Gotta Great Email!
This is an email I got from a friend of mine. One of Cole's friends mom. She likes sending things like this and it is refreshing to read!

Here is a speech (or rules rather) from Bill Gates:

Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this! Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1:Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2 : The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.&nb sp;

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

I know my kids have not learned some of these but they are a bit young yet. The good news is that they CAN fail in our school! Our school is a Christian school and does not often tolerate bad behavior. I am glad of that, it keeps my kids from being exposed to an environment where consequences are too slight to matter. In the real world jobs don't come to you on a plate and once you do have one, sitting around doing nothing isn't going to keep that job. Just because you want something (like money) doesn't mean you don't have to work for it.

California Kids

Ok, so just a week out of school and the kids are antsy already! Giving them a break, we were planning on going to the beach with daddy on his day off, but he wasn't feeling so well, so we all stayed home and just kind of hung out. So I promised the kids I would take them to the beach the next day. So we got up (I slept in : P ) the kids were playing and we just kind of slowly got our stuff together, had a late breakfast and then headed out. Minimal stuff, since I would be carrying most of it. So we headed to the "nice" beach...Balboa. It was a bit overcast at first but very mild. We found parking rather easily at what used to be the free parking area. No longer, now a buck and hour...not too bad. We parked, paid and then headed over to the fun zone. We had tons of wooden tokens for the merry go round so the kids and I and another family used them and went on like 3-4 times. I got a little dizzy after the first two so I just watched! Then we went back to the car, got out our stuff and headed to the sand. The kids had a great time until Kaleigh got stung by a bee! It must have landed on her bright bathing suit and then she hit it by swinging her arm (not knowing it was there). She is really good about not freaking out around bees like her mom! She didn't have a chance though...not knowing it was there and all.

So she cried for a bit and I asked if she wanted to leave. Of course the answer was no, and she got over it pretty quickly! Good for her! Less drama then usual. So the rest of the afternoon was very relaxing. We left before the worst traffic and headed home. A 17 degree difference in temperature when we got home! Whew! But a great time!

Variety show cont...but first look at the first video below this one, "Cole's Variety Show"

This part is where they say something like, "If I were an Octopus..." I thought it was cute.

Cole's Variety Show

Cole enjoys most of what his teacher puts together for them and the elementary school always puts on a Variety show at the end of the year. Well, if the kids want to do something on their own they have to come up with the idea, whose going to be in it and what it is going to be about. A lot sing, dance, do gymnastics or demonstrate a sport. Cole did not show any interest at all when the form came home to fill out. But as soon as rehearsals started, he told his teacher he wanted to be in it. Well, she had to explain that it was too late to sign up. He cried. She consoled and everything was ok again. He was a little upset when he got home but I showed him the form that came home and when it was due which was shortly after the form came home (about a month before) . Well, then I found out that the whole class would be singing a song so it wasn't so bad. He did a great job and in the video, Cole seems pretty happy. The video is not complete, my camera only does 30 seconds at time.

Kaleigh's Bridging Ceremony - Brownies to Juniors
I am not too familiar with all of this Girl Scout stuff, all I know I have heard from sis, Tina and mostly about her "older" girl scout, Diana. The Bridging ceremony was rather casual and a little tedious for Cole to sit through. It may have been better if he could see more of what the girls were doing. They did some little puppet show and it was falling down while they were doing it. I need to let them know I have a nice strong, handpainted puppet theatre that Carl and I made. Maybe they can use if from now on! So here is Kaleigh as a Brownie, no uniform or vest, just the sash. We did work hard to get some try-its (badges) so that she wouldn't be going in totally bare! She actually had more than some of the troop brownies, so cool!
Next they gave her a little card with a slogan or motto to read, which she had no idea that she would be doing, but she did great! This is where she is on the "Bridge" ready to become a Junior! Way to go, Kaleigh!

Here we are together, since I am the one that puts the Junior sash on, I got to have my picture taken too! Woot! She was a little uncertain because she was the only new person there and they showed a slide show of all of the girls from before doing fun stuff. She told me later that she didn't think they would do as many fun things. I told her, don't think that! Tante Tina and Diana still do fun stuff and they have done stuff like this for years! So I hope that our troop will continue with the fun stuff! I will certainly try and help as much as I can! Face painting etc!

Florists mess up a lot!
Ok, as you can see, this arrangement is very nice, a lot of flowers I like and they were sent with such love and sympathy. I was touched. Now comes the funny part. At our church the assembly is called "The Bretheren." This is because they originated from the Plymouth Bretheren, a conservative non-denomenational Christian church. So there is no minister, paster or reverend. So you can imagine my surprise when I received these beautiful flowers from the "Buena Park Reverend." Well, I asked Carl's mom and she said, "from who?" I told her again and she laughed saying that one of the ladies at the church HAD sent an arrangement but it should have read, "from the Buena Park Bretheren". So next time we went to church, I asked the older lady that sends the flowers, "so Donna, are you the Buena Park Reverend?" She looked at me and then burst out laughing! I told her what happened, we had another good laugh and then she asked, "well, were they nice flowers?" I said that they were beautiful!

Second part of the story...

So we are up in Canada for my dad's memorial and my mom received a bunch of lovely arrangements. One of which came from Carl's parents George and Annette. Well, again, my mom had a bit of a giggle and she showed me why. One the card from them it says, "Love, George and Nanette". Pretty funny. So, I am guessing many florists enjoy these little jokes. Maybe they even do them on purpose to cheer up those who are grieving. Carl doesn't think so but you never know!

Sorry, no photos of Kaleigh's Bridging Ceremony yet, I can't find my Camera!

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