Amber at work

Amber successfully finished the first half of the school year and has been liking it so far. She has liked getting to know the students and be a positive influence in their lives. One of them must like her, because she gave her a giant calculator.

The school finally implemented Texas's stupid 10 Commandments law, so she now has to have this in her classroom until the law is overturned.

I thought it would be funny to have a 10 Equations poster to go with it, so I made this for her.

One fun perk of the job is that she gets into most sporting events for free. Her students will often ask her to come to their games, so sometimes we make a date out of it. We recently went to the boys varsity basketball game, because she has two students who are starters on the team.

Cross Country Season

Carmen, Damon, and Miles all did cross country this year.

Carmen and Damon started in August before school even started.

It was Miles's first year doing it and he did great.

I think they all were a little frustrated that they weren't as fast as they wanted to be, but I was proud of them for running their best.

Carmen and Damon finished the season with the Cross Country Banquet. Coach Earvin did a great job taking over the team this year.

Zombie Run

For the third year in a row, we ran the AHSMCJROTC Zombie Run. Carmen was volunteering at an elementary school at the time, but Damon and Miles got infected with us.

The zombies were good as always, but there were not as many competitors this year. I improved on my time from last year (26:37), but didn't really need it to get first place. Amber got second, and Damon got third in the boys category.

AHS Open House

The high school open house normally wouldn't be a blog-worthy event, but this year was very different. I took Carmen and Damon around to their classes by myself, because Amber had to be in her classroom to meet the parents of the kids in her classes. We stopped by to say hi, of course.

First day of school

The summer went by too fast, as usual, and this week was the first day of school. We had some big changes this year. With Olivia graduated, we only had 3 for first day pictures.

And I should have gotten a picture of Amber, since it was her first day as a teacher, too.

Amber's new job

Among her many other jobs, such as sewing, bookkeeping, and tutoring, Amber has been substitute teaching at the middle school and high school. Over the summer, the high school asked if she'd be a long-term sub this year. She'd been thinking about teaching anyway and was considering it as a test run to see if she'd like it, when they came back with an offer for a full-time job.

The school year was rapidly approaching, so she had to decide quickly and after thinking it over decided to say yes. She scrambled to get all the necessary paperwork figured out. She'll have to complete her teaching certificate during the school year. We'll have lots of adjusting to do as a family, but I'm excited for her.

The boys and I recently went to the high school to help her set up her classroom.

She's going to be teaching Algebra 3, which sounds fancy but is just the math class for upperclassmen who didn't go into advanced math. She could teach any of the subjects, so I'm sure she'll do great.

Olivia's high school graduation

The school year is winding down, but Olivia is already finished. A little bit before graduation there was a celebration of seniors at the church.

Then over the weekend she officially graduated from high school.

She's planning on going to Lone Star, so we'll still have her around for a while.

New ESE playground

They recently finished a renovation of the Eagle Springs Elementary School playground. It is now airport themed, so we went there on Saturday to check it out.

It has an air traffic control tower, a couple airplanes, a cloud tower (with slides) and lots of other play features.

My favorite is the runways, which have hanging seats that slide along a track back and forth.

The kids are rapidly aging out of places like this, but I imagine we'll find an excuse to visit again.

NHS and UIL

Carmen was inducted into the National Honor Society.

This was no surprise to us, of course. She hangs out with a good crowd too, so she got to experience it with many of her friends.

This also reminded me that I didn't write about Damon and Miles in Academic UIL. They had a few competitions and always came away with a haul of medals and ribbons.

District Spelling Bee

Damon was the winner of his middle school spelling bee, so he got to represent the school at the district spelling bee.

He easily made it through the first few rounds, correctly spelling WHICH, KARATE, MUTTON CHOPS, and ELEVATOR.

He misplaced a vowel in his next word, though and misspelled CAYENNE, knocking him out. There were less than 10 kids left after that round.

Christmas concerts

As always, this time of year is full of school concerts, but this year we only had to attend two. Carmen and Olivia both performed in their high school concert.

And a week later we watched Miles and Damon in the middle school concert. Miles was very pleased with himself for getting first chair.

"Work Out With a Vet" at AHS

On Saturday, the AHS JROTC put on a Veterans Day activity called "Work Out With a Vet". It sounded cool, so I took Miles with me (everyone else was busy with other activities).

Before the workout, we got to climb around in a Coast Guard boat and a Blackhawk helicopter.

They had some speeches, the school dance team performed, and then we were led in a workout by the JROTC, followed by some training drills.

The headliner vet was our favorite eye-patched congressman Dan Crenshaw. After the workout, he also ran the ninja warrior course without much trouble.

I was able to grab a quick selfie with him as the event wrapped up.

Miles's first orchestra concert

Miles had his first orchestra concert.

It was all simple stuff that he figured out a long time ago. TMS has new directors this year, but I was glad to see that they kept the tradition of the beginners doing the "This is so easy we can play it lying down" thing.

Miles has already learned a lot in just a few months, I'm excited to see how good he gets in the next few years.

Zombie Run

We had such a fun time last year that we decided to do the Zombie Run again this year.

The weather was much better this year, but there's still something about this race that makes it seem harder than a normal 5K. It's probably the zombies. I timed myself this time and got 28:40, which was good enough for a 3rd place medal in the men's group. Carmen got a cramp, but wasn't far behind and got 2nd in the women's group.

Miles's mini cello

Miles decided to follow his older siblings and join orchestra. The family orchestra needed a second violin, but he wanted to play cello, instead.

They sized him and gave him this mini cello for now. He's been having fun figuring it out. Of course, his siblings had to join the fun.

First day of school

It's been a fun summer, but it's time for school to start again. We're down to only two schools now that Miles is in middle school. Carmen left early to go to cross country practice, then Damon went with Olivia to the high school (he's still in 8th, but is taking Geometry at the high school), and Miles went last.

Olivia's parking space

One of the perks of Olivia's upcoming senior year is that she could pay to have her own reserved parking space that she can paint however she wants. She painted it over the period of several days this summer, and it's ready to bee her parking space this year!