Mom and Dad,
Love brought you together as husband and wife, and gave each of you a best friend for life. May this special love of yours keep growing. May today, tomorrow, and every day after be filled with love and laughter. May your anniversary bring the happiest moments to enjoy together ... memories to share forever. Congratulations on 35 years of marriage!
Love,
Me
Cameron received all A's and B's on his last report card and made the Honor Roll at school! So proud of him - he worked his little tail off all quarter. There was one area in particular that he struggled with in the beginning - Phonics - but only because it was a completely new version of learning this subject for him. Phonograms are used in many of the charter schools and may as well be compared to learning Swahili as far as I'm concerned. With the exception of about 4 kids in his class, his entire class has been at Ben Franklin since Kindergarten, when the Phonograms program is introduced. The purpose is essentially to learn the proper method of reading, writing, and spelling. The format used is confusing, and when you already know how to do these three things, well it was almost as if we had to re-teach it all. Very difficult to explain so I'm not even going to try, but did want to mention that it was quite the learning experience for all of us. (I ordered the instruction manual - yes, instruction manual, which was bigger than most of my college textbooks - and the flashcards from the publisher, at which point Bryan graciously excused himself from all activities and participation with this particular subject.) This helped us both immensely. (The manual and flashcards, not the lack of participation on Bryan's part. Okay, well maybe that too, but anyway ... ) Cam didn't have to try and explain a new concept to me, one that was already challenging him, which was pretty frustrating in itself, and I was able to help focus on the areas that he was having difficulties. So needless to say, he had a "high" D the first quarter in Phonics. Weren't too worried, and neither was his teacher. In fact, she did NOT recommend tutoring since we were working so hard at home and he was catching on quickly. His hard work most certainly paid off ... he raised it up to a high B this quarter! So proud of him. At any rate, he's pretty sure he can get straight A's next quarter. I believe him.
The picture below is of Cam "catching some air" at one of his skate practices. Awesome picture. Even more incredible to see him land this in person. I apologize for the dirty lens. I was already reprimanded for not cleaning it off before I used it. I promise I now keep a couple of Q-tips in my purse in the event of such emergencies.
This was the headline of an article in our newspaper this morning: "Obama Supporters Won't Get Communion, Priest Says". It was in the Associated Press, so I was just curious if any of you saw this article? It seems to me from the article that if you are a Catholic that you should vote for the President based on this one issue only. Doesn't this fall under separation of church and state? I don't believe it is right for a priest or any other religious figure to more or less blackmail or threaten a parishioner over a presidential vote. I also don' believe that just because a person is pro choice that they automatically support abortion. I can take a pro choice stance and still CHOOSE not have an abortion, which I'm pretty sure is the same opinion Obama has. If I'm not mistaken, McCain also believed in exceptions to abortions, such as a risk to the mother's life or in cases of rape or incest. Doesn't this also make him pro choice?
The priest in the article states, "Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exists constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ's Church and under the judgment of divine law" ... so if there is an alternate choice, that is the one that should be made.
Republican Party - McCain also believed in exceptions to abortions, such as a risk to the mother's life or in cases of rape or incest. Doesn't this also make him pro choice? In addition, McCain is also divorced which is "frowned upon" and considered a sin with the Catholic church as well.
Independent - Ralph Nader doesn't believe the government possesses the authority to force a woman to have or not have a child. So he's out.
That leaves us with the Libertarian Party (supports gay marriage), Constitution Party (supports exceptions to abortions), and the Green Party (candidate is divorced). Soooooo ... who does the Catholic church suggest we support and vote for?
Anyone care to share their thoughts? It's okay if you don't. Maybe just take a minute to think about it.
I don't have the name of the person who wrote this poem, so unfortunately I can't give credit to him or her. However, someone sent it to me through an email and I thought it was great.
My most recent "out of the mouth of babes":
So we're at dinner the other night and Cameron asks, "Did you know that some pearls come from oysters?" Hmm. You don't say? Well he loves impressing us with his facts so we bite, and ask him about it. He said that a girl in his class had one, he asks if I've ever had an oyster with a pearl inside, and I tell him no. So we're chatting about this for a while, and I ask him if he knows how a pearl is made. I told him that it usually starts out as a grain of sand. So I say, "Do you know what happens next?"
He answers, "Puberty?"
Right, right. So, Cam, how're those nachos?
On another note ... I'm sure by now you've noticed the new "gadgets" added to the right hand side of the blog ... Books that Cameron and I are currently reading, or have read, which are on the "bookshelf". Cameron has to read at least one book a quarter for class, so we decided to add this as an FYI for anyone who wants to reminisce about Beverly Cleary and Henry Huggins, Beezus or Ramona Quimby. :)
