School Projects

**UPDATE** Blake got an A+!!! He scored 200 points out of a possible 200! Way to go Blake!!




Blake had to make a Civil War battle re-enactment project for Social Studies class. Here is how it turned out. He worked really hard on it and it's a big part of his grade.

Go Diamondbacks!

Sept 12th - Friday night- We scored 2 free tickets to the Diamondbacks baseball game (Thanks Alex!!) We decided that Blake and me would go. We were told that the tickets were behind home plate about 20 rows up off the field, alright! Those are good seats! We got to the game right as the first pitch was being thrown out. Brandon Webb was pitching. This was mine and Blake's 4th game this season. We sat in our seats, we were behind home plate, looking straight down the 3rd base line. We were just out of the net that blocks foul balls. Blake was so excited. We have had some good seats before, but none were THIS good! We were so close that you can hear the guys talking, you can hear the umpire, and every crack of the bat had me ducking for cover thinking a ball was heading our direction. Me and Blake have a deal at all games... if a ball comes our direction, I hit the deck and he saves me! (He's such a good boy, saving his mom)

In the 3rd inning, Blake's all-time favorite Diamondback player, Chris Young #24, came up to bat. Chris Young hits alot of homeruns. We hear the crack of the bat, and the ball heads straight for us! Blake stood up right away, the ball was flying right toward him. Im thinking to myself "He's going to catch it and break his hand".. He wouldn't care, he'd have a ball from his favorite player, and get on ESPN. He's such a BOY! The ball ended up hitting 1 row behind us, bounced into our row, and the guy in the seat next to us caught it, handed it to Blake and said "Here ya go buddy"! That made Blake's night!! He thanked the guy probably 10 times, the guy was very nice!

The Diamondbacks ended up winning 3-2 against the Cincinnati Reds. It was a fun night!

*We had left the house so fast to get to the game, I left without my camera*

Blake's Day -

Blake had quite a day! He gets to school at 8:45 am. He was in Homeroom, which is Science class, when an announcement came over the PA system that all classes in the 7th grade pod needed to go into lockdown mode. That includes getting into a classroom, under a desk. Blake is in a temporary class, kind of like a big office cubicle. His class got up and walked into the nearest classroom and they got under the desks. The principle, Brenda Mayberry, got on the PA system about 30 mins later and told them that they needed to evacuate ASAP, but that they needed to do it in a very calm manner. The teachers moved them out to the baseball field. The kids didn't know what was going on. They have lockdown drills and thought this was a drill until they were asked to calmly but quickly move outside. There were SWAT guys, Pinal County Sheriffs, firefighters, ambulances, bomb sniffing dogs, and Mesa cops moving the kids along. The kids were asked to sit on the baseball field for 30mins, in the sun. The bomb dogs went thru the 7th grade pod while all grades (7th, 8th, and 9th) were moved into the gym, which is all the way across campus from the 7th graders pod. They spent the next 3 hours locked down in the gym! After the 3 hours, nothing was found anywhere in the school and the kids had to form a line and go thru a check point type thing to have their backpacks sniffed by the bomb dogs. After it was over, the kids were allowed to go back to their classes.
At about 1pm, I got a call from the school saying that there was a bomb threat directed at the 7th grade pod. They also said that Pinal County Sheriff Department fully checked out the area and found it safe. We were *not* to come pick up our students, that school would be released at the normal time of 3:48 pm.
It was so hard to wait to go and get Blake! When I got there to pick him up I asked him if he was scared, he said "No, we didn't even know what was going on for a long time." He was more upset about missing all his classes then anything!

Thank goodness that it turned out to be nothing! Thank goodness for bomb sniffing dogs! Thank goodness that Pinal County took the threat seriously and evacuated the kids and checked everything out! Im glad that it all turned out so well.

Remembering September 11th 2001

September 11th, 2001 was a sad, sad day. I remember where I was when I heard the news. Dana was working nights on the 60 freeway in Mesa. I had to wake up early to pick him up from work. I was driving down Greenfield road, listening to the radio and they were talking about a small plane hitting the World Trade Center. At that time, it had just happened and there wasen't very much information available. I got to the yard where I pick Dana up and all the guys were standing around a bosses truck listening to the radio. While we were standing there, reports came in that another plane hit the towers. At this point, everyone around us is saying that "this canNOT be an accident!" News reports came in saying that they weren't little planes, they were big passenger planes. We were all thinking "what is going on??"

We drove home listening to the radio the whole time. As soon as we got home we turned on CNN, the first images we saw were the burning towers, people running, and smoke and fire all over. There were so many news reports and stories coming in. Before we knew it, the towers were falling to the ground!! And news came about a plane hitting the Pentagon.

The kids were school age. Blake was in Kindergarten and Jayden was in Preschool. I didn't want to send them to school. The country was on lockdown, scared, and afraid of what was coming next. I ended up taking the kids to school. Word came about the hi-jacked plane that went down in the field in Pennsylvania. I sat glued to the Tv, watching CNN all day. I cried and cried thinking of the poor people trapped inside the towers, in the Pentagon, on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. I cried for the families of all these people. I cried for the workers, police, and fire department that died.

Today I will be thinking of the 2,974 people that died in the attacks, and their families. *We Will NEVER Forget*

School Pictures

It's that time of the year again... School pictures! Jayden has her pictures today. Blake's aren't until mid-September. Here is what Jayden wore for pictures. She looked really cute. She is at the age where she is picks her own clothes and doesn't rely on me to pick them out for her. I think she did a good job!

Jayden - The Toad Wrangler

Jayden went to her friend Michelles house over the weekend and brought home 11 toads! We have some big mud puddles near our house and was filled with tadpoles! So... we collected tadpoles today! We were covered in stinky mud, but we caught a bunch of nasty little tadpoles!

Let's see if I can add a picture.

Blake and Jayden

First Post!

Im new to this whole blogging thing. I thought I'd try it out and see how it goes.