She came home

This is Madelyn at a local museum by my great Aunt's House. It has beautiful gardens. This museum is to honor a famous author who wrote a story in poetry form.

This is Madelyn climbing the 72 (she counted them) stairs in the light house in Montevideo.

Here is Madelyn with two friends she made. Madelina (11) is in the pink dress. Emma (9) is in the brown. They are girls from America that Madelyn met at church. They played together as much as they could.

This is a picture of Madelyn at Carnival with, "The Old Mamas."

This is Madelyn at the Capitol Building, the White House of Uruguay.

Madelyn came home! We are so glad to have her back. She had a great time in Uruguay visiting with her South American Family, making friends and learning about the country. Here are some pictures from her adventure.

I passed

I received my results. I got a 9.9 in both reading and math. What does that mean? Don't know but I passed and I can register for the Core Medical class on the 27th of March.

Done with the test

Well I completed the test. There really was nothing to be worried about. Madelyn my 5th grader could have passed the test. There were two parts to the test. The first was reading comprehension. A passage was presented with 5-6 questions that followed. There were about 10 passages in all. The second part was math. It was very basic math. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. In addition there was addition and subtraction of fractions. The only difficulty I experienced with the test was a few poorly written question. I had to study the question, the provided answers and the passage to determine what they were really asking. There were 4 or 5 questions like that. A few of those I am still not sure what they were really asking but I did my best. It was a scantron form so that wasn't too difficult either. All in all, I am confident that I passed. The next step is to register for the core medical class on March 27th.

Testing today

I am a little nervous this morning. I will be testing in about an hour and a half. I have to take a test to start the CNA program with the North Orange County ROP. They said it was basic English and Math. I should not be nervous because I am soon to be a college graduate. Furthermore, any 17 year old high school graduate can take this test so, I should be ok right? Well I woke up this morning at 6:00 a.m. and started cleaning. If you know me, you know there is really something wrong if I voluntarily start working before 7:00 a.m. I folded laundry, emptied the dishwasher, loaded it again and started it. So, there it is. Proof positive, that I am nervous. Wish me luck.

Digging it out

About a week ago Spencer came home from school with significant scraping on the palm of his hand, on his hip and on his knee. I was a little alarm and asked what happened. For P.E., his class used hoola hoops to jump rope from one end of the basketball court to the other and back again. Spencer tripped and injured himself. When I heard it was the injury happened on the blacktop, I remembered the story of Tod and his permenant dirt (little pieces of blacktop gravel that are still inside of his skin). I looked closely at Spencer's injuries and decided for the moment they looked like blood spots. Well a week later, as the injury has healed some, it became evident that the spots were infact blacktop gravel. I got out my tweezers and prepared for the drama. Oh my goodness, you would have thought I was going to cut his hand off. He wailed and screamed and pleaded for a stay of execution, he bargained and begged. Of course my heart was breaking but I had to get the gravel and dirt out. It took some time but I finally got the two biggest pieces out of his hand. Poor thing began to hyperventilate. He has done this in the past and knows what it feels like so admist all of the screaming, he informed me that he was feeling, "clostraphobic," and was going to die.

Life as usual - Afternoon edition

Life as usual, in the afternoons, means doing homework (not mine, Spencers), doing laundry, folding laundry, trying to decide what we are going to have for dinner, putting a call into Tod (To find out what time he thinks he will be home so I can coordinate dinner but, mostly just to hear his voice) emptying the dishwasher, loading the dishwasher, putting away things left out on the counter in the bathroom, wondering what shows are going to record tonight on the DVR, and thinking about the little projects and things I need to do around the house. Intermingled with all of this is a, "reasonable," amount of Twilight musing. Life as usual is pretty good. I think when I am old and gray, I will look back with fondness at "Life as usual."

Madelyn is in Uruguay

The tradition continues. Madelyn is in Uruguay with Abuela. She represents the begining of the 3rd generation who has visited Uruguay, our matriarch's homeland. Madelyn is having a great time and we miss her. She has made some friends. They are two little girls who are Americans. Their father is working in Uruguay right now. Madelyn met them in Primary. They play together in the backyard with a beauty salon and make houses and little beds for their dolls. She will be gone for two months and will return on March 19th. Pictures to follow.