A Dryer For Education

 I bought a new-ish dryer online for 50 bucks.  The seller said it worked fine, but they got a new one to match their new washer and this one was taking up garage space.  Mom and Tom and their pickup truck helped get the used dryer to our house.  You see, our dryer had been catching clothes sometimes and if I could replace it with something newer for 50 dollars, I was going to do it.  So I found myself with a dryer.  Got it home, took the other dryer out, then realized the electric cable we had wasn't going to transfer to this newer dryer unless we did some re-wireing ourselves.  Well, Tom being mechanically inclined went ahead and did that for us.  Bless him.  Then we hauled it in and turned it on.  "SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEK," went the dryer like metal was screeching on metal.  "Smell that?"  It was either electrical burning or just that smell when you turn your heater on for the first time of the season.  Either way, something was burning and the dryer kept screeeching with each rotation of the drum.

Turn it off.  Everyone was tired.  I was dejected and felt humility for purchasing this appliance without testing it first.  So, I called the seller and they agreed to tear up my check as long as I didn't bring the dryer back.  Uh...okay.  So, we undid the electric cable and put it back on our old dryer and hauled it back into place and let the squeeky dryer take up space in our entry until we decided what we were doing with it.

I called a repairman and he said he won't even repair a GE dryer because they are junk and not worth the $1.25 the scrapyard would give me for it.  Awesome.

Right around this time, Steve had been reading an article on the benefits of allowing children to take things apart and the ways that it builds their brain as opposed to just seeing things done.  It seemed we had the perfect educational opportunity literally at our front door.

So the dryer became the educational project.  For two and a half months.  Now it is disassembled and some parts have been thrown away others we saved for the scrap yard.  I'm glad to have it outta here!  I suppose I should also say thanks to the seller for the educational dryer. 

What did we all learn?  That dryers have lots of parts and the only tool you need to take a dryer apart is a simple screwdriver.  Pretty cool.  Watch the video at the end of this post to see the education in action.

All that hard work paid off.  We found a dollar!

Crazy Hair Day (October 2012)

I forgot about these pics, but I came across them and thought I'd add them to the blog because we had a lot of fun putting our hair together for the school's crazy hair day. 

Steve didn't participate; however, he has had plenty of crazy hair in his life.  :)  Think back to Thanksgiving 2012 where Steve wore a faux-hawk.  Or our trip to temple square on "black friday."  Lucky for Steve I documented it :)  Enjoy.

 Back to Crazy Hair Day... we also saw some other kids with some pretty crazy hair...

Cougar Kid Lily!

 

Steve has worked for the school for 5 years now and has never had any of his nominated students be chosen as the Cougar Kid.  That is until this last month.  The icing on the cake is that it was our very own Lily who was nominated and won the honor!  Another plus was that Amara was also nominated from her class for the respect award.  What good luck!  

So you're wondering what's the Cougar Kid?  It's the school's respect award winner.  Each of the teachers at Lily's school nominate 2 children from their class who are good examples of respect.  All those nominated children get their names announced over the intercom at school and then 2 of those lucky nominees are randomly drawn out (1 boy and 1 girl) and get to be the "Cougar Kid" at Union High School's game, Varsity basketball in this case.  The Cougar Kid is led out by their teacher to center court and the announcer basically spotlights the winner and congratulates them on showing respect.  Also, the Cougar Kid gets to meet the team and the coach and then leads the team out onto the court at the beginning of the warm-ups before the game and gets to be a part of the warm-up drill by giving the team members a high five as they practice their shots. 

So, Lily won!  How exciting for her!  And she got to be walked to center court by her teacher, her dad.  That was awesome.  So, first she met the team and they surrounded her and gave her some encouragement.

Then she led the team out, holding one of the girl's hands, to center court.  She was stationed near the sideline as the team ran their layup drill.  After each layup attempt, the girl would run and give Lily a high five and then continue.

She stood there and tried to keep a smile on her face, even though she felt a little out-of-place.

She kept scooting closer to the sideline.

Then it was over and she gave me a "real" smile.

Grandma got work off to see Lily in her glory.

Afterward, the coach got Lily and Amara some free concessions to watch the game.

There's Mr. C.!

So, I tried to get video.  My camcorder was ready to go and then the battery died as soon I pushed record.  I scrambled to get my ipod to video record Lily's center court spotlight.  I only caught the last third.  It was noisy and hard to understand the announcer, but basically he told how Lily recently learned to ride a two-wheeler bike, how her favorite subject in school is Art, how her sister is her best friend, how she is an excellent reader and writer, and how she wants to be a ballerina, swimmer, artist, writer, and mom someday.

Congratulations Lily and Mr. C.!

It Was A BUSY Holiday Season

December was busy for our family to say the least.  Busy in a good way.  Between Christmas parties, out-of-town visitors, Christmas performances, and traveling, we had a bunch of awesome memories of this past holiday season.  I've seemed to let time get away from me, so blogging has fallen by the wayside; however, here is a slideshow of some of the December fun we had...

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A Couple of Kind Kids

Children are a blessing! I've always felt that I have GREAT kids. A few mornings ago we were rushing to get out the door and get to school and I hadn't seen the girls for awhile so I went to check on them and there was Lily combing through Amara's hair. "Amara just finished my hair, and now I'm helping her" was Lily's response. It was cute, Amara patiently standing on the toilet and Lily standing on the step stool. I think we were a little late getting to school, but my heart was warmed that morning.

Then, this morning as I was just waking up, Lily and Amara brought Steve and I breakfast in bed- toast, yogurt, water and a cough drop with a freshly colored picture on the side. What a sweet act of love!