Thoughts on "10"

***Please bear with me :)***

I have been mulling in my head (when I have time) ten.

You see there are two milestones occuring this year

revolving around the number ten.

1) Ken and I will celebrate our ten year anniversary!!

2) At the end of this school year I will celebrate ten

years at school!

As I reflect back over the last ten years many things

have occured in mine and Ken's lives. We've gone on

some wonderful vacations to St. Louis--they have a

beautiful garden there, Minneapolis--we went to the

Mall of America a MUST see place, they also have

beautiful gardens, especially The Sculpture Garden

One year we went up to Omaha--we got to go to

a Omaha Royals game (our farm team), The Omaha

Zoo is really nice-not too small, not too big. We

took a two week adventure to the Southwest via

Colorado-then on to Sante Fe, Albuquerque,

Phoenix, Amarillo and Oklahoma. (2004) One of

the things we did in Albuquerque was take a HOT

AIR BALLOONRIDE at the crack of dawn.! We helped

set up the balloon and then off we went over the city.

The sunrise was BEAUTIFUL!

In 2007 we went the other way--to the

Southeast. Memphis--GRACELAND, Nashville--THE

GRAND OLD OPRY, while in Nashville we drove up

to Kentucky and went to MAMMOTH CAVE PARK,

on the way back to Nashville we stopped at THE

CORVETTE MUSEUM--pretty interesting. From

there we went over to Pigeon Forge and stayed in

a CABIN up in the mountains! I wasn't too sure

about this but after staying in a tiny hotel room

and running into the TV at night this was WAY

better. We went all over Pigeon Forge and THE

SMOKEY MOUNTAINS. No DOLLYWOOD for us

I don't ride many rides and we used the money

for a HELICOPTER RIDE--we decided to do this

since we took the balloon ride in the southeast.

Very cool ride-not much into flying but this was

too much to pass up! We continued this trip

in Asheville, North Carolina We spent one glorious

day at THE BILTMORE ESTATE!!! What a grand

house and talk about BEAUTIFUL gardens, they've

got them there! If you haven't been there you must

go it is fabulous. Most of our recent trips have been

here in the city--those long trips take it out of us!

As you see we have traveled a lot, we've reconnected

with people we haven't seen for a while, we've worked

on the house. As we were planning our wedding and

moving me over from the Missouri side Mr. Ken gets a

bee in his bonnet that we should paint the house (as if

we didn't have enough to do). Now in Ken's mind it was

ONLY going to take two weeks to prime AND paint the

house! It took two weeks to paint the back of the house!

Needless to say many weekends you could find us paint-

ing clear up to October and yes wedding plans were still

going on for that December.

We've had fun and also our share of sorrow--Ken lost his

Mom three years ago and I lost mine two years ago this

December. We miss these wonderful women--without

them we would not be the people we are today. I also

lost one of the bestest friends I've had ten years ago.

Joy was a character--loved her dearly.

Time ticks on and the years go by so fast--I thought it

would take forever to get to five years, well that time

flew by fast As we were settling into marriage I was

starting a new phase in my career in Education-I went

from Preschool Special Ed. to Elementary Special Ed.

Two different worlds let me tell you! As time has ticked

by the Special Ed world has changed too. We are seeing

more children diagnosed with Autism and more lower

functioning children. We've had children functioning as

low as an infant to almost their chronological age with

mild issues. In these past ten years I can really think

of four students that I was happy to pass on.

One was just down right mean, one had a period on time

when he could be aggressive, one screamed ALL the time

it seemed and one was a "runner"--a lot of door watching

with him. I do love seeing a student come in and watch

them grow over the school year!!

The last ten years can be summed up as:

I live, laugh and love each and every day. Some days are

better that others but we go on. I'm looking forward to

ten more with Ken and ten more after that. He is a

wonderful husband and friend and I wouldn't trade him

for NOTHING! As far as work goes we'll see what happens

at the end of this school year.

I told you I've done some mulling! If you made it through

this THANKS!

~Keep on Dreaming~