To be thankful.

Once again it has taken me two weeks to do an update. I am so sorry. It is so hard to even think about sitting down to a computer after work. By the time I get home, eat dinner, then clean up dinner, pack lunches and get stuff ready for the next day the last thing I want to do is to sit down and relax. Sorry for my laziness. It also hasn’t helped that one of our computers has been down. David is always on the main computer. He is at soccer right now, so I have use of the main computer. YAY!!!!

Let me get you caught up on as much as I can. Last week we had both of the kid’s open houses at the school. As a parent I find it very important to show your kids, no matter how old they get, how much of their life means to me and their life is school.

On Monday we went to Jordan’s open house. It started at 6:00pm. I must say that doesn’t give the working parent much time to get home and feed the family dinner. It gave me no time at all. I get off work at 5:00pm. I work in Burlington, which is 20 minutes away from Bellingham. I ride the vanpool, so by the time we get into Bellingham it at least 5:30, of course on Monday it was late. I met David, Marty and the kids at the school. All the 5th graders sang at the beginning of the opening house. I love watching Jordan perform and of course she loves to perform. After the performance and a few……more like a lot, of work from the principal we finally got released to the classroom. Jordan took us around her classroom showing us everything and explaining what was what. It was nice to see everything and to get a picture in my head for when she talks about stuff at school. Of course her teacher had nothing but nice things to say about Jordan.

Then on Wednesday we had Ken’s open house. This was for parents only. This one started off at 6:30. It gave me enough time to get a little bite to eat before it started. I had David just meet me in town and then we went to the school. We had a list of Ken’s classes and you went in order. We got 10 minutes in each classroom with five min. in-between classes. I had a chance to speak with all of Ken’s teachers. They all said that he is doing great in school and that he is very intelligent.

After we got done with the classes we headed into the assembly for the senior class. There they told us that plans are well underway for the senior class party after graduation. David and I volunteered to help plan the party our first meeting is this Wednesday. I will tell you more about it when I learn more.

Then yesterday we had the Willoughby Thanksgiving dinner. Yes that is correct Thanksgiving. We started the tradition last year right before Andy and Marty left for Arizona. Ever since they became snowbirds we don’t get a chance to have a holiday meal with them. Last year it turned out to be the only real holiday meal with my family. Because last year right before Thanksgiving my little sister Samantha was diagnosed with leukemia. So we spent out holidays at the hospital with my dad, Karla, Mandi and Sammie.

Anyway we had our holiday meal yesterday. We had a house full of friends and family. I had to slit us into two different tables just due to the lack of room. We had the teenage table. I wasn’t able to call it the kid table. Jordan informed me that she was not a kid anymore that she was a pre-teen. At the teen table were Jordan and her friend Summer. Mandi and her friend Que. Sorry if I spelled it wrong. Then Ken his friends two of his friends Tin and Huy. Once again sorry if I spelled it wrong as well. The teens and preteens had a good time at their table. At one point Samantha’s high chair was moved over to their table. I guess she was bored with us adults. After dinner and clean up we sat around and visited while the teenagers played cards. Jordan and Summer practiced on their violins and then gave us a little concert. They did a good job. It wasn’t too bad on the ears. lol We had a delicious meal and great time visiting.

Today has been a not so busy day. It has been a down right lazy day. I haven’t done much of anything, but a little bit of laundry. I like days like today. Get well rested up for the week ahead.

This week is another busy week of running around and doing stuff for the kids. I will try my best to blog, but it looks like I will do all my blogging on the weekends. Have a great weekend everyone.

The Routine.

A couple of my friends keep telling me I need to blog. One of them to remain nameless (Stephani) said I had better blog soon because Ken’s parents are going to think I killed him or something. lol I can testify that he is doing great. He is alive and well.

Sorry for having such a long time between blogs. I have this thing about routine. I need to have one. I am a big routine person. I don’t like making plans on weekday evenings because it messes up my routine. I am a little OCD when it comes to messing up my routine. So with the kids starting school and me starting a new job it is taking a while to get into a new routine. I also get home an hour and a half later then I did from my last job. I would get home about 5:45. Then I would try and figure out what to cook for dinner. Then to prepare it and clean up by the time all that was done it was bedtime. Needless to say I was too tired to even think about blogging. One night Marty cooked dinner and it was ready to eat when I got home. After dinner I had more energy. Jordan and I cleaned her room. I did a little laundry and packed our lunches for the next day. I could not believe how much I had gotten done. I was able to sit down and relax a little bit that night. Having Marty cook that night gave me an idea. You see David gets home about 4pm so I thought why couldn’t he get dinner cooked and ready to eat when I get home. Then I would clean up after dinner. When I talked to David about it here is what he said. “You plan it and I will cook it.” That is what we did all last week. It was so nice to come home and have dinner already done and ready to eat. We all sit down at the table and eat dinner together every night. It is really nice. I love eating as a family at the dinner table. It really keeps up connected and together.

Now the next part of my routine I need to work on is computer time. I think I went three days before I check my email. I usually check my emails several times a day. You see I am still in training at work. The training they have at Regence is fabulous. They really invest a lot of time in making sure their employees are well trained. We are in a small windowless classroom for 13 weeks. The nice thing that Regence realizes is that they are filling our brains with a lot of information so they try to make it as fun as possible. When they told me I would be tired at the end of each day I thought they were a little nuts. How could I get exhausted just sitting in the room looking at a computer? They were so correct. There are some days that I could just go home and fall into bed as soon as I walk in the door. Filling your brain with A LOT of new information can be exhausting. Needless to say sitting down at the computer is the last thing I want to do when I get home. I am going to try and put into my routine is maybe a little computer time once a week and then on the weekends. That should be reasonable. So thank you to everyone for your patience while I try to get my routine back in control.

Now let me catch you up on everyone else in the family.

David
David is getting back into shooting high school football games. I usually plan on him being gone on Friday nights. He follows Lynden High around to all their games. He has been doing this every year for I would say at least five years maybe more. The parents have gotten to know him and I think they count on him being at the games. The high school it self now uses him for pictures for their programs, yearbook and more. His favorite thing to do is shoot sports. He has gotten a better camera for shooting sports events. I will be putting a link to his web site on my blog for people to check out his photos.

Andy and Marty
Andy and Marty are still here. They are planning on leaving around the beginning of October to head back to Yuma. It is starting to get cold here. We haven’t had to turn our heat on yet, but I am sure it will be soon. Poor Marty gets cold really easy. The Yuma heat is in her blood. Andy has been doing a lot of work on our yard this summer. He has saved us thousands of dollars in labor fees with all the work he did on our yard. I think Andy was about the only person happy to see the rain this morning. We have little blades of grass coming up here and there. He says that if the weather continues like this he just might have to mow before he leaves. As for Marty I think she would like the sun to come back. Lol

Jordan
Jordan is doing well with school. She joined the school orchestra last week. She was very excited to get the class started. It is one of the privileges of being a 5th grader. We got the letter on a Thursday telling us that if our student wanted to join the orchestra that they needed have their instrument and books by the following Monday. Needless to say as a working mom I was not happy with the short notice. They also said that one of the classes was going to be on Monday’s before school. After a little stressing out on my part we got it worked out. David was able to work things out with his job. He would go into to work a little later so that he could drop Jordan and one of her friends off in time to get to orchestra lessons. Once we had that worked out we needed to work on getting the instrument. They had a choice of playing a violin, viola or cello. Jordan chose to play the violin. I was planning on running around on Saturday to get it done. A big THANK you to my dad he did all the legwork for me. He called around and found the cheapest place to rent. Then we meet on Saturday to go to the music store. He insisted on paying for it. He and Karla talked about it and decided that it would be a good investment to buy the violin for her. If she decides to stick with it after this year great, if not we will give it back to my dad. They will either keep it for Samantha or sell it. Right now Jordan’s plan is to join the band when she gets into middle school. But she knows that if she really likes playing the violin she can continue that instead. So far she loves violin classes and enjoys practicing when she gets home. But I know that the novelty might wear off soon. I will keep you posted.

Ken
Ken has gotten settled into the school life. He has gotten his class schedule how he wants it. We still don’t know if he will be able to graduate, but we do have him in the classes he needs to graduate. He seems to like most of his classes. He does say that history is boring. lol But what kid hasn’t said that before. One of the things he needs to do is pass the WASL this spring. It is required that all Washington State students pass it. He also has a senior project that needs to be done. He has chosen photography as his project. David will be his mentor. He has a few steps he needs to take to graduate, but he is doing it and we will try our best to get that diploma for him to take home.
He appears to have adjusted to us and life here. His English is getting better and better. I was a little worried that he hasn’t done anything outside of school with his friends. I thought that maybe he wasn’t making any. Since David was shooting the Squalicum football game we told Ken he needed to go with David to the game. We suggested that he meet one of his friends at the game to hang out with while David did his thing. When they got home that night I asked Ken if he liked the game he said yes and that he wanted to go next week. YEAH!!!! I was so happy to hear that he enjoyed it and has made plans to go again. He also tells me he wants to go to homecoming. He is just trying to find a date. That will be a whole other blog.

Ken and Jordan seem to be bonding a little too. They run around the house chasing after each other. Jordan loves that fact that Ken will play games with her. They will sit in Ken’s room playing a game listening to music together. It is cute and sweet to see. Ken is very patient with Jordan.

Once again sorry about the long time between blogs, I will try my best to blog once mid week and once on the weekends. Once the routine gets into place it will go like clock work……as long as no one throws a wrench into my clock. lol

Pictures

Grandma Marty and Ken trying to stay warm.


Lily, Ken, Summer and Jay.


Summer holding next year's catch. Grow crab grow!!!


Crabbing 101 taught by Prof. Zerbst.


Look mom it's dinner


Ken and Melanie


Darren checking out the catch of the day.


David enjoying his "labor day" of crabbing.


Ken said the water was way too cold.

First days

Oh my gosh this last couple of days have been very very busy. It started on Monday when we went crabbing off the pier in Bellingham with all our friends. Here is the list of people that we had down on the pier. David W, Jordan, Ken, Marty, Stephani, Erich, Summer, Jay, Lily, David S, Michelle S, Melanie, Darren and myself Michelle W. We had a great time spending all day together trying to catch us some crab. I had only planned on staying there until maybe 2 or so. But every time we pulled up the nets I thought well lets try it one more time. Then one more time after one more time before I knew it, it was 4:00pm. We caught a total of four keepers, but not enough to feed us dinner. So David W decided that we should go to The Waterfront for some fish & beer. The Waterfront is a bar and of course minors are not allowed in the bar so we eat outside on the picnic tables. Since we eat outside there was to be no beer….sorry guys. I think the good conversation made up for the lack of beer. I have posted the picture of us outside the restaurant.

Melanie, Ken’s Aunt and her boyfriend Darren came back to the house after dinner to spend a little more time with Ken before they had to leave home. It was a wonderful visit with them. It sounds like their trip to Seattle with Ken was a success. Both Melanie and Darren are very warm and caring people.

Tuesday was a day of adventure for the Willoughby family. The kids had their first day of school and I started my first day at my new job at Regence Medical Insurance. Here is a break down of our days.

Jordan: Had a good day, her desk is next to her buddy Tala. They had a new PE teacher this year and it is a boy teacher. She says he seems like a nice teacher, but he is very young. She says he looks 12 lol. She knows that is my expression when I see a teacher that looks younger then me. It was cute to hear her say it.

Ken: Had a good first day as well. He said he enjoyed the freedom that he got in the classroom. Such as the teachers asking the students their opinions on the subject, as well as eating or drinking in class. He said he wasn’t able to do those things in Vietnam. Another thing he enjoyed was switching classes every period. In Vietnam he said that the students stayed in the classroom and the teachers would switch classes. He did however come home very hungry. He didn’t eat lunch in school because he had early lunch and he wasn’t hungry at that time.

He and David meet with the school counselor to discuss more on if Ken can graduate at the end of the year. It is looking on the bright side that he will be able to get his diploma. He has some work cut out for him between now and then. One of them is passing the WASL in the spring. This of you not from Washington the WASL is Washington State assessment test that every student must pass in order to graduate. Another thing he must do is some sort of big project that is due at the end of the year. He is going to speak to his counselor about that as well. In the meant time we have him in all the classes he will need toward a diploma. We are just waiting to hear if he will get credit for the English classes he did in Vietnam. I will keep you posted on that as time goes on.

On Ken’s second day at school a fellow Vietnamese student asked Ken if he was Vietnamese. He then showed him where he and his friend hung out at the school. I am hoping this is a new link for Ken to make some new friends.

Michelle: I too am in school, Regency University. For the next 13 weeks I will be in a classroom along with 14 other new hires at Regency. They take the training at Regence very serious. They want their employees to be well prepared before they put them on the phones. I work for the Boeing division. The goal is to have enough people in customer service so that no one has to wait on hold. Regence is doing their best to change Medical Insurance. I am very impressed with all that they are trying to do to make this change. The trainers are doing their best to make sometimes a boring situation to not be boring. The last couple of days have been good.

It is only day two at my new job and I am trying to work out a schedule for how I am going to work things out at home. I get home an hour later then I did when I worked at Mustang. I need to get organized with what to do for dinner and making sure homework gets done. I am sure this will all work out soon. In the mean time please understand that I won’t be blogging every day. I will try my best to keep everyone caught up on stuff.

BBQ and more

It has been a busy week. Getting the kids ready for school and my last week at my job. For those of you that may have not heard I have quit Mustang Survival and going back into the medical field. I did not go out looking for a new job my friend Michelle encouraged me to apply at Regence Medical Insurance. (Thank you very much Michelle) She felt with my medical experience and my customer service experience would be a good fit for Regence. I loved working for Mustang the girls there are great and it is a good company. But Regence had a bit more to offer me. The big thing was a better chance for advancement, 401 K with matching and a pension plan. Financially it was much better. I have also gotten to know a few of the girls that work there and they are very sweet and I know we will be friends. That is what I missed the most about the hospital is the friends I made. We did a lot of stuff together outside of work. Including a girl’s trip to Vegas. That was a blast. Sorry no stories from that trip…..remember what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. LOL Right Sara!!!!

Another thing we did was plan a last minute BBQ for this weekend. It was in honor of Ken’s arrival. He has been here almost two weeks. We invited family, friends and neighbors. It was very successful. At one point our deck was completely full of people with a couple down on our patio, and a majority of the kids over playing on the swings. At first I thought we would have to squeeze everybody into the house. The wind had picked up in the beginning and it was cold. But after about 30 min. it stopped and the rest of the night was perfect. We had lots and lots of good food. Then Karla, my dad’s wife, made homemade apple pie. It was delicious. I can’t remember the last time I had homemade apple pie….my favorite. I think I had a chance to talk to everyone at the party. It was lots of fun and lots of laughing.

Ken seemed to have lots of fun. When he arrived here two weeks his English was very good, but we sometimes had to either talk slower or explain it a bit. He has improved a lot since he got here.

Last week we meet with Ken’s counslor again to talk about his classes. We rearranged them again and got him out of the ESL English class and into a regular English class. Ken had with him a transcript from his last school. Once we figure out a couple of things he might be able to graduate at the end of the year. We are really hoping it works. In the mean time Ken has arranged to take the SATs this fall. He is thinking about coming back to attend a University next year. He doesn’t know for sure but he wants to be prepared either way. We will know more after Tuesday. David and Ken have another appointment with the counselor. I really hope it works out for him.

Today Ken is in Seattle with his Aunt Melanie and her boy friend Darren. They are visiting from San Francisco. The last time that Melanie saw Ken was when he was a little baby. So this is a special visit for the both of them. Ken has text me a couple of times today telling me he is having fun.

In the short time that Ken has been here I have come to care for him very much. I love the fact that he calls me mom. He is a very sweet and kind. He and Jordan are still trying to find their place with each other, but seem to be getting along. I leave a small list of chores for them to do. And example would be to empty the dishwasher, do their laundry and clean the bathroom they share. From what Marty tells me they do it together. An example would be Jordan will pull all the dishes out of the dishwasher and stack them together and Ken will put them up in the cupboard. I hope they will continue working together as time goes by.

Well tomorrow we might try to take Ken crabbing. It is the last day in our area to go. We will be spending the time with our friends Stephani and Erich and their kids. It should be fun. I am sure we will have some good stories from that adventure.

That’s it for now. I will try to bog not leave such a big time frame between my blogs.