A busy long weekend

November has started off with our usual crazy busy schedule. Thursday Joshua was home from school (elementary schools were having parent/teacher conferences) and I needed to attend a meeting at the district office. Jon got home from work around 1:30 -- early because the MEF (Marine Expeditionary Force) was having their Marine Corps Ball that night. We loaded up our truck to take more of our stuff down to the storage bin at Camp Pendelton. Then we headed south. This was my first sight of the burned area in Camp Pendelton along the 5 freeway. It was awesome to see 8 miles of burned hills. I took this picture while I was driving north on the 5 freeway. For me the fire has already become history but I know there are families who only just got to go home this weekend and of course the families who lost their homes will be rebuilding for a long time. Later in the weekend we drove a short way down the 15 freeway to get a glimpse of the burned area in Rancho Bernardo -- we could see places where the fire jumped a freeway that is at least 10 lanes wide -- those were powerful winds.

Thursday evening we were able to drop Joshua off with my sister Sandy and her husband Sonny. He had a wonderful time and was introduced to Wii. Oh, great, a new expensive toy to add to his wish list -- thanks, Uncle Sonny. This Marine Corps ball was held at the Pechanga Casino -- 1,200 Marines and their guests and it seemed like the majority were about 18 years old. I started feeling old when the music started and I didn't know many of the songs and my head started ringing -- that was loud music. Jon and I had a wonderful date night together and I got to meet many of the Marines that he either worked with the last time he was deployed or who he will work with next year. It was just fun to be out for the night together.

Friday we got back home in time to run over to school to our conference with Joshua's teacher. We learned that Joshua is quite smart -- tested at the 3rd grade level in English and Math. Of course he is being taught in Spanish and his Spanish reading is lower than it "should" be so he will be having some after-school "enrichment" classes for the next few months. We also are supposed to work with him to get him to memorize the addition and subtraction facts. Unfortunately, his math major mother never memorized those facts. I have been known to use my fingers while balancing my check book. So I know for a fact that Joshua will be fine without being able to complete 100 addition or subtraction problems in 5 minutes. Oh, well, we'll try to find a fun way to help him memorize them.

Our craziness was in full swing on Saturday. We had soccer at 8:00 a.m. -- Joshua played and Jon was the ref. Then we headed to our house in Orange to unload the nearly-new oven from our current mobile home, a dishwasher in fairly good shape and mirrored sliding glass doors. We also helped our friend and tenant Lauri pack up her stuff as she was moving out. Then we were off to sign the revised papers for our new home. We rushed home so Jon could show his motorcycle to an interested buyer. We loaded the truck again so Jon could take another trip to our storage unit at Camp Pendelton. I headed off to Jumpin Jammin with Joshua for a friend's birthday party. What a day. The extra hour of sleep last night was greatly needed and appreciated.

Next weekend we'll be moving and I'm not sure how long I'll be without a computer. The friends who are hosting us for the next 6 weeks have said I can get connected to the Internet, so hopefully I'll only be off for a day or two. Thanks for all your prayers.

Sheryl