we've gone to the dogs

A few weekends ago we dog-sat Ms. Lori's (OSSM PR person) dog, Nick. Everyone, dogs and people, enjoyed having him visit. He's so fast compared to Mops that it was hard to get any shots of him!

We've also been busy building forts on cold nights. Dr. Sapariuc's son, Andre, has even joined us when his dad comes for tutoring time. Elle and Andre (Elsa and Audrey) couldn't get each other's names right, but they still had a blast together!

presidential holiday

I don't know what President Obama was doing the day after he was elected, but the day after Dr Wang was inaugurated he declared it a holiday here at OSSM. Students and faculty had the morning off and we came home from playgroup to find this:

We had a picnic lunch and the kids played in the bouncy things until they were worn out! The weather was windy, but fabulous for November!

ossm kids zoo trip

Dr. Wang is the new OSSM president and he and his family are living on the 2nd floor of the new boys wing until they find a house. He's getting officially inducted Thursday night. The governor's coming and it's a big hoopla, but that didn't stop Dr. Wang from taking some of his family, and Johnathan, Mason, and Elle (and Chris) to the zoo Saturday afternoon. It was a really nice chance for Elle to spend time with her OSSM family. The kids are all so sweet! We are so fortunate to have such wonderful people as neighbors!

swimming at dodds

We are really lucky that Chris works with some wonderful people. We went for a swim at Dr. Dodd's house last Friday night. We had a great time catching up with Dr. Dodd, Suzanne, and Lori (plus the dogs Hannah, Fred, Grady, and Lily). The water was great, which helped us get Todd to swim in his float too! Somehow we didn't get any pics of that. Elle decided to try the float out too, and Hannah, Dr. Dodd's older Jack Russell, kept trying to steal the pool toys. It was such a fun evening and we can't wait to do it again.

wrapping up the school year: part 2

Graduation 2012!!!

I wasn't so sure about taking the kids to graduation this year, but I'm so glad I did! OSSM graduation is held on the steps of the capital. Last year it was so hot Elle and I left our seats about 5 minutes after it started to hide under a tree. I didn't think with Todd this would go very well. I really wanted to at least try for our girls. I dressed us all in cool clothing, and loaded up the stroller with their camp chairs, quilt, snacks, and toys. We got there right at the start and discovered we had cloud cover! We got to sit up close for longer than I expected, but eventually Elle and Todd got squirmy so we headed for our same tree. We could still hear and see everything. The kids lasted the whole time! It was so nice! Elle had some other little girls to play with and dragged her chair around, played with the rocks and flowers, and ate her snacks. Todd loves being outside so he enjoyed playing with his toys and watching Elle. Some of the speeches were great, and I loved watching and cheering for the kids we have grown so close to. It was nice to see the parents so proud. It was also bittersweet. I kept thinking that those are their babies and mine are sitting on the grass with me now, but it won't be long before they have a cap and gown also. I had to give each of them a little extra squeeze.

wrapping up the school year: part 1

Elle had her last day of Sonshine School for this year. We're taking a break for the summer, but planning on her going back in the fall two days a week. She had to say goodbye to Ms. Melanie (left) and Ms. Sandra (right). They were such awesome teachers and Elle has been missing her time with them and her friends.

Chris and I attended Dr. Manning's retirement party. It's the ending of an era around here and she'll be missed. It was a lovely dinner and it helped raise a lot of money for OSSM.

Chris, Todd and I were privileged to attend the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence gala celebration at the Renaissance Tulsa a couple of weekends ago. One of Chris' students was chosen as one of the 100 Academic All-stars for Oklahoma. Anna chose Chris as her honored guest, which is a big deal since this is his second year of teaching. We have been lucky to have Anna on our floor the last two years. She's incredibly sweet and so talented. Here's a clip of the speaker from the event, CNN host and TIME Magazine editor Fareed Zakaria. Anna is also a Presidential Scholar and will go meet the president this year. She's one of two for Oklahoma this year and one of six that OSSM's history.

end-of-year floor party 2012

I wanted to do something special to celebrate the end of the year and honor the seniors on our floor. They've all been with us for two years and have become like daughters, sisters, and friends. This year I themed the party after the schools the girls had chosen. We have one going to Dartmouth, one to Vanderbilt, one to Baylor (Sic em Bears!), and seven going to OU. I used the school colors for tableware and even found some music from each of the schools.

I printed out these for notes to each of the seniors.

Our buffet for the evening. The menu consisted of foods that represented each school. We had "Vanderbilt" hot chicken (fried chicken, sprinkled with cayenne pepper and eaten with a piece of white bread and pickles), "OU" wheat salad (made with Waugh wheat, so I guess you could say it was really OSU wheat, but we won't tell them), "Dartmouth" corn chowder (it actually worked out that this was for the girl who's vegetarian, so I just left out the bacon), and "Baylor" Dr. Pepper products to drink.

Thanks to pintrest, for dessert we had "class rings" (ring pops) and "diplomas" (rolled wafer cookies with pull-apart twizzlers tied around the middle).

After dinner we played Pictionary using graduation, college, and Western Civ terms.