We had a great thanksgiving this year with Beth's family. it was wonderful getting to see everyone and the food was awesome. On saturday I had the opportunity to head to Oriskany NY (just utside of Rome) and visit the Oriskany Museum. !/3 of which is dedicated to the Air Craft Carrier. It was awesome getting to see all of the artifacts donated to the museum over he years including the anchor and an aircraft which were procured by the brother of dad's captain when he was serving. (the only brothers in navel history to be captain of the same carrier, according to the curator). She was wonderful and even found the picture above for me. I have a few other pics that I'll share with family at Xmas.

School Vacation

Beth and I are looking forward to vacation. It always seems as though a shortened vacation week feels , as long, if not longer than, a regular week. I wasn't going to mention it and possibly jinx it, but felt I would go ahead and let everyone know, I was nominated (along with 2 others) for teacher of the year at Colchester High School. Honestly I don't think I'll get it, as the other two candidates are very good teachers who have taken on leadership roles in the school (I typically veer away from them), however it does make me feel good that other faculty members see and appreciate what I bring to the school. At this point the vote goes back to the faculty and then the students. I'm not sure when the decision will be made, but I am happy regardless.

I have finished another course towards my masters degree. So far so good. I'm almost 1/3 of the way through (1 year in a 3 1/2 year program). It's amazing how quickly it is going and makes me wish I had joined this program years ago.

In school we are working on our 10 year NEASC high school evaluation. I am a subchair of the leadeship committee and it seems to be going well. We still have some work to do, but we are on track. We are also looking at the possibility of restructuring what we do in science at the school to see if we can better meet the needs of students especially as the Statewide standards tests become more important. This could be a lot of work, or very little. It's hard to tell right now but my hope is that it won't be a lot of work for little to no pay off.

It's someones birthday

Denali is now 1 year old. We had a little party after I got out of class tonight. Cake and ice cream for mom and dad, new toys, chew bones, a safety harness for the car and a new jacket (too large so we need to return it). Fun day. I think even Denali knew something special was happening.

Champs

Well it was a wet and stormy game, but the Lakers pulled out the 22-14 win over CVU to come away with the state championship. Congrats to the guys. I'm sure they'll be celebrating through next week.

Denali on the other hand is very sad and missing mommy.

Great weekend in Vermont. Friday we won the D-II semifinal football game. Looks like bad news for CVU next Sat. in the Championship. (hopefully). We went to see the movie "Where the Wild Things Are" Sat. evening. Can't say too much for it. It was allright but not terrific. It was pretty depressing throughout and difficult to get connected to the characters. Sunday we took a walk down to Niquette Bay and let Denali frolic in the lake. She goes into the water until her belly gets wet, but no further. Good days all around. we could use a few more like this.