Not much going on!!

Tonight was Open House at my school. I ended up staying there and not even going home until it was over at 8:30. (I was pretty behind in my work!!) I only had about a half dozen parents show up. Which is par for the course.

Over all there wasn't a huge turnout - it is middle school, after all. But with budget cuts and furlough days and belt-tightening and all, the teachers are saying, "Let's get rid of Open House. If they have to cut salaries to keep jobs, fine. But don't make us stay after to greet parents as they walk through our rooms and judge things with a critical eye."

I don't mind Open House - or Back to School Night. Parents don't often come to my room - special ed kids have a yearly IEP meeting and parents feel connected that way. And some special ed kids don't like being in special ed and want out - especially at the middle school level - so they certainly don't want to visit there after hours!! But I enjoy sitting in my room and getting "caught up" on all the work that has piled up. And it doesn't hurt to have a reason to spruce up your room now and then.

And Harry brought me dinner!

The weekend that gets an extension this time!!

Enjoyed a nice long visit last night with my "BFF" Pammy!! Friends truly become "golden" as the years go by!! And it's been fun having Robyn here with her 2 sweet kids - love those Meier women - one and all!!

Sunday dinner - and the "Pied Piper of Monrovia" - our own Greg - has the kids in his thrall with the remote controlled helicopters!!

Gunner is a good man - eats and sleeps on a very regular schedule - so he's pretty much been sleeping when I finally think about taking pics. Here he is on his way to dreamland!! (Porter was pretty excited by Gunner's name - said, "Does he have a gun??")

A little movie magic to wind down the evening.

Miss Isla continues to charm all who come her way!! Dawn gave the lesson in RS today, so I was the designated babysitter. She started to howl - so I took her out - all the while Dawn was thinking "Swaddle her!" I'm a mind reader, so I did just that - and she calmed down and snoozed through the lesson. Once again a Terrill grandchild makes me look good!!

NO SCHOOL TOMORROW - I'm pretty excited!! (It's Cesar Chavez Day - I bought union grapes to celebrate!!)

Partway through the weekend -

We enjoyed heading out to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium last night for the 61st annual Stairway to the Stars, put on by the combined music departments of the Santa Monica/Malibu Unified School District. Bonny said last year's was better - and if it was, it must have been spectacular, because last night was a wonderful show - 1,000 students, grades 4 through 12, singing in choral groups or playing in orchestras and bands - a performance that would be worthy of the oft-overworked adjective awesome!!

Ella sang in the combined middle school chorus and Ara played flute in the combined middle school band. From the start, with all 1,000 students - and the audience - singing and playing The Star Spangled Banner - the program was off to a rousing start. A few of my faves: the combined middle and high school bands playing Loch Lomond, the combined elementary, middle school and high school choirs singing Down in the River to Pray, the elementary and middle school choir singing selections from Les Miserables, and a pretty exciting high school jazz band. At the start and at the finish, all 1,000 students performed Stairway to the Stars, apparently the inspiration for the whole program, lo these many years. (I loved that they showed the lyrics on the Jumbotron and invited the audience to sing at the end!!)

Interspersed throughout the program were the obligatory tributes, acknowlegedments, awards, and raffle drawings - but they kept everything going at a nice clip. The guest conductor was from the music department at USC, and the award recipient was a former Stairway of the Stars participant who is now working on stage - currently in Jersey Boys in Las Vegas. He gave a great speech about how he wasn't a very good student until things fell into place after 4th grade when he got into the music program the district has always tried to provide!

Apparently there is a bond measure that hopes to save the music program - since it is being decimated by budget cuts from Sacramento - in case you've been living in a vacuum for the past year or two, the education picture in California is pretty grim. Cutting and slashing of jobs and programs is rampant, so there were appeals to the audience to support Measure A for their district - and to encourage neighbors to do the same. It is certainly a program that ought to be saved. When will the world acknowledge that music and the arts might even be more important than math and science!!

We were all hungry, so we went to Norm's after - I love a good "breakfast for dinner" at Norms!! It is so great to hang with the lovely Bolander girls and their mom and dad. After all their hard work, they are now set to enjoy not one, but two weeks of Spring Break!!

Before I hustled out of school on Friday - leaving quite a mess that I won't think about until Tuesday, because we have Monday off for Cesar Chavez Day - we had a shower for my co-worker Sarah, who is going out on maternity leave.

And Robyn and kids are still here - Corey's wedding is today - so Dad remains a popular grandfather figure for Sophie!!

I'm playing catch-up with the laundry right now and definitely need to go to the store for milk and bread anyway - so we won't starve!! There is lots that needs doing - but I may read a book or rent a movie instead!!

I'm looking forward to the day of rest - followed by a day off school!!

The Terrill Hotel is open for business - special weekday rates!!

We are enjoying a visit from Robyn and kidlettes - here's Sophie - learning real fast about "the orange tree by the back gate!!"

And always happy to help Grandpa - whom she calls Paw-Paw!! (and she calls the family room the "toy room!!")

I had these pennies out for a science project I was experimenting with - and Sophie also knows about putting pennies in jars and bottles!!

Gunner was up last night for a while - he'd napped on the way from the airport and hadn't survived the transition from car seat to strange house!! So he played while Robyn and I visited until he got tired enough to accept a strange bed in a strange house.

Robyn is here for Corey's wedding on Saturday - and we are enjoying having her and her children here!!

Weekend Wrap-up

It's been a crazy, busy weekend - I almost need to get back to school to get some rest!! Dad and I worked at the temple Friday night - then had to come home and move all the stuff that had been "stuffed" into the guest room while the computer/sewing/laundry room got painted - so that we'd be ready for our guests who were arriving Saturday evening. (We were also working at the temple on Saturday, and then were going to Sarah Cornwall's Senior Recital on the way home, so it was Friday night or nothing!!)

Saturday was also our Stake Relief Society Day in the temple. What happened to lazy Saturdays?? To keep ourselves awake, Dad and I have become Jack In the Box regulars on our drives home!! (So much for the Wellness Challenge!!) And when we got home Saturday night and got our guests situated, I still had to go to the market!! I think I need to get better organized!!

But all got done and all went well, and we have enjoyed having our guests with us. Sister Sager served her mission here in the Arcadia Mission and served in the Monrovia Ward. She came with her husband and a cousin and his wife, and they are doing the whole SoCal visit - tomorrow is Disneyland. Of course, they wanted to spend Sunday with the Terrills - since we all know how exciting that is!!

Sunday dinner is always enjoyable - I was enjoying it all so much, I forgot to take many pictures. Take my word for it that everyone seemed to enjoy it too. And Greg brought his remote controlled helicopter - and that was a big hit with certain parties!!

And maybe you can see the steri-strip bandage baby Harry has on his forehead - he hit the edge of a table.

Richard Lyon, Shannon Sager Lyon, Ruth Sager, Clayton Sager

One of the great features of church membership is they way you can connect and reconnect with one another. Clayton served his mission in Norway, so we had the whole Norway/Norwegian conversation.

We live at four-two-eight,
With many a guest at the gate.
We're not disturbed,
Or even perturbed,
Since having so many's first-rate!

National Marathon!

I love cheering on my family at marathons. It is one of my favorite things to do. There is no experience quite like it. I always get a lump in my throat when I am waiting at the finish line of any kind of race. It is just so exciting for everyone there and such a triumphant culminating moment for the runners who have worked so hard to get there.

Hannah ran the half while Robbie ran the full marathon, so their finish times were nicely staggered. The kids and I got there about 10 minutes before Hannah crossed. It was a really crowded time and I was only about 20 or so yards ahead of the finish line; I was nervous I would miss her. I went ballistic when I saw her and cheered so frantically that I didn't take a picture in time. By the time the shutter worked on my camera, she had passed and the picture I got was of some random girl. So here (above) is Hannah after she finished.

It was especially fun to have a half and a full marathon going on at the same time and to know people in both races, because in addition to watching both Hannah and Robbie finish, we also got to watch the finishes of the marathon winner, the female marathon winner, and the wheelchair winner.

We had just enough time to find a good cheering spot before Robbie finished the marathon. With 15,000 runners, there were a lot of spectators at the finish line. Not that you can tell from this picture--we were farther away from the finish line this time. Robbie came in at his best time ever, 3:13, beating his previous best by a quarter of an hour. Amazing. AND may I mention that both Hannah and Robbie have been battling a horrible cold/flu/something for the past several days.

Matt wanted to come with us but is at a youth fundraiser thing all day so he had to miss it. The kids and I took the metro in and they loved riding on the train.

Robbie with a co-worker.

We hung around for a while afterward and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine. We have been hungering for this kind of weather after a long and snowy winter. The high is supposed to be 73 today. It was a little too hot for the runners, but great for the rest of us!


Great job, Hannah and Robbie!

March 20, 1982

I know I post this each year, but with the passing years, the day, the event, the occasion grows in significance as we contemplate how much has changed since that memorable time - now 28 years ago.

The suits on Dad and Uncle Jim are certainly "dated," - interestingly the female wardrobe items seem a little more "timeless." (That may just be my viewpoint. But Frances and Grandma have always had pretty much "timeless" hairdos.)

Most importantly, however, is the fact that the event itself has made our family timeless - and for all eternity too!

17 years ago today!!

17 years ago today - I remember it exactly because we went on St. Patrick's Day - Helen came to stay with the kids - and brought a corned beef and cabbage dinner with her - something the kids had never gotten from me - and I think they still remember it!! (and ever after would ask me why I didn't fix it each year when March 17th rolled around!)

Anyway, Dad and I took off on a belated 25th anniversary trip to Paris.

These shots show us in all our jet-lagged glory that first day in Paris. Oddly enough, most of the photos are of Notre Dame, the Gard du Nord - which was under extensive renovation so Dad took lots of "construction" photos, and other shots that don't include any people we know!! (I know I have a photo book of shots from that trip - and can't seem to find it - another good reason to sort through my boxes of photos!!) (I've started - just haven't gotten very far.)

There was a lot of "wearin' o' the green" today at school. And we wrote limericks in Language Arts - I always wonder why I do that, because my kids never seem to "get it." But it makes a good lesson - and the limericks, framed by shamrocks, look pretty good at open house - which is next week!!

We both live at four-two-eight
With nary a guest at the gate.
We are not perturbed,
Or even disturbed,
So come all, either sooner or late!

Feel free to contribute your own!

Whole lotta shakin' goin' on!

We had a little seismic activity this early a.m. - as in 4:04 a.m. A little 4.4 quake with Pico Rivera as the epicenter.

There was no damage for me to photograph - not even skewed pictures on the walls - and nothing fell off anything either.

But I was having a very strange dream when it awakened me - I was in an airplane and we were falling down a very long curtain to the airport below.

We both woke up - I said, "Was that an earthquake?" Dad said, "It wasn't a truck rumbling through."

Afterward, I had an even stranger dream about Dad bringing Dromedaries - as in camels - into our back yard. Then Bill Card brought some peacocks.

Good thing I woke up!

Another one bites the dust!

So the Ides of March came - and went - once more!! We often invite many - and often many don't come for whatever reason. This year everyone came - so it was a crowded - but very fun - affair. We especially enjoyed having the Bolanders make the trek! And it wasn't a work night for Harry F., so they joined us too.

It took me two photos to get everyone in!! And Karan D. pulled a Cinderella move and slipped out before we gathered for the group photo. There was tons of food too - this is turning into quite a feast - with some Mediterranean fare added to the usual pizza and salad of years past.

I think we had 35 people all together! Not a record for our house, but maybe an Ides record. Dad's thinking of doing it out of doors next year - in the front yard. We'll keep you posted.

Miss Isla enjoyed sleeping in various arms!!

All's well that ends well!

Happy Birthday Ronnie!!

March 15th is the Ides of March - and the Terrill family has always celebrated this occasion in the grand manner.

But we never would have started celebrating it if it hadn't been Ronnie Horton's birthday! So here's to Ronnie - shown above with a very young Bonny - we miss Ronnie - especially on the 15th of March!!

The first Ides of March party - 1970 (Eliza, note shot of your current bishop!!)

Last year's big event!!

Watch for post-event photos and details on this year's Shakespearean extravaganza!!

Not really as random as it seems

In honor of tomorrow's Ides Extravaganza, here's a shot from the festivities in 1991 I believe - or maybe '93 or '94?

One year we had the McGlones join us - a fine time was had by all.

And here's a shot from a YM/YW stake activity - Eliza was away at school, so that would be 2000? Anyway, Melanie is in this one - and she's home now and gave a great talk today in church.

Gotta love those Warner women!!

And here's a little shot of Hannah one time when she was ill - maybe she just needs Cosmo to make her better!!

So, it wasn't so random after all!!

This weekend - up to now anyway!!

Harry, Dawn and kids took off for Sycamore Cove this weekend - after our stint at the temple today, we drove up PCH to visit them.

It was a mite chilly, but we had our love - and a nice fire - to keep us warm! Also some fun storytelling (goes well with S'mores and foil dinners!)

Isla much preferred being inside the motor home!!

Mmm - some yummy hot chocolate too.

Ella enjoyed being the babysitter.

And Porter enjoyed the loft sleeping arrangements.

Esme and Annika were there - maybe Bonny got some shots of them!! She drove over with the girls - H and D and fam will be going to the "one true ward" tomorrow with the Bolanders.

Porter asked to go to bed!

Maybe we just need a motor home in our driveway for bedtime!

Grandpa adopted his Grandpa Bob persona and told a "tall tale" around the old campfire.

Good times with the cousins!

As usual, Harry planned and executed a fun time for all!!

One of the winners in the Newton Scooter race on Friday in 8th grade science.

I helped three kids made scooters. George's did fine on all it's trial runs - and then bombed on test day!!

But Jonathan's won. Hailey's didn't do well either - we tested indoors - and the final test was outdoors. Mr. W. said that shouldn't have made a difference - but I think it did. Oh well, we had a lot of fun - and one out of 3 ain't bad - especially for a non-scientist, non-engineer like me!

Who knows what Sunday holds? Dad is speaking in Sacrament meeting with Melanie - we'll let you know how it goes.