Walking on Trails

On an early morning, I decided to drop my two sons off to school while I have a day off from work in order to spend a quality of time with my mother and her husband. When I got back from dropping the boys off to school, I literally asked my mom and Bruce if they were interested walking down along the Salt Creek that runs through the hills behind my house. It was a perfect cool day to go outside for an hour exercise and to identify the Spring plants around the trails. Frankly, I thought it was awesome stroll through the best of California's back country.

Along the Salt Creek Trail, we could see the beautiful view of my backyard. I must say I was so proud to have a beautiful home area. There were tons of beautiful TREES, SPRING FLOWERS AND INSECTS EVERYWHERE. We even saw the most awesome humming birds hovering around the flowers. My mother took an excellent close-up picture of a humming bird. She even taught me that there are four different kinds of humming birds in Southern California. Two of the kinds stayed in Southern California all year long while the two other kinds of humming birds migrated during the winter. It broaden my mind to think about many other kinds of small and big animals migrated, not just the geese itself.

I also learned many more flowers and trees while my mother and her husband, Bruce walked along with me. I must admit that I learned so much within an hour because my mother is a real GREEN THUMB ! Bruce is a bird- watcher. He knows many types of birds. Not only knowing the types of birds, he also absorb all kinds of trees and plants. Learning everything from them was like taking a Free Science class.

It made me more appreciation of living in the area where I don't have any houses behind my backyard. Without a doubt, I will go out for a walk with my kids whether they like it or not. I'm a tough mom. I personally do enjoy the view both day and night. I once in a while like to sit outside at night to look up at the stars.

Letter from Extended Student Service

Today, I received an apologizing work e-mail address from the Extended Student Service Assistance Leader regarding the Kickball activities that I had complained on my earlier post.

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Hello Mrs. McClellan,

This is Mr. Casey. I wanted to apologize for the situation we're in with Dylan for kickball. I believe it was back when we were first telling the kids about kickball and getting them signed up that I had talked to you about Dylan's interest in being on the kickball team. At that time, you filled out the kickball permission slip but for whatever reason I did not get a copy of Dylan's insurance. I think I had given you the permission slip to take home and fill out and you then brought it in the following day. When I received the permission slip from you I filed it away in my kickball folder. It was my fault for not following through on the insurance. I should have gotten it from you at the time you turned in the permission slip, or in a more timely manner so that Dylan could have started the season with us on time.

I realize that my delay in getting Dylan's insurance from you has led to the unfortunate situation we now see ourselves in. The lack of practice time for Dylan, his possible unfamiliarity with the rules, and his seeming discomfort in being on the field all directly result from that. Again I am sorry for that.

My purpose in coaching kickball is to allow all the kids the opportunity to play, have fun, and experience the competition. With 17 kids being on the team and our only being allowed to play 10 at a time in the game, it becomes necessary to use some of the team members as substitutes. These subs come into a game in the top of the third inning in our four inning games. Thus, the playing time is equal between the sub and the player that he/she replaces. Each player plays two innings. Also, we must play four girls and one kinder in all games at all times. This makes it that much harder to let all of our first and second grade boys play the whole game.

Before our game on Tuesday Dylan had been laying on the mat in the auditorium back at school. Just before our departure for the game, I asked Dylan if he was certain that he did not want to play that day. He decided that would play after all. So, in seeing Dylan resting on the mat at Maryland I felt that it would be easier for him to just play half of the game on such a hot, tiring day.

My apologies again to both you and Dylan. I am very sorry for all this and I am sad to hear that Dylan no longer wants to play. If he would like, we would be glad to have him come back and play with us in our final game on Tuesday.

Thank you,

St. Patrick's Parade

On Saturday early morning, my family and I decided to take my mom and her husband, who were in town for a weekend visiting, to watch Saint Patrick's Parade at Balboa Park. I thought it would be a perfect time to share the Saint Patrick 's spirit along with the crowds.

By the time we got to Balboa Park, we were lucky to find a close parking lots and sitting on the curb where we could see the ending of the parade. One of the couples brought their dalimation dog in a front of the parade. Ryan loved any kind of dogs! He indeed had a chance to pet a dog. That dog was very hyper due to the noisy. The worst part was that the dog was confused when he saw many firetrucks with the sirens passing by. If it was my dog, I would NOT bring to the parade.

We only saw one fourth of the parade because we did not want to stand in a long lunch line. That was a smart move for all of us because we captured six seats with a table and caught in a short line before the crowds came toward to the food center. The first thing we wanted to eat the Corn Beef Sandwich. It was the first for the boys. Either they were starved to eat, or they actually like it because they galloped the ENTIRE BIG sandwich.

After lunch, we roamed around the fun booth. We did have fun trying out for the St. Patrick's Hat. I decided to make myself glamor for a very short time with lots of green feathers. That was fun. As we passed by several booths, David and I knew that the boys would say, "YES" for a Root Beer Snow Cone. They did not argue for sharing one BIG Bowl of Root beer Snow Cone.

Once we finished roaming around the booths, we headed for Botanical Garden. It was one of my mom's favorite sight seeing in Balboa Park. She and I had not gone there for decades. The boys were goofy around inside and outside of the Botanical Garden. While taking pictures of them, it was nearly impossible to take the BEST pictures of them in a front of the waterfall. I guess it was a sign of telling us politely that they were exhausted to be at Balboa Park for Three and a half hours. Frankly, my mom and I agreed that they were on their best behaviors despite showing their funny faces.

At the end, we thought it was a good plan to go out and do something FUN without charging us too much besides paying for the food. It is far cry better than being in a cooped place, or watching T.V. all day.

KickBall

This year, Dylan decided to participate the Kick-Ball after school activities for FREE. I thought this would be an ideal sport for him to get involved along with lots of physical activities.

For the first three weeks of games, Dylan had missed because the coach from Extended School Services did not tell me that he needs to have a copy of his health insurance. He apologized for the delay and had to keep him out of the three weeks game. I was not happy when I was not informed immediately.

When he finally got a chance to go out to a game, I met Dylan up at a different school site where his brother, Ryan and I could watch his game. Know what? I was disappointed to find him sitting on the bench. I just waited and waited. Finally, the coach acted it up and allowed him to play.

It was not easy for a left- handed person, who kick the ball with his right foot. When he did kick the ball, he ran yet unfortunately the other team touched him. Thus, he was out. Boy, he was upset. I consoled him that I praised him for doing his best.

On the next game, Ryan and I drove to another school site where we could watch him. This was the second time round I discovered that he was sitting the entire hour waiting for him to go up. I personally felt like that the coach should give each player a try. It reflected my teenager's memory when one of the softball coach almost never let me be out of the field. It was because I was not good at a softball. True, but where is the sportsmanship with the coach in these days?

Last, Dylan surrendered on getting involved in the Kickball after school activities. I don't blame him. Hopefully on the next after school sport coach will be more reasonable and allow each child, even poor player an opportunity. It is not about winning the game!

Pink Day

First of all, I must admit that I have my reasons for putting my posts on hold. The month of February and March had been harsh for many thousands of teachers who received pink slips. While I am waiting for an ultimate answer from the district whether the school district will keep another year open for the deaf and hard of hearing program open, I need to brush my anxiety along with many more reasons aside.

I have lots to catch up on my posts. First, I would like to tell you a little bit about the Pink Day that many thousands of teachers wore Pink Shirts on March 13th. It was the day that the other deaf teacher, deaf student teacher and I provided lunch treat out for 50 staff on the campus. What a coincidence ! Still, we had thought of something to make it every possible to make it close to pink or red for the teachers on Pink Day.

We brought the Posole Soup with Chilli Dip from New Mexico, Bread, pink Vanilla cookies except for Chocolate Chip cookies, and Pink lemonade to stuff our teachers' tummies. The table decoration were even made many pink and red hearts to go out for the teachers.

While we were sitting and chatting over our lunch break, many of the staff were pink shirt. That included the students as well.

Pink Rally

Thousands of teachers in California are being laid off. Many districts wanted to close many of deaf and hard of hearing classes in order to save the budget for the interpreters, teachers and aides as well. Many of deaf and hard of hearing students may as well end up going to their home school district where they might not interact much with their peers.

However, it is not a final answer. For those who live in South of San Diego will have a huge debating meeting before April 3rd, that is when the two districts decided on what to do with the deaf and hard of hearing programs: closes two completely school districts, remain few more years in their district along with other deaf peers, or send each of them to their home school district along with an interpreter. Parents were not happy with the idea. So I was not happy with the idea either.

Deaf and Hard of hearing teachers were not the only ones who felt. There were other thousands of teachers in San Diego were not pleased to cut off the students' important education. As for many of us, it would be hard to lose so many AWESOME teachers who also got a pink slip two weeks ago.

Thus, some of us ended up attending the Pink Rally, I didn't due to my mom visiting us. However, I did wear pink shirt and provide everything pink meal out to the teachers on that day. (I will have pictures coming up once the hard drive is being fixed.) I only could give you a general idea of our district attended the pink rally's link.

Losing Motivation

Have you ever experience for losing motivation that you normally do? I have not had this since when I discovered Ryan was diagnosed as PPD-NOS known as autism. As of right now, I am losing a motivation to post our long delay posts on my blog. There are so many things are happening right now.

So, hopefully I will be able to write a short and sweet posts over this weekend. That's if I have gain my motivation up. Please bare with me when the timing is right for me.