Yet again, so much going on, and so little time to write! We had Elias's birthday (which you already read about), and then his 6 year well check (which you haven't). Andy's class hosted a Thanksgiving luncheon, and we are all getting ready for Thanksgiving.

Elias's well check went smoothly -- he is in perfect health, according to the pediatrician. He is 49 inches tall (the 95th percentile) and is 50 pounds (the 90th percentile). He had to get another chicken pox vaccine and also a flu shot since James is wheezing these days. He did very well and didn't even flinch.

Ron and I went to the meeting with the special education teacher at Andy's school. I had thought that they were going to do a full assessment on him, but the school decided differently, and did just the spelling section of the diagnostic tests. I don't know what to think about this, but we are going to go with it for now. Mr. King (the special ed. teacher) tested Andy's spelling abilities and his ability to put words together and found that Andy's main difficulty is in hearing the separate sounds that make up words, and then translating those sounds into something meaningful. Andy has trouble keeping the separate sounds in his short term memory long enough to put them all together into a word. All in all, this is a good thing -- it isn't dyslexia, or something more complicated, and he thinks that with practice and pointing out each sound in a word, Andy will pick up the skills that he needs. I am relieved to hear this. We love a fixable problem, especially if it is something we can do at home. We should be getting his physical therapy assessment done soon too, and then I will have things squared away.

The luncheon with Andy's class was thankfully short. We all had to bring in the student's favorite dish, but because Andy didn't tell me about it until the last minute, we had to bring a main dish. We brought that perennial favorite, chicken and cheese. It was a huge hit. The best thing that was on the table as far as I was concerned was a jello thing. I know, you are in shock. But this was fantastic -- at least it looked fantastic. It was thin layers of jello separated by a super thin layer of condensed milk, then cut into cubes. It was SO cool looking! You could peel the layers apart too and eat them individually. I am planning on making it sometime.

Ron made it through El Tour de Tucson this past Sunday in under 7 hours and since last year it took him 8.5 hours, he was happy. He was hoping for under 6 hours, but got a flat 10 miles into the 109 mile route and so he lost his group that he was riding with. This makes a huge difference because you can draft and therefore save a lot of energy during the ride if you get a good group. After the flat, he was mostly on his own, but he still did well. He was VERY happy to get off the bike at the end.