Drivers Edge

*** Note: I have deleted and recreated this post several times trying to get the video to be in sync with the audio on the clips below. I think I have it now. So, if you saw and commented on the previous, the comment is gone. Watch and comment again!! Mike. ***

We've got video from the onboard camera from the girls' driving portion at Driver's Edge.

We have lots of photos to share too. These are from the "Slide" part of the driving portion. They had to drive fast thru some water just put down by the water truck and turn suddenly which put the car into a slide. They had to learn how to drive through it, keeping their eyes on the cones where the car should go and steer to stay on course. It was understandably difficult for both girls, since this is the kind of road condition that caused their rollover accident not quite 5 months ago. But they did good! Taryn got a few extra turns because the first couple times she closed her eyes, then she kept them open but didn't steer where she needed to go. Eventually, she got it...and she got the trophy for most improved! Indy was fighting nausea the whole time...not because she gets carsick, but because of PTSD! And she said people got thrashed around during this exercise. I like the part where she sighs when it's all over! The girls learned alot from Driver's Edge and we were so glad they got in. We found out all 400 spots were gone in 15 minutes.Buckle up, sit on back and enjoy......

Thought this was cool!

In My Own Defense

Ok ok ok.....Here it is in FIRST place:

Hey Everyone! Guess what?! Taryn got her drivers license yesterday! All's we had to do was go to the dmv and turn in her paperwork from her driving course and get her photo taken. She didn't have to do a road test, so it wasn't the scary big deal you may be remembering! And in my own defense, I had exactly 3 minutes to type that blog and as I was finishing that last bulleted item, thought, hey! I gotta say Taryn got her license! I didn't have time to go back up to the top and put it where, obviously, EVERYONE thought it should be!!!

Well, it's just not my day - must have started too early. We have no photos from the lovely lunch experience though because guess what?! No memory card in the camera!! Argh!!! It was still in the computer. Now we have to go back and eat cafeteria food again on Monday....NOT! Whew, my ears are still recovering - it was really loud. For those that ate, their stomachs are probably still recovering. It all looked yucky to me so I had strawberry milk and an orange push-up pop for lunch! Adults can get away with that sort of monkey-business. Mariah looked at me like I was gonna be in Big T-r-o-u-b-l-e!!!

Well, it's naptime for the old folks and time for me to stick dinner in the crock pot. Then off to the airport with my mom. Maybe I'll have photos tomorrow.

Off to School!

Grandma & Grandpa arrived safely. We enjoyed lunch at my favorite restaurant and hanging around. Everyone watched Mike set up the new bird bath. I'll send photos later.

Gib invited Grandma & Grandpa Coombs to speak to his Spanish class today. We are leaving in a couple minutes. Grandma dug out a bunch of stuff from Chile to show the 8th graders in Gib's class. The teacher was excited to have some guests who have spent considerable time in Spanish speaking countries visit the class in the 2nd week of school.

Later we will join Mariah for lunch. Cafeteria food...yippee. She is very excited. I'm not sure 4 adults will fit at her table, but we will see.

Somewhere in the day we will take a roadtrip out to pick up Indy's Senior Photos at the castle place.

Oh yeah, and I have to get my mom off to the airport on time too. She's heading to Alaska with my grandpa for a cruise.

Gib gets his hair cut after school and the Titans are on TV tonight at Atlanta.

AND.......Taryn got her drivers license yesterday!!!

Wow That Was Easy

Just had to share -

1) CPR by American Heart Association was much better than any Red Cross training I've had. One surprising fact was that CPR only saves about 3-7% - that number can go up depending on where you live, but unless it's Boston at 40%, everyone just realize that you're pretty much appealing to the Master. But with the defib machine the save rate goes up to about 50%.
2) The new guidelines are sooooo much easier - there's only 2 breaths now for every 30 compressions, all ages, but guess what?! If you don't happen to carry one of those little plastic barrier doohickeys in your back pocket, you don't even have to do the breathing part at all (except for the little preschool kids if you are employed & trained to spring into action for). And rumor has it, in the not so distant future they won't even have you do breathing at all - just the chest compressions. Being the germ-phob that I am, that was very good news indeed.
3) The defib machine is very cool and easy to use. I think even the preschoolers could handle it. You might still have to do CPR so don't get too charmed by the buttons and the little man telling you exactly what to do because when he says "Commence CPR" or something, again, you're on your own.
4) And lastly, for really memorable training, come to the South and hope your instructor was born and bred here. Because then the accent makes the class so much more entertaining (I know why I was being laughed at for picking up a twang), and the verb usage can't be beat, for example: compressions becomes pumps, and sometimes even humps (and that's a syllable and a half you know). And yeah, I kinda smiled but held in actual laughter because I am more mature than that. Not easy when the sentence goes something like this, "if you don't git yo-self up higher you'll jest be rockin' and all that humpin' on the heart will not be effective". Every time she said that there was a verse of a song that I could almost hear, but I had to a) fight the smile and b) pay attention, so I didn't quite catch it. Anyone care to guess what it was?

A Kink in the Plans

I have a couple minutes for a quick spot of blogging. So I'll be brief for a change!

Preschool starts next week, so I've been in classes to get a jump on the 20 hrs of training I have to have by Aug '09. Today I go to CPR, and tomorrow we have a session on all the levels of autism. Yesterday was a big cleaning reorganization of the preschool supply closet. Another aide and I worked on it pretty much the whole day while teachers set up their classrooms. We are still finding things from 1968 in that closet even though I know it's been cleaned/reorg'd at least 3 times because I was involved all 3 times! Yesterday's gem was a green lid gripper from a church fundraiser a few decades ago that was shaped like a dollar bill, had $ signs on the corners, and in the middle was a church name and a quote that said "Do Your Giving While You're Living and You'll Be Knowing Where It's Going". That cracked me up.

As soon as the session breaks tomorrow I'm heading to the airport to get Mike's parents. I will miss out on the other half of the training and a lunch prepared by the church board. Just so you know, I really dislike eating food made by people I don't know, so "miss out" was sarcastic. I will happily hold off until I collect Mom & Dad and we'll eat together - hey, maybe at a restaurant where the food is made by people I don't know but somehow that's OK.

Well, I'm off to crimp Mariah's hair with the new curling iron like the one Suzanne showed me. It didn't turn out yesterday quite the same as hers, so I'm wondering if it's how you hold it or is Mariah's hair just thicker?! I seriously needed sisters in my life, I'm tellin' ya. Maybe I'll have time for a photo before we head off to the bus.

How Does Your Garden Grow

Know ya'll are wondering how the yard is progressing after planting those 200 plants!

Here's my mom's Shade Garden. She looks out on it from her bedroom window.

She did it almost all by herself - her trusty little hole digger and opinion giver was on hand for some of it, but she pretty much aced this one on her own!
The Japanese Maple was moved by our landscapers and was purple in the spring.
Maybe next year when the Rose of Sharon we planted to the south of it grows, it will stay purple longer with more shade. One can only hope.


Gotta love having a sprinkler system. I'm glad I refused to drag hoses for Grammy and we got one! Despite needing several adjustments over the summer, it's been great. Even if only for entertainment. Yesterday, Grammy and Mike were adjusting one of the heads, and when they turned it on, water hit the pillar in the photo below, ricocheted off the metal and almost soaked Indy. It was funny, but not as funny as the day I adjusted a sprinkler head at Grammy's Alpine house while she was standing there telling me what to do, and the doohickey popped off and she got nailed right below her neck but above her waist, if you know what I mean!
Now THAT was funny!

So here's the upper patio - Indy's Special Chair to the left! Can you see the big bush (Lantana) at the bottom taking over the patio? Last year it was 3' high and this year it'd be over 5' high but we keep it trimmed for our own protection. The butterflies love it. But when it was shorter, the cats considered it their walk-by snack stand. Poor butterflies! Now that it's taller they aren't getting caught nearly as much and the cats have to come home to munch.

We've have tons of gorgeous butterflies and hummingbirds in the yard now.

And in the East

To the West
We're waiting for birdbath's to go on sale to complete the trio of pots
in the area now known as the Dead Zone (of noxious clay).

Swamp Hibiscus
These are wonderful perennial shrubs. We weren't sure what it was last summer when we bought it, along with my Patio Pot Plant (seriously that was the tag so you know I had to buy it) which turned out to be a pretty purple Princess Flower. I'll photo the Princess when she blooms which should be soon.

Anyway, I digress. Since the Swamp withstood our winter in the pot on the patio, (coldest temp about 10 degrees), we bought two more this year. The blooms are as big as dinner plates!

AND THAT'S HOW THE GARDEN GROWS!