Halloween Carnival

Last weekend I g0t a call from one of my former student's parents seeing if I wanted to go to a Halloween Carnival with them. We have become good friends, even after they moved to a different school. Funny thing is that I met them at their house and then drove over with them. As we head over there, I asked where the carnival was. They replied at some LDS church on Northpark Dr. I started laughing! Every year the Kingwood Texas Stake puts on a halloween carnival and dance for children with disabilities. It is a put on by the young men and young women in the stake and is a great activity for all involved. We had tons of fun and I even got to have several missionary opportunities.

Two of my favorite kids; Chris and Jennifer

Super Woman! Some one there that night told me my daughter was cute. I wish I had one.

Jennifer and her dad, tossing a frog across the gym.

Chris was one of my very first students. He calls me good morning. I made him say that to me every morning when he got of the bus. Now its become my name.

Wonder Women Jennifer who kept insisting she was superman. We had to do the cake walk several times so that she could win.

They had tons of activities for them to do. Fishing, drawing a face on a pumpkin, ring toss, and a cake walk were all part of the fun.

Each child was assigned several "helpers" to take them around to each of the activities. It was pretty well organized.

Crazy Japanese Marbles

So I'm not sure what this had to do with my class on Applied Behavior Analysis, but I thought it was pretty cool. Not sure what they are saying though. Any one speak Japanese?

BISHOP CALL

Yesterday was a big day in Humble Texas. First of the church still doesn't have power so we had church by flashlight. Everyone was told to bring their own light source. The children had fun shinning the flashlights on the chapel ceiling. I wish I could have taken a picture of it all. I held the flashlight so that Stacy Mouton could see the piano music she was playing. I think we should have sang the hymn "The Lord is my Light" or something. It was a little hot, but not to bad.

The other big news in the Humble Ward is that Bishop Thorne was released and my dad was made Bishop. I hope that the fact he was sustained in the dark does not mean he will be Bishop through "dark- times." He is a great man and will be a good Bishop. I'm proud to say he is my dad. Plus because he is my dad he already has lots of patience. The Thorns are moving to Alpine Utah after living here for 25 years. Humble will really miss them!

I was looking for a picture of just my dad, but I don't have one. I'll have to fix that soon. So here are a few favorits of mine. It is nice to live so close to home an be able to stop by any time. I spent a lot of time after the hurricane over at my parents house.

Love You DAD!!!!

Electricity

The most amazing thing happened tonight at 7:30. WE GOT ELECTRICITY!!!! It has been 8 days since the power went out It was so nice to walk into my room flipped the light switch and the light came on. OH HOW NICE!!!

So here is a list of things to do now that we are out of the dark ages:

1. Make toast

2.Enjoy my fan (yeah)

3. vacuum

4.Flip the light switches on and off and watch in amazement

5. print my papers

6. sit in air conditioning

7. Use my oven

8. Drink a class of cold milk

9. pop popcorn (use my microwave)

10. Take a warm Shower

The things you miss while you have now power. The nicest thing of all of this was pulling up into the drive way, opening the car door and not hearing a generator. They are nice to have, but they are so extremely loud.

Hurricane Fun

Well since we don't get to go back to work until Wednesday I'm running out of things to do. So I'm leaving this up to you to complete: Send me ideas make them good, funny, or at least entertaining.

10. Clean up your house all except for vaccuming
9. Watch all the reporters on TV (got to love generators) try and come up with something new to say about the storm. One reporter was so kind to point out that the picture of green grass that we were looking at was actually grass. Go Figure!
8. Continue to flip on all the light switches- just in case
7. Study, study, study
6. Take a dell computer box full of extra boxes down to the recycle place and have your roommate carry you back in the wheelbarrell.
5. Go for lots of bike rides
4. Pray the humidity doesn't come back- its getting more humid- YUCK!
3.
2.
1.

More Hurricane

So some of my favorite signs I've seen lately say: We hate Ike, YMCA closed; Ouch Ike hurt (the place had their roof cave in); Just like Tina we are recovering from Ike. Here are a few more pictures from our area. This is nothing compared to Galeveston. For those of you that are familiar with the the area, Crystal beach is no longer there as of the moment.

Playing cards play flashlight

Poor baby squirrel didn't make it through the hurricane
Cleaning up after the storm.
My Dad isn't he great!!!
Fingers Furniture Sign. Good thing the store is closing. The storm took down the sign for them.

Deerbrook Mall right in front of Sears, Macy was severly water damaged. The store will be closed up to four months as they real build.

Lots of Billboard signs were wripped to shreds.

You can barely see the rainbow in the background. This is on the bridge into Kingwood.

Lake Houston coming from Kingwood into Humble.

Pretty shot of the moon. I'm telling you going around and taking pictures takes up a lot of our time since we don't have electricity.

Top ten things to do with out electricty

10. Drive around in a parking garage honking your car horn on each level (some teenagers)
9. Handwrite all your papers for graduate school by hand. :)
8. Clean up after the storm

7. Sit out side and enjoy cool weather (beleive it or not this did happen in Houston)

6. Play cards by flash light
5. Update your blog using your parents Generator
4. Stroll the streets of town taking pictures of all the damage
3. See how fast you can get in and out of your freezer without letting to much cold air out.
2. Catch up on all your scrapbooking you haven't done in years
1. Turn a light switch on in each room you come to thinking (wishing) the power is on. Then laugh at yourself because you know the power is out.

We helped clean our neighbors yard up since they are 1st responders. We found a baby squirrel that didn't make it through the storm. So Sad!

Sunday we hooked the generator up to the microwave and popped popcorn and played card games. It was fun. Then watched Music and The Spoken Word on the satelite. We are really roughing it down here. Actually I must say I give thanks everyday that it was not worse and pray for those that lost everything. We may be without power, but a cool front has come through and we can sleep with our windows open and enjoy a cool breeze at night.

I may not agree with all of the political sides that Houston Mayer Bill White takes, but he has done an amazing job of leading the city through this disaster and how prepared he is.