May Overview

At the beginning of the month, Emily had to go take her SATs. Caitlyn went with the youth early in the morning to the Temple.

It only took a couple of weeks or so to get her results back. She did pretty good. She got 1350. Hopefully that will help her get into college.

For Mother's Day, the family seemed to stick with an "iron" theme as I got a waffle iron and an actual iron for clothes. I had mine since high school and it finally died. It was either made fairly well or it just proves that I didn't use mine that often over the years!

We went to visit with my mom for Mother's Day. We did our usual potluck but not a picnic since the weather has still been cool and wet. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures hardly at all this past month.

Beyond that, the kids spent most of their time finishing their school projects and getting ready for finals. The school year ends at the end of the month.

Luckily, Emily was able to pick up some of her grades at the last minute. She ended up with not great, but decent grades. Caitlyn was stressed out about her final grades. She was getting straight A's up until finals and it got a little dicey until the teachers got all the assignments put in. She ended up with straight A's for her fourth quarter grades but still had one B+ for her overall last semester. I don't know if she realizes it yet. I don't really want to be the one to tell her. She will be so disappointed.

Christian is still doing great in school. He passed the first part of his TPAs and is in the middle of two master's classes. He also found out that he will not be teaching Chemistry after all at his new school in the fall but will be teaching Physics instead...which is fine except that he spent a good deal of time preparing to teach Chemistry already.

Emily was supposed to be working on getting her driver's license, but she had found out that not only does she have to take a useless online class for it, but also has to pay some instructor for at least 6 hours of behind the wheel instruction. We kept going back and forth on the decision on whether to bother with that or not since it costs a great deal of money. I think we finally decided to just wait until she is 17 and a half so that we don't need to have her do any of that.

Caitlyn turns 14

We celebrated Caitlyn's fourteenth birthday the other day. She grew over two inches this past year again. She is starting to catch up to her sister who hasn't really grown in the last couple of years. We think she might be done. Caitlyn is now taller than many of her friends that used to be taller than her. Of course, she is ecstatic about that, having been nearly the shortest for so long.

Grandpa Caldwell, Jackie and Marian came over to celebrate with us. Of course, Terry's birthday was just earlier that week, so we always celebrate their birthdays together.

Caitlyn didn't really have any presents to open from us as she got a new cell phone earlier this year since hers stopped working. Part of the deal with getting her new phone was that it was going to be an early Birthday present. 

On her actual birthday, she requested Indian Butter Chicken for dinner but she left all the party food and dessert up to me as she could not decide. She got a card from Grandma Cheri.

A friend came over to share some of her birthday cake since they were coming by to drop off a little gift for her. They were born one day apart, so they very nearly share a birthday. They have been friends almost since they were in sunbeams together. They were even baptized on the same day.

She had almost no homework on her birthday, so that was an unexpected bonus. Three of her classes watched the boat races at school and she managed to finish most of her other homework while still at school, so we got to play some family games together before bed.

April

We didn't really do anything significant this month. Everyone is just working on school work and so we are just slugging along.

Caitlyn attended a school musical with her friends before Easter. Emily decided to take a break and tag along.

On Easter morning, Emily played the postlude music after church. She wasn't having a really good day so she was pretty upset about her performance. The beauty of doing the postlude music though is that people are getting ready to leave or standing around in the back visiting with people so it is a pretty low pressure environment, but Emily was still pretty upset about it.

Caitlyn did the postlude music the week after that. She had not had to do it before so she was a bit nervous about it. She did great though. She was supposed to do two songs and ended up throwing in an extra as the chapel had not cleared out that much yet.

We are super proud of the hard work both the girls have put into their organ practice over this last year. They have made great strides.
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Emily's AP Physics class has a big year end assignment that all the kids have been looking forward to all year...the cardboard box races. They make boats out of cardboard boxes and race them across the pool. I think it is supposed to coincide with their lesson on buoyancy or something. They had some scheduling problems though and so when the race finally got scheduled, they only had a week to work on their boats. Emily stayed after school all week to work on it with her group.

Some of the other classes are able to go out and see the races if their teachers take them so Caitlyn got to see several of the races.

Emily's group's boat won for their class race! They really had the best boat out there but they had some problems with their oars so they didn't win by a landslide. They did make it to the finals though. All the winners in each period then races each other to see who the overall winner is. You have to race across the pool, touch the other side and race back. During the first race, a lot of the boats were found not to be seaworthy. They either flipped over or sunk at the start. This time, their biggest problem was the boats getting in the way. So after getting to the other side of the pool, a bigger boat blocked their way from touching the far side of the pool and then a second boat ran into them and they flipped over. They did not make it back to the other side of the pool.

I guess they get certain points for having a seaworthy vessel that can't make it across the pool and back. Then the class winners get extra points. The winner in the final race gets even more.

Emily was a little disappointed at not getting to finish in the final race but she had a lot of fun. She will be taking IB Physics next year and they are supposed to get to race again. She is already looking forward to it.

Luckily, Caitlyn got to see a lot of the races and she was able to record her races for us and we even got to see some of her competition. 

Job Fair

At the beginning of the month, Christian decided to got to a job fair put on by the Rialto School District since all his student teaching has been in that district and he is fairly happy with the schools in that area. The commute has not been too bad. It would take nearly the same amount of time to commute to the far side of Riverside. The area and demographics are very similar.

He had considered trying a job fair in Moreno Valley earlier, but decided against it. He had just started in his new school when they had their spring break and he would have to take a day off shortly before returning to go to the job fair. I think he wasn't ready to do that yet and to be honest, he didn't really want to work in that school district.

Anyway, we kept getting conflicting information about applying for jobs in our school district. They were already gathering applications for their job pool for the fall but Christian hasn't completed everything in order to put in his application so he wasn't sure what to do. We were afraid that he wouldn't be able to get into the job pool for openings in the fall, which is when he will be done and will need a job right away. But then people kept telling us that there is still a shortage of teachers and that they will still be hiring right before school begins and not to worry about it too much.

He decides to go to the job fair in Rialto to see what it is like and to get some experience there doing interviews. Plus the high school he had first worked at had several teachers that were going to retire soon and the middle school he is currently working at has a teacher that is retiring after this year. He did a quick observation in her class and helped out some of the students and by the end, she really wanted him to take over her classroom.

The job fair was on a Saturday morning. After he gets there, signs in and does an initial interview, the principal from his first high school calls him back for a second interview and introduces him to one of the vice principals and eventually the principal of another high school in the district. After speaking with the principal, he asks Christian if he is interested in working at their high school. It sounds pretty good, so he says, sure.

What he didn't realize initially, was that it was an actual job offer and not just a question of opinion or intent. He took Christian over to an office for him to fill out all the paperwork to get him set up. Christian's head was spinning by the end. It was hard to wrap his mind around the idea that he already got a job. It all happened so fast. He will be teaching Chemistry this fall at Eisenhower High School in Rialto!

Unfortunately, their school year begins early like the schools in our own district this year. He will have to start teaching at the beginning of August but he will be in the middle of his last masters class that will not end until the end of August. Plus he still needs to finish his student teaching at the middle school, work on finishing and turning in his TPA's all while enrolled in two other masters classes right now. The stress and uncertainty of getting a job this fall are gone but there is still so much to do. At least he will be able to postpone taking his Chemistry CSET for a while and he can do his review while teaching the class itself this next year.

Anyway, we are at least able to see the light at the end of the tunnel now and we are so proud of the hard work and all Christian has had to endure over the last couple of years. It has certainly been a journey.

March

Christian started his second round of student teaching. This time at a Jr. High School. It was once again in Rialto. We were praying for something more local in our school district, but it was not to be. We found out the new teacher that he is working with went to my high school and was a couple of years younger than me. We didn't really know each other, but it was a strange coincidence. Out of curiosity, we looked him up in my old high school yearbook.

Unfortunately, Christian's schedule for Spring Break was not going to be the same as the one our kids have. Christian had almost a week and a half off, shortly after he started, before our kids got out for their break. They got out of school as Christian had to return to his. Needless to say, we didn't get to really do anything of significance together. Christian spent the bulk of his break working on his TPA's for his certification.
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It's been an irritating month for dealing with our appliances. First, our washer started acting funny. The machine would start spinning before the water filled the washer and then it would give an extra spray of water before turning off so that all the clothes were soaking wet after the spin cycle. This happened once before, temporarily, about a year or so ago. But this time, it just seemed to get worse.

Christian had to finally take it apart and ended up adjusting a water pressure sensor on it and it started working normally again.

A few weeks later, our dryer started acting up. The heat would not come on and the stupid energy preferred accudry sensor would make the dryer tumble around with just air for hours on end because air alone would not dry the clothes. We had to dry the clothes the old fashioned way on the clothesline outside. Luckily, the weather was fairly nice out and the clothes dried pretty quickly...although, some of Caitlyn's jeans were a bit "crunchy" afterwards. Most of the other clothes had no problems though since most of the clothes these days are blended or pre-softened in some way.

Christian had to then take the dryer apart this time. He had to order some new solenoids for it, which, thankfully, solved the problem.

Luckily, Christian's new electronics hobby came into good use with everything breaking down around us. I think it started with the refrigerator a year or so ago. So Christian actually spent some of his Spring Break working on the dryer.
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We met up with my family for the Ching Ming Festival (Tombsweeping Day). The kids usually like it as they get to see the family and we usually get to go out to eat together afterwards. We got to see my dad's tombstone which was place recently.

We also celebrated a belated birthday for my brother who turned 50 this year. His birthday was the week before, but we couldn't really get together and he was busy so I baked him a lemon and blueberry cake.

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My brother and his kids came over the next day to put some grafts on my mulberry tree, which he originally gave me but nearly died in one of our great summer heat waves. He also grafted a couple of branches onto my loquat tree. His original graft on that one died as well but the stock was still alive and starting to fruit again. It is a little late in the year, but hopefully all the new grafts will take.

My mom decided to come out a visit since my brother was coming over. After working on the trees, we took them for a walk in the hills behind our house since the wildflowers were blooming nicely.

The flowers were even more vibrant a week before. Also, we headed up a little late in the day and some of the flowers were already starting to close up, especially the California poppies. It was still nice out though.

We pitched in to help Christian make us dinner afterwards. Well, my brother and I did. All the kids got to spend more time playing together. We had my mom sit back and relax. We had to call it a night shortly after dinner though as the kids had to go back to school the next day and my brother and Christian had to go to work.

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Other than that, the kids and I didn't do that much over their break. They did their organ practice. Caitlyn tried to catch up on her piano practice. 

Marian took the day off and took us out to lunch and took the kids out for some shopping on one of the days. She also brought us some cap steaks for dinner. They were so tender, juicy and flavorful! 

The kids took a little bit of their time and helped with a few things around the house. We worked together in the yard a bit and the girls washed and vacuumed up my car.

Emily was a little behind on her art projects for school, so she worked a little on that. Both did a little extra studying as finals are around the corner. Emily decided to brush up on her math for her SATs coming up by tutoring her sister in her math. Caitlyn's math teacher really sucks, so we are definitely grateful for any extra help that Emily gives to her sister who, once again, has a really bad math teacher. We took a break on one of the days, picked up some fast food and went out to the park for a picnic so that they can run around a bit. Emily wanted to get out and kick around the old soccer ball.

So, yeah, a week of busy nothings and it's over before we knew it.

Sweet 16

Well, it's official. Emily turned 16! We always let the kids pick their favorite meals for their birthdays. She went for something that she liked a lot but we haven't had in a while. Kalua Pork with cabbage over rice was her choice for dinner. She also requested angel food cake with pomegranate whipped cream for dessert.

Christian and I originally were going to help her get her driving permit for her birthday as she has been talking about it for a while now. When we were in high school, we had drivers education at school and it was easy to get your permit. Now you have to pay for and enroll in online classes and who knows what else in order to get your permit. We had suggested that she wait until she was 17 and a half before getting it because then you don't have to bother with all that but she is intent on getting it as soon as possible. 

However, her Aunt Debbie and my brother offered to help her with the costs of getting her permit which was very nice of them. So for her birthday, we let her know what they offered and she got presents from us to boot. She also got a card and some cash from Christian's mom for her birthday. As, usual, we had more birthday festivities planned for the weekend.

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Grandpa Caldwell and Jackie came up to celebrate her birthday, along with Marian. Emily requested Paella for her party. And for her cake, a dark chocolate raspberry cake with chocolate whipped cream mascarpone filling. It is also filled with a homemade raspberry jam and topped with a chocolate ganache. It was pretty tasty, if I say so myself!

Of course, she got more presents.

Emily also has to do an oral history project this year for class, so Christian set up a little recording studio in our office and she did a little interview with Terry about what life was like when he was around her age. I haven't gotten a chance to listen to it yet but I think that that should be pretty interesting.

After Terry and Jackie left, we got to visit for a while with Marian. Most of us were too hungry by the time dinner rolled around, so Emily had some leftovers and the rest of us just had some more salad...oh, and cake, of course! Marian left after dinner and we were pretty tired and settled down to watch one of Emily's favorite movies, Princess Mononoke.

February

This has been a really wet winter for us this year. At one point, we got so much rain that a section the street we go up in back of the kids' school got flooded one morning. I think it was on Valentine's Day. Two cars had driven in and gotten stuck that morning before the police blocked it off. We had to turn around and go through the front of the school instead. I wanted to get out and take a picture but it was still raining at the time and there were police cars staring us down. Plus we didn't know what we would find at the front of the school that morning. 

I found this picture posted on our neighborhood website. They managed to tow out one of the cars and the police left temporary barricades and left the area by this time. It gives you an idea of how deep the water was.

Other than the temporary setback at the school, we have been mostly enjoying the excellent weather this year.

The only other really notable thing that happened this past month was Chinese New Year. We spent a lot of time visiting with family. We spent one weekend on our traditional reunion dinner. Then we spent another weekend making dumplings and other tasty treats with my mom. It's almost as good as Christmas for the kids as we pretty much cook and eat some of their favorite foods all day. Plus they get red envelopes full of money. What's not to like?