Cooperative for Education

Soon after we adopted Jamie from Guatemala in 2003, Karl and I began looking for a way to do something positive for the children of our new favorite country. We were introduced to Cooperative for Education by it's founders, brothers Jeff and Joe Berninger after they spoke at a meeting for adoptive parents of Guatemalan kids.

When Karl was serving as a Peace Corps volunteer, he was constantly drilled on the importance of   

 project sustainability.  Cooperative for Education, or CoEd, understands sustainability too, and is working hard and smart to break to cycle of poverty in Guatemala through education. They also offer the opportunity for regular folks to travel to Guatemala to inaugurate the projects and see firsthand, how students in rural Guatemala are benefiting from CoEd.  The travel tours are very well organized and absolutely a ton of fun.

Karl, Anna and Mary traveled with the tour last week and are still pretty wound up. Sometimes the girls are so overcome by a hysterical memory of some Guatemalan experience that they both crack up and can't seem to explain to poor old mom what's so funny.  I'm pretty sure that fits of laughter over just the memory of it all are a pretty good indication of a fun trip.

Anna and Mary in a classroom with the kids showing off their new school supplies.

Here is Mary with a young student...she was very impressed with his faux hawk. Apparently, there was a lot of hair product amongst many of the boys in class. 

The cool Guatemalan students consider it big fun to teach the gringos some traditional dance steps. This was a bit of a challenge for Karl and the girls as they prefer to dance wildly with their hands up and shaking their groove things- but they managed to temper their free style dance moves.

Anna got to dance with the dude in the suit!

I can tell by her look that she is just itching to bust out and let her groove loose... way to hold it together Anna!

Boogie fever!  I think it's coming around and around...

Got rainbow archway?

This was an entryway to one of the schools. I imagine that the night before they had all of the students blowing up balloons to create this masterpiece.

My daughters and their new young friends. 

A lovely woman named Sarah Celi who is a reporter for our local news was on the tour and was kind enough to teach my daughters many different and stylish ways to tie a fashion scarf. They learned a lot of important stuff on the tour.

Anna and Mary thanked the students for the warm welcome.

 

At the same school, the students made signs welcoming each of the tour participants. Karl thought it was cool that his name was misspelled as "Kart." 

My dear husband also won the tour superlative as "worst sport" as evidenced in this photo as he blocks the shot of the cute 7yr old during an impromptu basketball game. 

"Those guys hardly deserved to win and I had an EXTREME height advantage that I just couldn't waste..." he said of the game.

Way to crush the competition, Kart.

Here is the link to Cooperative for Education.

http://www.coeduc.org/
 

Please visit their site and take a look at all of the good works they are doing.

It's a top notch non profit run by a remarkable staff dedicated to the belief that education is a basic human right and is essential to the elimination of poverty.

Henry's new grin.

This is how Henry looked for most of the summer. 

He had two wiggly teeth on top and spent every free moment he had trying to work them out. 

I am certain that I told him to take his hand out of his mouth a thousand times a day.

As you can see he was not a subtle wiggler.

All of his hard work finally paid off this week when he lost two teeth in as many days. His first loss was pretty standard. He was brushing his choppers (yay, oral hygiene!) when his very, very loose tooth flicked out. The most exciting element to the event was that the tooth landed in the bathtub where Jamie was quick to grab it before it went down the drain. As Jamie put it... "Jamie to the tooth rescue!"

 The second tooth loss was more exciting. 

The very next day the boys were watching "Bare Hand Fishing"on Animal Planet and Henry, amazed by the practice of catfish noodlin'...went slackjawed. 

Jamie took advantage of Henry's open mouth, reached in, grabbed his remaining tooth and yanked it out in one fell swoop. 

I find it hard to believe that Henry was happy that his big brother yanked his tooth out when he wasn't paying attention, but he really was.

"I was so distracted, I didn't even feel the pain!" Henry happily exclaimed.

"I was a faster tooth yanker outer then the dentist!" said Jamie, proud of his new skill. 

Henry was quick to agree... "It all happened so fast, if anyone has any teeth they need to come out, they can just come over and watch a show with Jamie and that tooth will be outta there."

License to Drive

The good state of Ohio has officially decided that Mary is a qualified and capable driver and has given her a drivers license of her very own.
This has made Mary a very, very, happy sixteen year old girl.

 

 So happy, in fact, that she did not mind (too much) crawling through the not so well attended landscaping at the BMV so that I could photo document the occasion. 

"Ok, as long as you don't post this or anything..."

(Sorry, Mary... I'm afraid you owe me this one.)

The hot off the presses license that Mary is holding makes me at least as happy and delighted as she was in this photo... my smile was equally as wide.

I am so very relieved that my next oldest kid is ten, which gives me at least five and a half more years to rest and regroup before Lily needs to learn to make a left on red.

I can assure you from experience that there is no place more grim then the abandoned K-Mart on Ridge Rd, where traffic cones have been measured out and set up for student drivers to practice the much feared but necessary to pass, maneuverability exercise.

Especially at night, during the winter.

I saw a rat there once when Mary needed some space in the car and I watched her do the cones from the pavement instead of passenger side. The rat watched for a little bit too.
The rat seemed kind of happy that he wasn't me.
 Nope..I will definitely not miss those tension filled nights backing up through cones at the scary vacant K-Mart. 

 I congratulate and thank my dear daughter for passing the test and will remind her once again to be safe and keep her phone in the trunk and out of earshot while behind the wheel.

Let it Be

I got to see a real live Beatle last night.

Paul McCartney played the ballpark, and was completely, terrifically, amazing and Lily and I got to be there for it.

We were excited to bump into our pal Kim and her family.  

Kim took this photo of Lily and I as we waited for Sir Paul. We had very good seats, which was great for me, but didn't much matter for Lily.

This was her expression when Sir Paul bounced on stage.

 And this is why... this was the view from Lily's eye level.  

I forgot that when you are ten, every seat in the stadium is restricted view.

 

 But no matter.

Seconds later a beautiful thing happened.

Jumbotron booted up and there was Paul himself.

Giant Paul, 8 stories Tall Greatbig Paul.

Thank you Jumbotron, we love you.

Giant Jumbotron Paul sang to Lily and I (ok, and 41,500 others) for three hours straight. 

Not only did he sing, but he danced, and told really cool anecdotes. Who else could reminisce about John, and George and then drift into funny stories about Jimi (Hendrix) and Eric (Clapton)? 

Lily has been a Beatle-maniac since she was six. She knew almost all of his songs and was moved to rock out. Since she is ten, and not 13 or so, so she was not embarrassed in the least to dance with her frumpy ole' mom. 

She had a great time...she threw her hands up and did the peace-out sway as Paul adorably asked us to "Give Peace a Chance." Then she had the fabulous idea to booty- bump all of the way through "Ob-La-Da, Life, Goes On." 

Yep, my girl is one fun chica.  

There were some mellow moments too...

When Jumbotron Paul shifted over to his piano and played the first few bars of Let it Be, I lost it... its a beautiful song and Paul McCartney's giant Jumbotron head was singing... to me.

So I got emotional, so what.  

But then, a lovely thing happened, my cute girl scootched over to me and and let me hold her for the length of the song.  

And as the breeze blew back those 68 year old Jumbotron bangs I soaked it all in and was able to fully embrace the summertime moment of Paul McCartney singing "Let it Be,"to my girl and I under the stars.

Then I kind of ruined the moment (just a little bit) by imploring to Lily that she remember all of this, so I could get credit for being a good mom later on when I'll need it. Only she couldn't hear me very well due to the 41,500 whooping it up fans- so Miss Lily will associate the last few lines of Paul's "Let it Be" with me screaming at her to "...remember this, always remember this song and this night- ok, got it, can you hear me? got it!?" 

And then "Let it Be" was over and the next thing I know Sir Paul has launched into "Live and Let Die" and there are EXPLOSIONS and FIREWORKS and Paul is in the middle of it all screaming into the mic and working his historic and groovy Beatle boots like a teenager.

Lily couldn't help herself and leaped onto her chair to see the melee and we both screamed like girls.

And if the pyrotechnics weren't enough...

HE PLAYED HIS UKULELE!

Our family loves the twangy uke sounds (we might be a smidge dorky) and so did George Harrison, (definitely, not dorky) who wrote "Something" with the ukulele. Paul spoke of George and played his song and it was pure awesomeness.

The man himself and his uber cool ukulele.

 

 The stadium was filled with Jumbotrons, so you could still watch giant Paul while you trekked to the ladies room.

 Fabulous.

I didn't realize that there was an official Wings hand gesture until Paul did the double hands "W" move, 

He said."...this one is for the Wings fans out there," before he played Band on the Run.

Of course, this move became a favorite of Lily's by the end of the night.

Here she is leaving the concert... "Wings!"

As we were walking to our car, we met this gentleman on the corner who was playing, guess what..."Let it Be." We listened and enjoyed, and I didn't tear up this time but it was still very good.

Mr Williams introduced himself to us and invited us to come hear him play sometime at the Blue Wisp...cool.

And so ends a very fun, very musical night with my favorite 10 yr old girl and my favorite Beatle.

My hope is that Lily does always remember it just as perfectly as I will.

Not Sharing.

If you loved someone this much, it would be really tough to share.

 

Anna helped out in Rosie's Sunday school class the other morning. 

 When I asked Anna if Rosie behaved herself, she reported that she was pretty good but she got angry  when Anna needed to comfort a little girl who was missing her mommy.

When Anna scooped the upset little girl into her lap, Rosie gave her a dirty look and said...

"She is NOT your big sister...."

As in back off little girl, Anna is MINE, and I'm not sharing her.

I'm not sure how Anna juggled both little girls, but my guess is that Rosie won the battle for Anna's affections. In turn, Anna absolutely delights in the fact that Rosie will happily fight a class full of 3 year olds to be the one who gets to sit in her lap.

This photo was taken the day that Anna came home from college for the summer. 

In about three weeks summer will be over and Anna will return to school.

And Rosie will miss her.

Happy 9th, Jamie!

Our dear Jamie, turned 9 today and celebrated by having the most terrific day.

This is how it went...

Woke up early to open presents.

Took over the dining room table to build awesome new lego creations....
(noted that the Pirates of Caribbean Revenge Ship Lego model is for ages NINE to 13!)

Went to see Smurfs in 3D movie.

Pool! 

Got to try out birthday snorkel, mask and fins.

Harry Potter birthday cake...yum.

Being 9 is really, really, fine.

Jamie shares a birthday with one of his fictional heroes... can you guess who?

Hint... 

He wears cool glasses and a lightening bolt scar.

That's right... Harry James Potter + Jamie G. both born on July 31st!

Very Best Origami Artist I Know.

 

 This is my young friend Nathan, he is 11 and he is extremely cool.

He is such a nice + cool guy that he agreed to teach a class in origami at his local public library.

(That's his little brother Jonathan on the left)

 A whole bunch of kids came to his class, including Henry and Lily. 

I got to tag along too, which made me very happy and but made the class a bit tougher to teach since it then included "mature learners." All of those nimble minded youngsters picked up on the paper folding and bending quickly.... less so for me.

 

But Nathan was patient and explained his folds to me slowly. He even complimented me although  it was obvious that my "crane" looked more like a spitball then anything else. 

When I asked him to check my work he looked closely at my pitiful little bird and said...

"I think it would help if I do this fold over... that way the head won't be as long as the neck and the whole crane will be more even and balanced."

Thank you Nathan.

 

 Here he is showing Lily how to fold. 

She was a far better student and produced a far better bird and I am totally NOT jealous of her crane folding skills.

  

 Henry, Nathan and Lily with their finished cranes.

Nathan is showing off a little bit... his crane is kind of like an action figure. If you pull on it's cute little tail while tugging on it's well balanced and in proportion beak... he flaps his wings.

Nathan is demonstrating just how cool and flappy he made his crane.

Henry and Lily's cranes are also lovely and they should be proud of them.
My little spitball wad crane is safely tucked in my purse to spare my kids the embarrassment of an inept origami mom.

 

 The picture window of the library became a display of Nathan's origami art. 

Here is a folded vase of flowers and a hummingbird.

I thought this piece was funny... it's a baby in a box.

Of course.

Nathan is one of my heroes.

He is cool and sweet and the very best origami artist I know.

He is also a gifted musician and plays the piano and cello.

He does all of these things with the additional challenge of being born without his right arm.  He uses his foot to do things like make intricate paper folds and guide a cello bow. Two things that many people who do have a right arm can't do.

Nathan's right foot can do anything that a right hand could do. 

Nathan can do absolutely anything he wants to do.