Recent Happenings

- Traveled through southern Utah this Tuesday all the way to Blanding and then back up to Moab to spend the night at the Ramada Inn.  Much nicer than Motel 6 of course.  I might just have to stick with them from here on out.  I enjoyed the hot tub, the shampoo, conditioner, soaps, lotions, iron, and feather pillows.  Not to mention their big screen TV.  The scenery was gorgeous.  I especially liked the red rock view with the snow capped blue tinted mountains in the back ground.

- Went ice skating last Saturday with the our kids and some of the Morse's.  The kids had a blast.  At least after they caught the hang of it.  At first they were hanging on to the outer walls and looked very uncoordinated as they slipped with every step.  It didn't take long though before they were on their own and enjoying the experience.  It helped to have orange construction cones that they held and slid in front of them as they skated.  What an ingenious idea.

- We attended Rose and Ty's teacher conferences and Rose is doing great.  She's improved in almost every area.  She just needs to work on turning in her assignments.  She's in 3rd grade BTW.  Ty however is still behind on spelling and reading but he's doing excellent in math.  Now I just need to stay on top of his reading every night and keep practicing his spelling with him.

Just a letter to my dad I turned into a journal entry.

So I've been hitting the road a little lately. I've been going to school district offices around the state and speaking with curriculum directors and superintendents about our material that just got adopted by the Utah State Office of Education. It's been enjoyable for the most part. I was down in St. George this week and was able to visit the St. George temple and visitors center which was a neat experience. I'll be staying in Moab next Tuesday and hitting all the district offices along the way.

I went with Holly to her Psychology class today. That was a very eye opening experience. The teacher was crazy! She was practically certifiable and a borderline narcissist. Holly wanted to show me what kind of craziness she deals with in her behavioral science major so she decided to take me along. I couldn't handle taking that major or any of them in the liberal arts. The teacher is mostly conservative but still too eccentric for my liking.

We just had parent-teacher conferences with Ty's and Rosalie's teachers. They're doing very well and have improved a lot. We just need to work a little more consistently with Ty on his spelling and reading but he's excelling in Math. We're so proud of them. Poor Rashad is just chomping at the bit. He wants to read and do homework and go to school so bad. Unfortunately most of our time is spent with the other two so he is in dire need of attention most days.

We went sledding the other night at the big "donut" park by the Provo temple a couple days ago. It was a blast. It was cold and icy but a group that was there offered us some hot chocolate so we were able to brave the hill long enough to get tired and luckily there were no broken bones. However Holly has a few bruises and scratches from crashing at the bottom of the really steep slope. It's looking good that she'll make a full recovery thank goodness.

And if all goes well, we'll get to go ice skating tomorrow too! I haven't been in ages so we just might have to invest in some protective gear.

Well, I'll call it a night for now. I just bought a laptop on my boss's dime so that's why I'm up so late typing and computering.  Adieu.

Thanksgiving dinner was a success.

Everything was great!

Spell the number "8".

Ty and I have been working diligently on his spelling list every week.  I quickly learned that the old-school tactics of trying to drill the words into his head by raising my voice and speaking slower don't work very well with Ty.  So I resorted to bribery.

We don't let our kids have sweets very often so when they have a chance to earn them... they go all out.  I told Ty that if he could remember how to spell the number "eight" (he was having the toughest time with this one) and recite it to Mom after dinner that he could have any treat he wanted.  He proceeded to repeat "E-I-G-H-T" for the next hour and a half.  During dinner I even tried to distract him by starting a conversation with him but he was still whispering those five letters in between answering my questions.  So then I started to tease him by throwing out my own spellings of the number 8.  "B-Y-C-H-T... C-I-D-A-T"... and so on and so forth.

When he was finished with his plate he asked if he could finally recite the spelling of the number 8 to Mom, and as soon as I said yes he blurted out "E-I-G-H-T"!   And without even waiting for approval, as soon as he finished and with a big grin on his face he went right out to the freezer in the garage and got a Schwann's chocolate ice cream cone, came back inside and proceeded to eat in front of all of us.  Unfortunately the spelling of the number 8 is now so ingrained in his head that when he gets confused about the spelling of a word he will often revert back to "E-I-G-H-T".

This is my very first blog post on "Dixon Angels".

I've got a lot of catching up to do because Holly and I have been married 11 years now and we adopted our three kids last October.  So if this is going to be anything like a journal, I've got a lot of work ahead of me.

I guess I'll start out with the most recent happenings and go back.  How does that sound?

Well, Rashad celebrated his birthday just yesterday.  He turned 5 on November 2nd.  He's no longer a little toddler.  And I'm kinda torn about it.  On one had I would love to have him stay a cute little chubby cheeked boy with a lisp, and on the other hand, he is my biggest helper and so the bigger he gets the bigger help he'll be.  I guess for now I'll continue to let him grow.