A little academic bragging...

I brag a little today, only because I'm in awe.

Awe: "an overwhelming feeling of admiration".
Yes, "awe" is the right word.

School, lessons, studying, test taking, grades.....all of it was very difficult for me through my public school years. Who knows, maybe that's part of the reason my 4 year college degree actually to me 10....

How ironic, that I became a teacher. Or perhaps that was His plan all along. Hopefully, those struggles help me be a better teacher.

But I digress. This wasn't going to be about, me the teacher....
It was going to be about me, the parent.

I know this is only a small link in their large academic future, but I am thrilled to share that, McKenna finished another school year with "ALL "A's".....

AND Andrea finished her first year of college with almost all A's, only one B her first semester. Ultimately making the Dean's List the second semester!

My grandfather liked to tell a story about me when once he was so proud, "he burst a button" right off of his shirt....Me too Gramp; I'm so proud of these girls I could "burst a button"!

Thanks for checking.
Melle :)

Fathers

Fathers.

Fathers have always been kind of a mystery to me.

My dad,

My dad was cool.

He and my mom met in art school, in Los Angeles, in the early 1960's; I mean, he was very cool!
He played trumpet, which I never heard, but I do remember loving his guitar playing and his "sound".
But, my dad, wasn't a father.
And that's okay.


It's okay, that he wasn't a father, because, I had a grandfather. A grandfather, who I still think was the greatest man I've ever known.

It's a very blessed person who has an amazing father or grandfather in their lives. And of all the prayers I prayed as a child, the greatest prayer I had was that my own children would grow up with a great father. My second prayer was that I'd be blessed with a daughter. How fortunate am I to have two daughters and they have a wonderful daddy. {I can't imagine what I've done right to be so blessed, but I am ever so grateful.}

Scott and the girls!

Through the years, my dad and I had an on again off again friendship. He passed on to me my curly hair and according to my mom, his temper. I've also always had an innate appreciation for Native Americans, which truly must come from that Cherokee blood. I spent about a week with Roger when I think I was about 13. He was living in his native hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma. I fell in love with the land there, too.

Roger Tillison passed away just before this last Christmas. If you Google his name you can find a bit of information about him. Click here for one such article and samples of his music. It has some nice comments after it with some stories. These are things I never knew about him, but they warmed my heart a little by the kind words many of his friends wrote about him.


I always thought it was the coolest thing that my grandfather was born just before the "turn of the century". He was born in 1898 in the Rocky Mountain state of Idaho.

This is a sketch by my mom of me and Gramp, 1964. It's just about my favorite.

During my young childhood, before he retired and spoiled me rotten, Paul S. Ballif was Chief of Engineering for the National Bureau of Standards, in Boulder, Colorado. I remember never really knowing what that was, but it sounded "really important"!  This photo was taken while visiting him at work.

I mean look at me. That's a little face of someone who adored her grandfather! He was such a wise man. I only wish it didn't take me a lifetime to appreciate that. He wasn't always so patient and he was private, but he was steadfast in his beliefs and a great storyteller! Gramp passed on to me my dimples and my bushy eyebrows { I loved his eyebrows, I'm not so crazy about mine}. He taught me to love the land and appreciate the outdoors. In my heart, "home" will always be that red brick home, nestled at the foothills of Boulder, Colorado.

This is McKenna (3) and Andrea (8) during the summer of 2004 in front of my grandfather's house. Gramp had passed away while I was pregnant with Andrea. This was the first (and the last) time I had visited my hometown. 

But whether its dad, daddy, father, pop, papa, or the man of the house, for me, it doesn't get any more amazing then this serious,

I mean, wild and crazy man I am blessed to call my husband.
He IS patient, thoughtful and kind.
He IS wise beyond his years, and could be humble if he ever made a mistake.
He IS my other half and my better half.
He fills all the voids in my soul.

The only man in my life that I love with all of my heart.
So grateful that he is the daddy to these two sweet girls.
Enjoy.
{Scott's daddy and awesome grandpa is also featured in this video}


{you can watch in full screen by clicking the rectangle in the bottom right corner}

Happy Father's Day to those great daddys out there.
Girls and boys, hug them tight, because you'll never know the sacrifices they've made to help you
become a better you.

Melle

Summer 2014 - It starts - thank GOD!

six months since my last post, i don't think that counts as blogging anymore
so here is a little post, just to get me started again

It's week two of my summer break.
What happened to week one?
Well, it seems, I always spend my first week sleeping. Or sometimes I lay for hours watching movies. And then, more sleeping.

Week two though, I finally found my hands with some paint on them:

I didn't really paint anything.....but I did finish with a boat load of new gift tags!

I don't know what I'll ever do with so many, but I like making tags because they provide immediate gratification. That's good, because I usually {never} finish anything!

And on that note, I am working on ideas for future posts, but we'll see:
I have an idea for sharing  "Photos from my cell phone"

Or an idea for "Father's Day Tribute"

photo circa 2007 (Scott and McKenna at Disney with Andrea peeking from behind)

And, just today, feeling inspired to work on a few projects for school; not artwork projects but paperwork projects. It's very unusual, but I'll go with it while I can.

I'll keep you posted.......I hope!

Melle

Happy New Year!

The blessings of a new year include a clean slate:

Here I can here Anne Shirley of Anne of Green Gables saying, "Each day is a new beginning, with no mistakes in it."

And, you can leave your past behind you:

Here I can here Rafiki saying, "Yes, the past can hurt, but the way I see it, you can either run from it....or learn from it.....so what are ya gonna do?"

.....I hope, learn from it!

Happy New Year everyone! For those of you who know me well, I do don't New Year's eve, day, week, very well....I'm not sure why. I think I'm always sad to see the old year go and I'm scared to death of what the new year brings! I always feel badly about the things I didn't get done and I dread the list of things I still have left to do. See, now you know why I'm such a basket case! :o)

Okay, well, then, "learn from it", my mistakes of last year: I didn't blog as much - poor time management? Probably. Internet surfing - yes, for sure; sucked into what I like to call the Pinterest vortex. (A blog post coming about that for sure in the near future.) But, I've put on my "big girl panties" and I'm ready to try this again.

Let's start with a little video of our Christmas.
Another mistake, I didn't take very many pictures, so I had to improvise with this slideshow. When I was all done, it still made me cry, so I think I still managed to record what was important. Enjoy:



For the daughter who likes to cook and bake, but still only eats five things in her diet,

she got a Kitchen Aid from Santa! This was totally inspired by Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Women.
For the daughter who is now a college student,

she finally got a real, bonafind, updated, working laptop!
For his Man Cave, Scott got beer...

and a cute little fridge to keep it in!
I got clothes, purses, slippers and jewelry....and then, just a little something....

to decorate my walls with!!! Yes, that's a Thomas Kincade print of my favorite Disney movie of all time!!
(OMG, I can't believe I just posted this picture of me - eek!)


There are a few more changes to make to this here blog for the new year that I'm still working on. One change is the tabs at the top, I've added two new ones and condensed some others. One is 50 @ 50, click on it to see what that is about. And then, the "My two cents" tab which will include bits and tidbits of things I find on the internet (since I spend so much time there) that some of you may find helpful from time to time.

Okay, well then, another mistake I make, all the time, is procrastination....and letting my kids sleep in too long while on break.....SO, here's to starting the new year off right - I better go wake up those girls and start putting the holiday decorations away......

.....right after one more cup of Earl Grey.....
I'm on break too, you know!

Love, Melle :o)

Good news - it was a sweet weekend;

Bad news - too tired now to fill in the details....

Good news - all you need to know is Andrea came home this weekend, her first time since her move to college, to celebrate her birthday and we had a wonderful time!

L to R: McKenna, Andrea and friend from high school, Caitlin

Friday night started at dinner with family and friends at Kotobuki's! 

Saturday was a day at Disney.

McKenna and Andrea in front of Tower of Terror at Hollywood Studios

It was almost harder taking her back today than it was the first time....but, so so very proud of her, and I know in my heart that she is in the right where she is supposed to be. :o)

P.S.
I still cry when I walk down Main Street at the Magic Kingdom. I love it there.

Melle :o)

birthdays and miscellaneous....

September always seems to kick of our busy time of year, and then it quickly blends into Christmas - so hold on.....and here we go.......
Well, with Andrea off to collage, we aren't as busy with high school events, but with McKenna in the middle school, there still is some school spirit to share. Homecoming at the high school was already this Friday, so McKenna's school had 3 themed dress down days. Each day was carefully planned and accessorized over the weekend. For example, she crafted all three pairs of shoes,

And splatter painted in the studio,

The first one "Patriotic Day" (9-11 - yep, my birthday),

The second one "Super Hero Day", and Secret Agent Perry the Platypus 

(from Disney's Phinius and Ferb cartoon), is her favorite,

And the last day was "Spirit Day"!

It's been crazy busy at work with more than 475 Kindergarten or first grade students either creating their first painted paper collages or trying watercolor crayons for the first time! However, I still get to see the students for a full hour once a week and in my own beautiful classroom. So many of my fellow art teachers in this area can't say that anymore. 

Now that my birthday falls on a national day of mourning and with a husband who is a firefighter and 

bagpipe player,

we can be sure that he and his brothers will be honoring those who were lost on 9-11. So, we just moved my birthday to Friday the 13th instead!! (These photos are awful, but I give up.) We started with a traditional dinner at the Japanese Steakhouse, Kotobuki's,

Then we headed down to Orlando for the night and woke up and hit my favorite Disney Park, 

Animal Kingdom! 

We visited Pooh,

and Tigger, too!

And of course a visit with Simba and the Festival of the Lion King show!

And although it was really weird without Andrea with us, we finished the day with a delicious dinner at the Yak and Yeti! A favorite Asian restaurant there in the park.

 All in all, a very nice way to celebrate my 49th year on the planet! Still thinking about that tattoo to commemorate my youth....'cuz starting next year, I'll be VINTAGE!! LOL!

And finally, what you really might be reading this post for......an Andrea update!! :o)
The best I can tell, she is doing really well! There have many activities that she's participated in and an archaeology club, too that she says she likes a lot. She's won a VERY nice pair of headphones from the bookstore and a gift card to Target for 3rd place during gaming night on the Wii for Just Dance! She sent a photo of the "screen". I couldn't believe it!  

Scott, McKenna and I visited last weekend and I couldn't get over how amazing she looked, older and more confident. I still had to resist the urge to stay with her!  I just like it there so much and I hate missing out on making these memories with her. But I'm thrilled for her all at the same time; hard to describe. She says the classes are about the same as her classes in high school, so not too difficult yet, but none to easy either.
We'll bring her home for a visit closer to her birthday in October and you can bet it will include our traditional visit to Kotobuki's......'cuz this little girl of mine misses it!!

Andrea's

 first birthday at Koto's and her first kimono! 

Oh how I miss you sweetie, but we'll see you soon!!!

Moving-In Day!

Eurika!
My computer and Blogger have made up and are talking again!!
And good timing too, because in all the things I have attempted to blog about in the past few weeks, none are more blog-able than Andrea's move to college yesterday!!!
So here they are, a few photos and commentary:

"The Moving Crew"

I am certain we have many more friends and family who would have gladly helped us out yesterday and all we would have had to do was ask, 

but Aunt Debbie and Uncle John's "Flagler know how" were invaluable. (Their pick-up truck came in handy too!) Their daughter, our cousin Devin graduated from Flagler and she lived all four years there in the dorm. John knew exactly where to pull-up for unloading and knew exactly where the prime parking spots would be.

The love and support from Grandma and Grandpa, 

and from Aunt Lisa,

was also invaluable. It's a special kind of love that can either wait with your piles of belongings in the hot and steaming breezeway or to carry those belongings up the several flights of stairs! Andrea's room is on the second floor, but the first floor is called the lobby, so, in my mind, it's really like she's on the third floor!

A little history about the building: these photos are all taking in the courtyard at Flagler (pretty cool that it looks just like Hogwarts!). This was built by oil and railroad tycoon Henry Flagler 125 years ago. At that time he would bring his wife to Florida for her health and there wasn't a place to stay. His hotel was state of the art, with electricity throughout by Edison himself. The hotel was gifted to Flagler College in 1968, originally as a women's college, but became co-ed in 1971. The girls' dorms are the original hotel rooms (the boys and coed dorms are separate buildings). I find it especially fascinating that Flagler wanted his guest to have a different experience each time they visited the hotel, so each dorm room is unique. There are a few rooms that hold only one student, but some as many as six!

Andrea's room holds four girls and for now, their beds are bunked and she wanted the top one.

I just realized that their room doesn't have one of the cool (closed up of course) fireplaces, but it does have a really big window. Andrea wasted no time placing some of her prized photos in it. :o)

My camera just can't capture the beauty and grandeur of this place, although I still have hopes of coming one weekend to try, I thought this photo was kinda cool. As I mentioned, the bottom floor is the lobby, then the "1st floor" and Andrea's is the 2nd. Looking straight across you might be able to make out some steps. Her room is the room just to the left on the landing before the last set of steps (and boxes). 

The Parent Orientation meeting was filled with tips and advice for first year college parents,

but the underlying theme that came through loud and clear was, that as much as I may want to do things for her, (after all that's a parents' job), she is now ready and very capable of embarking on this new adventure on her own. 

So, go forth by first born child, make lots of unforgettable memories and know that I love you with every fiber of my being. Just please remember to call me, write me or text me to tell me all about your adventures!! :o)