On Friday, my parents were able to load two truckloads of firewood into the basement with the help of Ethan and Kate. Matt hauled in the final load on Saturday. Hooray!
Between Thursday, Friday, and today (Tuesday), all of the pears from the big pear tree were either canned, eaten, given away, or stored in our refrigerator. In the end we have an additional 14 quarts and 30 pints of diced pears, 2 quarts of pear juice, and 5 quarts of pearsauce. That was a LOT of pears. (Here's a photo of only about 1/3 of the pears picked.)
The weekend also included a sleep-over for Kate, a birthday party for Anna, a soccer game for Ethan, and a date night (!) for the parents.
I'm slightly ashamed to admit that the date night is perhaps the first "real" one in more than a year. We managed to fit in a quick dinner, a walk on the boardwalk, dessert, AND a concert in Stoughton.
Unfortunately, I came down with a cold on Saturday afternoon. But, taking it easy on Sunday and resting a lot on Monday seems to have helped; I've been feeling much better today.
Time to back up to Wednesday evening and Anna's IEP/re-evaluation meeting. This meeting was scheduled before we all realized that it was the Wednesday before a 4 day weekend and the same day as the 4th grade field trip. We were all a little tired when it started, and even more so when it finally ended after 2+ hours (!).
Big picture ... Anna still qualifies for special education services under the Other Health Impairments (OHI) category. Her physical disability and visual handicap, in addition to her cognitive challenges of slow processing and weak working memory, will qualify her for services for quite awhile yet.
Amazingly, Anna has yet another amazing team surrounding her again this year. Part of the reason for the long meeting was the sheer number of people involved ... regular education teacher, special education case manager, educational assistant, adaptive PE instructor, physical therapist, occupational therapist, speech therapist, nurse, school psychologist, county case manager, plus our family. Yikes!
So far this year Anna has done a wonderful job of learning the grade level concepts and communicating them effectively. Her team is doing a spectacular job modifying the amount of work required while still being able to teach and assess grade level expectations.
Also amazingly, Anna likes school. She enjoys learning new things, interacting with a variety of people throughout her day, and she works hard to do her best.
We will continue to work as a team to help her develop as much independence as possible. Some of the main areas to focus on this year will be her writing (both by hand and typed) to reduce her need for an aide, her task initiation skills, her time management skills, and her self-advocacy.
As always, finding the right balance for all of Anna's needs and goals is trickier and more time consuming than it is for our other kids.
After the meeting (which Matt and Ethan had to leave early so Ethan could get to his soccer practice) we ended up at Culver's for dinner. The boys even joined us for the end! Dinner and ice cream hit the spot, as did our family time piled on our bed telling Kat, Hannah, and Wheat Thin stories. Those few hours together were a wonderful way to start the long weekend.
Carving pumpkins and a (disappointing) Packers game were a good way to end it. Here's a few action shots of the carving process.
And the final products!
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