting. They all seem like very practical classes and he's enjoying them so far. In his Program Evaluation class they actually get to pick a client to design an evaluation for. The choices are mostly nonprofit organizations and some federal government departments. We'll find out next week who his client is. After searching for several weeks for a Winter/Spring internship, he decided to go back to DC Public Schools. This time he'll be getting a stipend (yay!) and working with another intern who's transferring to Operations from another department. Stephen really enjoyed his internship last semester so we figured there's no reason he couldn't go back.
Christmas break was FANTASTIC! We loved spending time with Stephen's family in Georgia, playing Wii, watching movies in their new home theater, playing Stephen's new board game "Cosmic Encounters", playing "ninja", going out to eat, catching up on all the books we've wanted to read, having a Christmas eve sleepover with the kids, seeing Avatar, and making a ridiculous music video with Stephen's siblings (coming soon).
Christmas with the Haskins :) We had a blast!
and this little sleepy guy
This week was especially tough at work. I had several IEP meetings, progress reports due, and a billion other things it seems like. The goal I set with my CFY (clinical fellowship year) supervisor for the month of January was "Have fun in therapy." I don't know if I met my goal on Wednesday and Thursday this week, but the other 8 days since Winter Break have been good. I have definitely come to love my kids, even the crazy ones. My favorite memories of today are 1) the kindergartner who calls his classmate "Heptor" instead of "Hector" (sounds like a nickname for a velociraptor with hepatitis) and 2) another kindergartner wiggling in his chair repeating "boogie" for 5 minutes after he learned the synonym pair dance/boogie.
Stephen started school again this week. He's taking Program Evaluation, Project Management, and Public Budgeting. They all seem like very practical classes and he's enjoying them so far. In his Program Evaluation class they actually get to pick a client to design an evaluation for. The choices are mostly nonprofit organizations and some federal government departments. We'll find out next week who his client is. After searching for several weeks for a Winter/Spring internship, he decided to go back to DC Public Schools. This time he'll be getting a stipend (yay!) and working with another intern who's transferring to Operations from another department. Stephen really enjoyed his internship last semester so we figured there's no reason he couldn't go back.
Christmas break was FANTASTIC! We loved spending time with Stephen's family in Georgia, playing Wii, watching movies in their new home theater, playing Stephen's new board game "Cosmic Encounters", playing "ninja", going out to eat, catching up on all the books we've wanted to read, having a Christmas eve sleepover with the kids, seeing Avatar, and making a ridiculous music video with Stephen's siblings (coming soon).
Christmas with the Haskins :) We had a blast!
Sibling gifts
"Ninja" in action
On one last note, can you believe that this little sleepy guy
and this little sleepy guy
are the same person?! Our nephew Caleb is now 9 weeks old and has grown from 2 lbs 7 oz to over 6 lbs! He is no longer on oxygen and will be able to go home from the NICU once he learns to eat well. What a sweet little boy, we can't wait to meet him!
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