Busy busy week!  I actually made my first ever vlog (gasp!) today but am having some audio trouble so I’ll post it when it’s ready.  In this issue,

• Jaden’s Kindergarten Graduation
• Luna joins the Hall Family (new puppy!)
• Best of LOLcats

Jaden’s Kindergarten Graduation

Well, they don’t actually call it a “graduation” but more like a “Celebration of Success”.  I’m sooo glad they clarified that they were celebrating success and not something else, like, oh, I don’t know… failure?

We’re so very happy for him.  His teacher, Ms. Dominguez, is simply awesome.  We couldn’t imagine a better Kindergarten teacher. 

It’s people like her that make me want our society to pay good teachers more.  Note that I’m not saying “all teachers should get raises” or “we should pay teachers more.”  Specifically, I’m saying that we should reward good teachers.  there should be such high standards for those in charge of teaching our young, that the market should demand extremely high talent, excellent motivators, caring and loving guidance givers, and we should pay them accordingly.  I want people to have to “try out” to be counted among the amazing.

Then again, maybe the allure of money would attract the wrong types of people.  Perhaps the quality of not requiring high recompense is one that accompanies all the other great qualities of the perfect teacher.  Hmm.  Maybe our current system is already the best it could be.  It sure doesn’t seem so, though.

What do YOU think we should do for our best teachers?

Luna joins the Hall Family

We’re big supporters of rescued dogs, and we encourage anyone who wants a great pet to consider adoption vs breeding.  In fact, you can go to petfinder.com and type in your zipcode and find the perfect pet near you that needs a home.

Today we added Luna to our family - we found her through FOGAS - Friends of Gonzales Animal Shelter, where Caitlin volunteers countless hours each month in front of PetSmart to help clean, educate, set up, tear down, answer questions, and keep the dogs company while they look for new owners.

Posting this picture reminds me that some people might have different meanings for the word “puppy” - to us, it’s just about any dog under a year old.  Luna is five months old (as far as anyone knows).  She’s probably a mixture of Australian Shepherd and Border Collie (as far as anyone knows) and she’s incredibly cute (as far as anyone knows).  She’s already started to attempt asserting her place in the pack, but you never know how the order ends up with dogs.

Everything is SO much easier now that we’ve shaved the dog’s names into their fur.

Best of LOLcats

To make a long post even longer, and only annoy a few people, add some LOLcats!

Yeah, that’s kinda good…
but “Chuck Norris Cat,” as name
fits bill much better.

Is it Kindergarden or kindergarten?  Pretty sure it’s with a “t”…

Mommy and I brought Jaden to his first day.  He woke up excited, got dressed excited, drove there with us excited, ate breakfast excited, and actually got into his classroom excited.  I hope that lasts him through the year.  As a dutiful doting parent, I’m posting some first day pictures here so you can share some of his day. 

Although this first pic doesn’t refect his excitment, he really was excited, I swear… 

His big sister Caitlin helped show him around, take him to breakfast and be his “guide”.  Here he’s seeing that one of his classmates also wants to find the classroom.  Either that, or he’s already checking her out.  “How YOU Doin’?”

 Yay!  we find his classroom!  Some other parent in the doorway is giving an air high five to her invisible friend.

And we even find his desk.  There’s another “Jaden” in the class who spells his name “Jayden”, so ours is lucky enough to get one of those “last name identifiers”.  His teacher is incredible.  She had a scavenger hunt during open house, made Jaden a quite creative gift baggie, called us over the weekend to see if we needed anything, and is just as sweet as can be.

 And of course Jaden goes straight for the little clubhouse in the back with the other boys and he says “I love this classroom!”.

We also brought Caitlin to school but said she’d shoot us if we went in with her to her classroom.  She’s in 8th grade now.  (sniff).