New Year's Shuffle

Just thought I'd give my blog a face lift for 2008. Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves.

Jim's idea.

Before Jim left for London this afternoon, he told me his idea for the 2008 winter break. He said that we should plan on renting a place somewhere on the coast, since we'll be within driving distance of the Pacific Ocean. I'm game. Anyone else in? I think he's looking forward to living in the Southwest a bit more than he wants to admit.

Okay, here's the plan for dental school......

Since we only have until Jan 2nd to make a decision, we're "buying" ourselves some extra time by putting the deposit down on both schools. Midwestern & UIC both have programs that I'd love to attend, each with their own pros & cons.


Midwestern University, Glendale AZ:
As of now, this is where we'll go. The housing market is so depressed right now that we can get a huge house for a very reasonable price, very close to Midwestern. Property taxes are really low there since they get their money from higher sales taxes. (Yes, someone actually has sales taxes higher than Chicago). There are lots of good school districts in the area, contrary to AZ's historic reputation, and the entire state has all day kindergarten. The state has also revamped their special ed programs over the last few years and we liked what we saw. All the school districts offer extended care and the park districts have a lot to offer. Not to mention that we would be able to take advantage of all that the city/area has to offer, more often then we do now, because it's smaller than Chicago and easier to get around. Jim would have been able to easily lateral to LAX and hold a flying line (instead of reserve), but the new "fly until age 65" rule has thrown a wrench in things. The bids for June have been suspended by UAL until they can figure out what's up with their manning and who won't be retiring now. This is probably the biggest reason for the difficultly we've had in making a decision. Things will settle down at UAL in a month or two and then we can reassess the situation.


University of Illinois at Chicago:
We're holding on to my seat here in case things at UAL really stagnate due to the old farts not wanting to retire. It would be difficult for Jim to commute to Chicago from Phoenix while holding only a reserve line. Because housing prices and property taxes generally increase as you get closer to the city, we really can't afford anything close enough to UIC to be a reasonable commute for me, with good schools that would have an acceptable amount of space for the whole family. (Note I said acceptable, not comfortable or even decent.) And, we really don't want to exceed our budget such that our kids have to live on Ramen noodles and free happy hour pub grub for the next 4 years, like we did when we were in college. (They have their college years to look forward to for that!). Of course, we have no idea what we'd do for housing if we end up staying in Chicagoland, but still having the option available gives us a warm fuzzy in case we win the lottery.

Bottom line, we don't really want to leave Chicagoland and family, but we have to look out for what's best for our immediate family unit. This is our flight plan at this time, and flight plans are simply something to deviate from!

Santa listened!

This year Santa obviously paid close attention and it seemed everyone got something they really wanted, not to mention the bonus gifts from family members!

Petey with his really fast RC car from Uncle Cary.


Mitchell with his cymbols (a high hat and a crash) from Santa for his drum set.


Roslyn opening her Barbie from Santa. She can change her make-up and hair color with different temperature water.


John with his coveted High School Musical II DVD.

John's turn ......

Every year one of the kids gets to put the star on the tree. This year was John's turn. Next it year it will rotate back to Peter.




The clowns after decorating the tree.

Get ready Broadway!

Ros & John were the leads in the Christmas pageant at their school. Ros has proclaimed that her new nickname is Mary, I don't think that'll happen. John found great satisfaction in playing a character that had the same name as his middle name. He pointed the connection out to me saying, "Do you get it Mom?". The whole class did really well, but of course MY kids were the best. No one had any speaking roles but Roslyn did get to carry the baby over to the manger and place him it. I'm sure they'd be nominated for a Tony if it weren't for the writer's strike!

Here's some pix from the photo shoot after the show.

The dental school that I will attend .......

...... is still undecided. Jim, Pete & I spent Monday & Tuesday in the Phoenix area. Petey was a trooper as he had to sit through a long meeting with the school district special ed social worker and got dragged through 9 houses with a realtor. We spent Tuesday morning at the zoo after stopping by Midwestern, then ate lunch at Alice Cooper's restaurant (Where Jock meets Rock). Pete was supposed to skate with Claude LeMieux's team, but the game was canceled. Yes, I know that Claude LeMieux is the arch enemy of the Red Wings, but he's got the best program for 96's in the Phoenix area so that's who Petey will most likely skate for if we move there. Stay tuned, I only have 2 weeks left to decide.

No decision yet ......

.... regarding which dental school I will attend. On the 16th of this month Jim, Pete & I will fly out to Phoenix to check things out. We'll be meeting with the special ed department of the school district that the kids would attend (it's one of the best in the Phoenix area), the director of the hockey program Pete would most likely skate for and we'll contact a realtor to show us some housing options. We can't drag our heals regarding this decision because I have to choose by Jan 2nd!! Ugh. I think my head is going to explode!!

Here's the latest update on my 3 boys.

Peter: Just brought home his report card and he made the High Honor Roll at his middle school with a GPA of 3.715, way to go Petey!

Mitchell: Will move home on the 21st from school, for good! Yeah!

John: Has just been diagnosed with both an "auditory memory disorder" and a "language processing disorder". This explains his problems learning to read and his apparent inability to distinguish between different phonetic sounds, because they sound the same to him. In these two areas he tested over a year behind his age. However, in some of the "higher executive" cognitive functions he tested at an 8-10 yr old level! Because of his extremely high intelligence, many of the symptoms of his disorders have been masked as he is able to "compensate" with other skills. So what does all this mean? In most cases, people with these disorders struggle learning to read and have difficultly taking notes in class or following verbal instructions. Once we can get him past the difficult task of actually learning to read, he should be able to do just fine in school as he'll be able to rely on his visual memory. Think of someone who may need to have someone else take notes for him, but can rock in any subject that he can study the book, handouts or pre-written notes. We just have a long road of therapy ahead of us to get him past these initial hurdles.

Oops, 4 boys .....

George: Is still furry & fun and snoozing on the couch.