July 11, 2009

Round Top Park
570-888-2325
www.athenstownship.org

To help minimize travel for the elder generation and family members coming in from out of town, this year’s reunion will be held at Round Top Park in Athens Township.

For those that want an overnight stay, nearby campgrounds, hotels and B&B’s can be found at the Bradford County Tourism site.

The park is open from sunrise to sunset. Pavilion #1 is reserved from 9:00am to 5:00pm. Family dinner will be at 3:00pm. As always, please, bring a dish to pass.

Directions: From the Valley (Athens, Sayre, Waverly): Rte 220 South to Greens Landing; right on Wolcott Hollow Road; 1.5miles turn right on Round Top Road. Google Map.

Last chance for Raffle Tickets!  Two Midwest Airline Tickets!  $5 each or 3 for $10.  Savings Sidekick coupon books are $20.  The Walk is tomorrow morning, 10:00am @ the Civic Auditorium.  Hang around afterwards to check out the Health, Wellness & Fitness Expo.  Click here to sign up to walk or make an online donation.

Each year the American Lung Association hosts an annual Asthma Walk. People all across the country participate in the walk to raise awareness and money for asthma research and education. This year’s walk will begin at 10:00am at the Civic Auditorium in Omaha on Saturday, April 25th. The walk will be in conjunction with the Omaha Health, Wellness & Fitness Expo so feel free to wander through the exhibits after the walk.

As a Respiratory therapist that is the wife and mother of asthmatics this issue is very important to me personally as well as professionally. My husband, Jamie is a life-long asthma sufferer and both of my sons, Guy and Kael, have unfortunately followed in Daddy’s footsteps.

This is my 4th year as Captain of Ambassadors for Asthma Awareness. With help from family, friends and co-workers like you, we have raised over $1000 each of the last couple of years. Each year we grow not only in financial support but also in team members. I am hoping that you will support us by joining the team, signing up to walk or simply making a tax-deductible donation.

Donations and checks should be made to the American Lung Association and can be sent to me or directly to ALA at 8990 W. Dodge Rd. Ste. 226, Omaha, NE 68114. Please, make a note that you are supporting Ambassadors for Asthma Awareness. For additional information on the walk or to make a donation online, you can visit their website.

Savings Sidekick coupon books can be purchased for $20. Half the cost goes to ALA. For more info on these, check out their site.

Raffle tickets are available again this year and are $5.00 each or 3 for $10.00. The prize is two Midwest Airlines tickets! The drawing will be held on April 27th and winners will be contacted by ALA.

Thank you for all of your help and support. I look forward to hearing from everyone soon.

I finished finals last week with a few comfortable A’s and one “by the skin of my teeth” A.

Pharmacology, for those of you that have not had this blessed experience, is a tough class. Basically, pure memorization. For someone like me who prefers to see how things work, this type of class is much harder than, say, A&P where you can visualize muscles moving like levers, food being broken down through the digestive tract and so on.

I went into my final test with a 91.15 (a 92% is an A and they do not round). I studied my butt off, got a 96% which brought my overall up to 91.89. My first B+ since I started back to school? Lucky for me, if less than 30% of the class gets a question right, we get the points back. So, thank you to all of you that missed the same 2 questions, giving me 4 points for a 100% on the test and an overall grade of 92.33%!!! It may not be the best way to end up with an A but all things considered, I’ll take it and be happy with it.

A few weeks ago, Guy had parent-teacher conferences. He is doing great and Ms. Fisher is very pleased with him! The reading levels are each assigned a letter value, with “H” (the level Guy is at) being the end of 1st/beginning of 2nd. For those of you that don’t know, Guy is in kindergarten. Since he is doing so well, Jamie decided to encourage his love of reading while boosting his skills at the same time. Jamie bought Guy “Dinosaurs Before Dark”, the first in the Magic Tree House Series. Guy was very excited to have his first chapter book. He read the first chapter out loud to me last night before bed. We told him he could read one chapter then he needed to go to sleep. He finished the first chapter (about 5 pages) and then very quickly read “Chapter 2: The Monster” moving right on. I think he thought if we went fast enough we wouldn’t realize that he was starting a new chapter. It was quite amusing and also very exciting. Jamie and I are both big readers and what a joy it would be to pass that love on to our boys! I am so anxious to find him tented under his blanket with a flashlight and a good book. He is very proud of his new book and we have made quite a big deal out of it. So, Gramma & Papa, if you get a chance, make a big deal too!

We took the boys to Clarkson this morning for the Easter celebration: pancake breakfast, The Amazing Arthur, balloon animals, face painting and an egg hunt. Amazing Arthur did some magic and along with his sister made balloon animals. Then there was an Easter egg hunt.

There were a few people who overflowed their baskets while others got hardly any. Kael was at the back of the pack so by the time he got through there was nothing left but someone was nice enough to share. There was one little girl who was just devastated at not getting eggs. She was literally sobbing. Guy started to get upset because he only got 2 eggs but we reminded him that we were going to Grandma & Grandpa’s park with them later and he felt better.

We came home for a bit and tried to sneak in a quick nap, which never really works and then called Grandma to make sure we were still on. Grandpa was working but we picked up Grandma and went to the park. There were literally thousands of eggs (I believe they said over 40,000) in all just scattered all over the park. The kids were broken into groups by age and off they went. I took Kael and Jamie took Guy. Kael filled about half his basket and said he was done so we went to find Jamie & Guy who had managed to completely fill his basket while there were still eggs everywhere. On our way back to the picnic tables to empty the eggs (for recycling) we saw a few boys without eggs so Guys shared his with them. I am so proud of what a thoughtful and caring boy he is.

Since it was freezing out (36 degrees), we decided not to stick around for the games and headed to Scooters instead for hot cocoa. We dropped Grandma off and headed home to watch Bee Movie.

Overall, it was a really nice day.