Jasmine's drawing....

Drawing from art class. It is me walking Jessie! You can tell because of the hair. At least I am thin in the picture:)

Good book...

I just read a really interesting book that I found out about at our "informal book club" ... which is our spinning club at the gym. It is called "The Glass Castle". I thought it was a novel until I got to the end and found out it was about the life of Jeanette Walls, a news writer/reporter for msNBC. That is one disadvantage of reading a Kindle... you can't flip around easily. There are many photos of her online.

Anyway, she was born in Phoenix... and her family was homeless her entire life in the 60's and 70's. They just lived in the desert, in cardboard boxes, old shacks...in old cars. She never knew what it was like to take a shower or bath, never had any food... had to steal food from trash cans at school, lived mostly in the city library of Phoenix and then Appalachia. Because of that, she and her siblings (except one) are all extremely successful due to their intelligence- constantly reading.... never having a TV, electricity, running water, or any holidays. She got a full scholarship to an Ivy League school and no one ever knew she had been homeless until she wrote the book. I thought it was really interesting that it was written from a child's perspective. Her mother is still a homeless person in NYC and has no desire to live in a house, have clothes, etc. We'll see what the "book club" recommends next!

First Golf lesson.....

Today was a long day,.... to the gym in the morning, Cinderella ice production practice, then to the Chandler Fire Station to adjust a car seat. Every Saturday, the fire department has a car seat clinic. Another adoptive family gave us a really nice used car seat for use up to 60 pounds. She said she paid 300.00 for it. Since you need an engineering degree to install those things, I thought I would take it to the fire department to do it for me. Well, I guess I had another thing coming to me.... Since it was "used" and apparently over 6 years old, they would not install it. I had to sign a 3 page waiver,.... I guess so that they cannot be sued. Then, they gave us a new car seat! I had forgotten that the city of Chandler has free car seats. They confiscated our old one:) Next, they give you a demonstration on how to install it..... then... I had to install it myself with them watching.... then... they had to check everything. At least I know it is installed correctly and I also have done it correctly in the past.

Next, we went to Jasmine's first golf lesson. NYS (National Youth Sports) has just about every sport lesson for age 2 up to 18 years. The instructor, Bill Neal, has been teaching golf for 52 years. He recently just returned from India where he teaches golf there... as well as other "third world" countries.

Jasmine was misbehaving, so I told her we would try it one more week. 3pm is kind of her grumpy sleepy time, but I was really annoyed with her. I thought that next time we might go with the 3-4 year olds since she was acting like a baby.

All the 5-7 yr olds lined up working on their grip.

Bill working with Jazzy's feet and hand placement.

First spelling test....

This morning was Jasmine's first spelling test. We studied all week for it! They didn't even ask all the words we/she had to study. I hate when that happens:)

New Year's Eve.....

We spent the day with Jenny, Gadiel and Abby. First we went to Tumbleweed Park to play, then to the 3-D movie Tintin, then to eat at Rubio's. Happy New Year!

Winter Camp....

Jasmine has been attending "Winter Camp" all week with her friend Rebecca from kindergarten. When I stopped in yesterday to see how they were doing, Rebecca (green shirt) said to Jasmine while simultaneously rolling her eyes and sighing, "Why does your Mom ALWAYS have a camera with her?" :))

Real London Bus Tour....

Last night we took a bus tour of Tempe and Mesa to see Christmas lights. I purchased tickets in September, and made reservations on November 1st... the first day they were available, and within hours, they were already booked up until after Christmas. It is a very popular and touristy thing to do around here:) It worked out perfectly though with the timing of Jasmine's eye surgery. The bus was old and rickety with no heat. We sat on the top deck, and it seemed like we were going to run into every traffic light at every intersection. After leaving Tempe Marketplace, we went to a couple of neighborhoods, then over to downtown Mesa. I didn't realize the extent of the lights at the Mesa Arts Theater. Almost as many as Zoolights. We didn't get home until 10pm and Jasmine was a grump at the end. We got to sleep in a bit this morning. There were lots of people on the bus who were visiting from Denmark, Holland, and of other places.