The Graduate

Adeline graduated from the Children's Lighthouse's Private Kindergarten last Thursday, May 23, 2013 in a lovely evening ceremony held at Miller Elementary School in Richardson, Texas.  We headed to the school around 7:30 PM and had a photo session outside with all of the family after we arrived.  All of the graduates wore a white cap and gown with a 2013 tassel on the hat. Here's Adeline in her cap and gown out in the front of the school before the ceremony:

In cap and gown outside before the Ceremony

Here she is standing with Mommy:

Adeline and Mommy

Then she posed for a picture with Daddy:

Adeline and Daddy

Here she is with her maternal side of the family:  Granny Tina, Mommy (Catie), Uncle Joe-Joe, Grandma Karen and Grandpa Jim Horkey.

Adeline and the Horkey Family - left to right, Tina, Catie, Joe, Karen, and Jim

Next was her paternal side of the family:  Daddy (Alex), Abuelito (Hernan), Mimi (Mae West) and Miss Meghan.

Adeline and the Home Gang - Left to Right, Alex, Hernan, Mae and Meghan

Here's Daddy in the Auditorium showing off his "Adeline" tattoo on his neck:

Daddy and his "Adeline" Tattoo!

The Graduation Program was really cute but they didn't make enough copies to go around.  I put my copy down on my purse and somebody actually took it!  Fortunately, Grandma Karen had grabbed an extra one and gave it to me!  Thank you Grandma Karen!  Here's what it looked like:

Graduation Program

The Program had the cutest poem on the back of it!  Here is the poem:

Sticky fingers, freckled nose,

Head, shoulders, knees, and the toes, 

Shapes and colors, ABC's,

Taking turns, and 1, 2, 3's, 

Toothless smiles, hugs and giggles,

Circle time, many wiggles, 

Wooden blocks and dress-up clothes, 

Learning how a flower grows, 

Milk and cookies, first-time friend,

Thinking days like these won't end.

Tiny chairs give way to desks,

Book Reports and spelling tests,

So take off now; spread your wings;

Soar to new heights; learn new things.

Just remember, as you do,

Someone's very proud of you.

The presentation during the ceremony was impressive beyond words!  The children started out by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance; said Hello in ten different languages; recited all of the seasons, months and days of the week; counted to one-hundred in English then in Spanish; recited their times tables; performed a sign language routine; recited their colors in Spanish; named all of the continents and oceans; named all of the states and their capitols; named all of the presidents of the United States; and then recited poetry.

It was absolutely amazing that children who will be going into public school Kindergarten this Fall could know so much!!!!  The Children's Lighthouse has a wonderful staff and a fantastic curriculum!

Here's a picture of the 2013 Private Kindergarten in their caps and gowns doing their graduation presentation:

 The 2013 Private Kindergarten Class

Several of the children had speaking parts during the program.  Adeline was one of them and she was the first one up.  Here's a video of her presenting and of most of the program:

Here are Adeline and her friend Ava doing a Sign Language presentation:

Adeline and Ava doing Sign Language

The young lady in front of them wasn't signing.  She was just trying to keep her graduation cap on!  Several of the children had a hard time keeping their caps on.

After the presentation, Adeline was the first one called to receive her diploma from her teacher, Mrs. Kenya and the School Director, Mrs. Emily.  Here is a picture of Adeline receiving her Diploma:

Adeline receiving her diploma

Adeline's Diploma is very nice and we plan to hang it on her bedroom wall with some of her graduation photos.

The proud Graduate with her Diploma

Here is Adeline taking a photo-op with her teacher, Mrs. Kenya.  Mrs. Kenya is one of the loveliest and best teachers that I've ever known!  She is so caring and brings out the best in all of her students!

Adeline and her Teacher, Mrs. Kenya

Here is Adeline and her best friend and classmate Ava.  They are such cute little friends!

Adeline and her best friend Ava

Adeline sat and posed with her Diploma and several family members.  Here she is with Daddy:

Sitting with Daddy holding her Diploma

Then she sat with Mommy:

Sitting with Mommy holding her Diploma

Abuelito was next in line in the photo session:

Sitting with Abuelito holding her Diploma

And then Grandma Karen!

Sitting with Grandma Karen holding her Diploma

After the ceremony we went to Dairy Queen to eat some Dinner and have some ice cream. Here she is posing in her pink and black polka-dotted skirt:

Celebrating at Dairy Queen after the Graduation

What a wonderful evening we all had at Adeline's Graduation!  We are so proud of her and her accomplishments and look forward to many more graduations to come!

Yearly Checklist

Well, it's that time of year again!  Time to get my yearly doctor visits and tests done and out of the way.  I had my annual mammogram last Friday, May 17th at Solis Women's Healthcare.  Since my sister just had a double mastectomy in April due to Invasive Lobular Carcinoma in one of her breasts, I was a bit more concerned about my mammogram this year than I've been in the past.  Fortunately, Solis emailed my results to me yesterday, which said that there was no breast cancer or abnormalities noted in my Mammogram!  Thank God for that!

I had a colonoscopy 3 years ago at the Ventura Endoscopy Center in Plano.  At that time they found two polyps, so my gastroenterologist Dr. Sripathi Kethu told me to come back in another three years for another one.  The three year marker just passed, so I underwent another colonoscopy on Monday at Ventura. Everybody there is very nice and very professional!  They only found a one millimeter polyp this time, so I don't have to go back for another 5 years.

The worst part of a colonoscopy is the prep for it.  One can only have clear liquids for the whole day before the procedure. It is not a regimen that provides much energy.  What's even worse is that you have to take laxative pills and also drink a powdered laxative called Miralax mixed with 64 oz. of lemon-lime Gatorade.  Although the clear liquid diet saps your energy, you will have to run to the bathroom often and  very quickly at that!

I found a very amusing but factual colonoscopy video today starring newswoman Katie Couric. Katie has dedicated her life to promoting the early detection and prevention of colorectal cancer.  Her husband Jay Monahan died from it and never had any symptoms until it was too late.   

Katie documented her colonoscopy in this video to show that it's not a terrible experience and is a very necessary step in preventing colorectal cancer.  Here is the video:

I found the part with her running in slow motion in her jammies to the bathroom in clip marker 1:00 of the video to be quite amusing!  They also play "Dream Weaver", one of my favorite songs by Gary Wright in the video for the time that she was being put to sleep for the procedure.

Thanks to Katie for her fun but informative video!

The next thing I need to do is have my yearly physical, which I've scheduled for mid-July, my yearly eye exam, and I need to go to my dermatologist to get a yearly skin cancer check and follow up on the Basal Cell Carcinoma that she found last year.

It is very important for everybody to get their medical checkups as required!  We get our cars looked at for their 10K mile checkups and above and we are more important!  For anybody reading this, please make sure that you take care of your health by getting your regular heath checkups!

Back Stabbers

This week didn't start off too well for me.  Very early on Monday morning I took a prescription pill that caused my morning drive to work to be a very nauseous one.  Once I got to work I got that under control with some food, but I felt worn out and tired most of the day.  That was bad enough, but what happened during the latter part of the day is what really cast a pall on most of the week up until Wednesday afternoon.  Right before I left work for the day, I checked my work email account and found an email titled "Time on the Phone" from one of the managers on the new Project that I'm working on now.

In a nutshell, the email was sent to inform me that somebody had brought it to this manager's attention that I was spending a large amount of my time at work on what appeared to be personal phone calls.  The email went on to say that this perceived "abuse" could cause team moral problems and to please be careful when talking on the phone.

This made me both sick to my stomach and very angry for the following reasons:

1. Why would somebody go out of their way to go to a manager and complain about my phone calls, especially when I don't abuse the phone!!!
2. Why didn't this manager contact me personally and get my side of the story?

I ended up spending the remainder of Monday, Tuesday and most of Wednesday wondering who my enemy was and worrying about team managers not having my back.  This really hurt my morale and made me suspicious of everybody.

I am very professional at work and don't abuse anything, including the telephone!  This manager ended up going out of town before I could speak with her personally, so I ended up going to talk with my manager about it and thankfully he was very nice and understanding!  He told me that the tattler said what they did during a meeting, which really pissed me off even more as several people heard it!!!  My manager told me that he knows how productive I am and that he didn't pay what the "back stabber" said any mind at all!  He told me to go clear the air with the manager that emailed me and not to worry about it.

A subsequent conversation that day with a fellow team member revealed that he also received an email from this manager, but his was regarding "surfing the internet".   Although it made me mad, It also made me relieved that I wasn't the only person targeted.

I still haven't cleared the air with the emailing manager as she isn't here for the rest of the week, but I hope to do so on Monday.  I also want to try to find out the identity of the "back stabber".  I really don't want to be on a team where people go behind others' backs telling stories to managers!!!!   I also need for the managers that I work around to have my back as well!!!!

This whole thing reminds me of a song by the O'Jays that I used to listen to when I was a kid.  It was called
"Back Stabbers".  Here are some of the lyrics:

What they do
They smile in your face
All the time they want to take your place
The back stabbers, back stabbers
They smile in your face

All the time they want to take your place
The back stabbers, back stabbers

Here is a link to the song:

Unfortunately, I'll be having to watch my back pretty closely now that I know about the back stabber in our midst at work.  It probably isn't a bad idea to just do this anyway, as people can be very funny at times.

I really want to thank my dear friend Tegs for listening to me go on for hours about how bad I felt about this situation.  Her patient ear, kindness and good advice really helped me a lot!  Thank God that I have such a good friend!!!!

Here's to good friends like Tegs!