Stearns RD, USA

1. Brianna and I just returned from Sutter's Fort overnight trip. Fun but dirty and not condusive to sleep! We came home tired, and I with a sinus infection...Oh the wonder of modern drugs!Gretchen and I ran the bakery and made 18 loaves of bread (Yum!), cinnamin rolls (okay) and cookies (ginger snaps yum- oatmeal-yuck!). It was busy day! All of this was done in a beehive oven and now I want one in my backyard! You can barely see her head in the back of the picture-Cassidy is there too...

2. Colby is done with Freshman basketball and now playing for a traveling team-Chico Tarheels. You are all invited to Reno over Memorial Day weekend to see his tourney with over 70 teams. You can also help Mom and Dad pick out their 2nd home there....This is the 'Nevada' Mom was talking about...

3. John and I went overnight to the B and B where we spent our honeymoon night for our anniversary. It was nice and seemed a million miles away even though we were just in Chico. Rob and Gretchen found our car and graffetied it with Just Married-16 years and 3 kids ago...We are taking our "Christmas trip" with them in June and I look forward to a short but fun cruise. We picked Carnival to Catalina and Ensenada out of Long Beach. I can't wait to show John where I lived on Catalina and see some of the old stomping grounds...

4. Aiden is finally potty trained-even through the night! He is getting a Disneyland trip out of it over Spring Break. We are off to Legoland and Disneyland to celebrate the end of an era for John and I-no more kids in diapers-ever!!!!

5. Brianna and Cassidy celebrated their birthdays together in March...We had a Hawaiian themed party for little girls...Neither of their birthdays is in March, but our house was torn apart and she never got to have friends over to celebrate so we combined since they have most of the same friends. This was when we could fit it in...nothing like an unbirthday!

6. Our backyard is back in....No grass yet Thain, but it's thinking about it. John and Thain got back out there with a tractor and finished what you all started earlier. Thank you all again for your help with that. We hope to see green soon!

7. Aiden is now sucked into the wonderful world of video games! He loves Lego Batman and Indiana Jones and has gotten his mother to sit and play with him. We are enjoying our time together, but I will have to figure an alternate activity as I can't do it for long. Sorry boys of the family-but it is a waste of time!!! Cute when a three year old can turn it on and play, but.....It's a little young to get sucked in!

8. Taylor Swift- The other popular new thing. Brianna got her Fearless CD at her birthday party and Aiden loves to sing with Love Story. It's the 'princess song' to him. Side note-Colby also likes to sing along with the CD. I was driving him home last Monday from Butte College-Tarheels practice with three of his team mates. You Belong With Me came on and he started singing along with it. Soon another of his friends was singing also. So apparently Taylor has fans of all ages-even 14 year old boys! Or especially 14 year old boys....

9. We are with Mom on the movie thing....Quantum of Solice last night (although I did drift in and out since I was still sick and recovering from a 2 day training I went with Mom to after the Sutter's Fort trip...) It was very action packed-and set in Bolivia for part of it! Today I was more into 80's movies. I watched Say Anything-good flick! I'd like to get to the movies more often, but youv'e only heard part of our schedule.

10. Brianna and John are playing softball again. Coach John now has a minor team-the Meteors-of course it is now on the 'dark side'-softball. Brianna has 2-3 games per week. Luckily she plays at the high school where I spend most of my life. John will be doing softball while I take Lopey Dufis to basketball....It's called divide and conquer and no it isn't a video game. Aiden will be with Colby and I most of the time...

11. Chewie and Romeo are doing well. Chewie will be visiting Grandma while we visit Mickey. I'm not sure either are looking forward to it, but we appreciate both of their willingness to try it out.

12. Mom and I will soon be certified to grade PACT. We went to a training to learn how to do this. With all of our teaching experience we will view a portfolio put together by pre-service teachers and deam them worthy or not ready yet to enter the profession. It will be interesting. Some of the examples we saw for grading purposes brought back horrid memories of beginning teaching! It will be hard to keep my biases out of it, but I'll do my best. All new teachers in California will have to do this or pass a test of some sort to get their credential. We had something simular in the bilingual program 15 years ago....I remember having to do it and the stress it was....These poor fools!

13. Also-we have phone service again-No big deal to most of you, but huge to us! Jeremy got involved and several phone calls in to AT&T and they finally sent someone out to actually look at the pole. It was a man we know from church and step father ot a student of mine now. He fixed three different things including something at the main pole down the road and the whole neighborhood is up again! Now if I could get the money back for the three months we went without normal service....I'll just be happy that I can get calls regularly now and know when someone needs us.

14. I put on a luncheon for church ladies a few weeks back. It was for a Visiting Teaching Conference. My frined/sis Rahni came up and we made East Indian food and she talked about how being a member of the church has affected her life as a convert and Indian. It went really well-lots of work involved, but it was fun. So if you'd all like in July, I now know how to cook curry chicken, flat bread and some garbanzo bean dish-this is the only way I eat those things....

15. I'm really stretching here so I'm going to take the easy way out and put some pictures in ....Colby with his eye issues (scratched retina....from his contacts) Basketball, bithday party and ......whatever else is there....