2011 January: Robertson

Hello Everyone,

Happy 2011. January has been a very busy month for us – at least for me. School started and I had to hit the ground running. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite have my feet under me when I hit the ground, but I think that I am mostly recovered now. I have been trying a new format to teach my beginning writing students. I meet in a large group once during the week and then I am meeting in small groups with the students go over their writing at different times during the week. It has been an interesting experience so far and I am figuring out ways to make it even better and more efficient, but I think students are getting some good experience out of it – at least I am. The other big news from the school front is the little present I received from work. I was in my office one day when the department chair came in and handed me a 4th generation Ipod touch. He told me it was either to make me more productive or bring a smile to my face. I don’t know about the productive part, but it did put a grin on my face. I also started classes at ISU again. Last semester was pretty peaceful. This semester has me working pretty hard to do everything. I’m reading 2 ½ books a week just for my ISU classes. I guess that is what happens when one of the classes is History of the Novel and the other is Teaching Literature. Oh Well.

Morgan’s co-teacher in primary was released this month, so Morgan is flying solo teaching the 7-8 year olds in primary for a while until the primary can get another teacher called (probably won’t happen for a while). She is friends with most of the parents of the kids in her class and has been given permission to be strict with a few of them. If it is possible, Morgan is learning to become strict with children. Being a mom will do that to a person, I guess. But she seems to enjoy her time in the primary. She also sang a solo for sacrament meeting last week which was very beautiful. She was then surrounded for the rest of church by people thanking her and complimenting her for her singing. I don’t think the ward has had anyone with her level of training sing in church for a while. One brother went so far as to offer her a singing position in his band. Upon further reflection, he softened the offer by saying that she might not like the type of music he does – citing Janice Joplin as one of his favorites.

Kyla and Daria had a great month. They turned 4 this month and now will tell everyone about it. For their birthday, the received a bunch of clothes and books from grandparents and great grandparents. Morgan and I gave them Disney princess bikes which I think might possibly qualify us as the best parents ever category. The girls love their bikes and can’t wait for the snow and ice to go away so they can ride their bikes outside. Jamis likes the bikes as well and does his best to claim them as his.

Jamis continues to be a very good natured kid (as long as he isn’t tired). He can say a few words now and is almost constantly smiling.

We had a few adventures with water and our house this month. It started mid month when we went into the girls’ room in the basement and found the carpet was all wet. After investigating, we figured that water was coming in through some small cracks in the foundation. So we took out a sheetrock wall in the girls’ bedroom so we could waterproof the wall. That seems to have done the trick because we haven’t had any other problems, but we probably won’t completely patch the wall back up until after the spring thaw just to be safe. The other adventure was the freezing of our pipes last week during a cold snap; there was no way to get to the part of the pipe that froze without tearing up a floor or a ceiling, so we turned Morgan’s hairdryer on the pipe in an effort to heat the entire pipe up to get to the frozen section. After a few hours of that, the water in the pipe thawed and we had water again. Luckily, no pipe burst (as far as we know). Anyway I think that sums up our hum-drum lives. We hope that all things are going well for everyone else.

Bless you all,

The Robertsons