Like a pebble on the lake...

First, a disclaimer...
I am not a complete klutz. I know how to walk and even run pretty well. I generally stay on two feet and don't often injure myself. And I turn beet red when I am embarrassed.

Okay, on to the story...
NOTE: I really wish I had a picture (or better yet, a video) to accompany this post, but you'll have to just try to visualize this the nest you can without visual aids.

So, tonight was game night at Amanda's house. A bunch of girls from church and a few from other places (lol) get together to play board games and card games on Friday nights. Tonight was lots of fun - we played UNO MadDog...and I lost. But I always lose, so that is not the best part of the story.

Well, since I had brought the kids along with me, I couldn't stay too late. Around 11pm we said our goodbyes and headed out to the car. Jonathan asked if he could drive home, and I figured that if I got to the car first I would be the driver. So I started running to the car to beat him there.

Amanda's front yard has a pretty decent hill that angles toward the street and ends with a small ditch right by the road. Well, as I ran down the hill, I somehow tripped over my own feet and fell to my knees in the wet, muddy grass. But that is not the end of our sad tale. As soon as my knees hit the ground, I started to fall forward. My keys and the box of Oreo balls flew out of my hands and slid into the middle of the street. I tried to brace myself with my hands and ended up bouncing along the grass on my stomach like a pebble skips across the lake. I slid to a stop on the pavement behind my car.

OUCH!
My first reaction was shock and pain. I started to cry. By the time Jonathan reached me and asked if I was okay, I had moved on to laughing. I couldn't help myself. I must have looked so ridiculous falling and bouncing like that. I couldn't stop laughing - even as I headed back into Amanda's house to wash the blood and gravel off my hands.

Everyone got a good laugh at me, and that's okay since I was laughing the hardest of everyone anyway. After I got cleaned up and Amanda put a band aid on my hand, we left..again. This time I was careful to walk slowly and Amanda even supervised my trip to the car. A very embarrassing situation, but such a great story!

Happy Birthday, Sammy!

We kept things kind of simple for Sammy's birthday this year.
Nothing too complicated...except for the cake!
Sammy wanted a dog cake (big surprise, right?) so I worked on making one that was 3-D. It took me forever and the silly tail gave me fits, but it ended up looking pretty cute!
Sammy got lots of fun presents, but her absolute favorite was a Justin Bieber CD. She was such a nut tonight. Quite the cheeseball. But we love her! I still can't believe she is fourteen!

Special Visitor

Life has been really hard lately. I have been super lonely and very stressed out. One afternoon I broke down and called Mom and asked her to come stay with me for a while. I just needed the emotional support.
She wasn't too sure about such a long trip at first, but ultimately agreed to stay for a whole week. It was so nice having someone to talk to and help with the kids.

The greatest son on earth...

I can't even begin to count the number of times that people come up to me and tell me how awesome Jonathan is. Seriously. At least once a week at church.
I have to agree with them. Jonathan is such a kind, smart, caring, responsible, friendly, mature kid. I would love to take some of the credit for his amazing personality, but he came to earth that way! I just have the privilege of taking care of him. :)

The effects of gravity

At school I have been teaching about gravity and its effect on falling objects. My students conducted an experiment where they dropped various objects (paper, feather, tennis ball, golf ball) and recorded which object fell the fastest. The results were as expected...the paper took teh longest every time.

After that experiment, I challenged my students to find a way to make the tennis ball and the paper fall to the ground at the same rate. It was interesting to see what they tried...dropping it sideways, dropping it with the ball on top, dropping it from a different height....

When they had been given a few minutes to complete the task, I showed them another option. I took a piece of paper and crunched in into a ball. When I dropped the crumpled paper and the tennis ball this time, they hit the ground at the same time. This got the kids' attention.

I next asked them to try to explain why the crumpled paper fell faster than the flat paper. I assumed they would talk about the shape and air resistance. What surprised me was that many of the students actually suggested that the crumpled paper weighed more than the flat one! It was at this point that I knew I had to address this misconception.

I tried relating it to something more familiar. I asked the students if I would weigh more on a bathroom scale if I crouched down than if I stood up straight. Most of them said that I would. Hmmmmm. They needed proof.

So.....

Today I actually brought in a bathroom scale and weighed myself...that's right...in front of my students. I stood up straight, I crouched down into a ball, I stood on one leg. They were surprised to discover that I weighed the same no matter what position I stood. Finally! They began to understand that an object (like me) did not change mass or weight just because it changes shape.

Unfortunately, now my students all know how much I weigh...and I am sure that by tomorrow so will half the parents! Oh well, all in the name of science education!

Bad Hair Day

Jon came into my room this morning and told me I just HAD to take a picture of him. That he was having a bad hair day.
Uh, yeah. It was a bad hair day alright. About the BEST bad hair day I have ever seen!