Coyote

I have seen several coyotes since living here, but not many in the last two years.  Many of the stray dogs mate with coyotes and have coy-dogs.

A Stroll in a Stroller

I took the boys on a walk to the post office the other day and decided to snap some pictures to show downtown Pinon and of course some pictures of the boys, mostly Xander since Curtis fell asleep.

Xander decided to get himself stuck and then had to work to get himself out.  Curtis is still awake but fading.

The buildings in the distance in the center of this photograph make up the shopping center of the Pinon community.  Featured attractions include a grocery store, Subway, Pizza Edge, and a gas station.

A few years ago there was a major political controversy on the reservation, whether or not the Navajo people would have to pay for their water like everyone else.  The people started a "Water is Life" campaign and fought against it as hard as they could, even going so far as to threaten to impeach their tribal president.

This street has the Chapter House, Native American equivalent to a Town Hall, (not pictured) and the post office (not pictured) and as such is one of the busiest streets in the community.  In the far right is a tower that provides much of the town's internet, it is built near the parking lot of the Chapter House.

In the photograph above we have all three Christian churches in this part of the community.  The Catholic Church, a Christian Church in the background,  and the LDS church in the far right.

This poor house has been boarded up most of the time that we've lived here.  Every once in awhile someone will try to fix it up only to have it busted up again.

This picture shows two housing complexes, one on each side of the road.

Many families live out there in traditional Navajo homes called hooghans.  Other families live in less traditional homes in that area.

In this photograph you can see the road leading up to our workplace.  The elementary school is in the distance.

Here we have a photograph of the security building.  Behind it is the compound where Pamela and I live and work.  You can almost see all three schools of the district.

To Nationals!

One of my students qualified for Nationals!  I am so excited and hope that my dear wife can go with me on this adventure!

The one downside to today was that they were unable to judge the Spotlight on Special Education competition.  I had hoped to go home with a scholarship for one of my students and instead I have nothing for them.  FEA has assured me that they will come up with some way to make it up to us.

Still though, I am very excited to go to Arlington and DC where the competition will be held!

State FEA Conference

Last year I helped Pamela as a chaperone when she took her students to GCU and then to Minneapolis for the State and National FEA Competitions/Conferences.  This year I am doing it as the advisor.  What a huge difference!

This conference has had a lot of challenges for our chapter but I am happy to say that we rose up to the challenges and proved that they were just opportunities.

The students have worked very hard on their respective competitions and I am excited to find out tomorrow if we have anyone qualified to go on to Nationals.  Regardless I am proud of their hard work.

Weather has thrown up some road blocks.  I was told last Monday that we would be given an extension on the Spotlight on Special Education Competition till Wednesday.  School was cancelled on Monday and Tuesday due to mud.  Then on Wednesday I took my wife to the hospital.  I asked the Vice Principal to take care of it for me.  She attempted to contact one of the participants only to find out that she was missing, no one, not her family or friends, knew where she was.  Needless to say Wednesday became a man hunt.

Thank goodness we had this extension given to us, since it prompted the Vice Principal to investigate and ultimately find the young woman who thankfully is okay.  We were given another extension, we had until the end of the day on Thursday.

Thursday became an all day competition ordeal.  Since the prize was a scholarship I pulled two young women out of all their classes for the day.  I spent the entire day helping the students, giving them advice, and reading up on competition guidelines.  I spent quite a bit of time doing some running around to get quotes, updating my wife and getting her help with editing; it was very stressful but it was worth it.  (Today I found out that they hadn't gotten the submission.  I frantically resubmitted it.  Hopefully it works out!)

On top of this I also found out that there was a problem with an invoice and PO not matching, our transportation department did not know anything about the trip, and the school district cancelled one of our meals for the students that we needed.  Worse of all we found out that no one had actually made a reservation with the hotel yet!  All of which I had to resolve in a very short amount of time.  All of which required me to run around like a mad man.  Somehow I managed to get it all done and teach my classes.  Of course a lot of help and understanding from fellow employees and from the hotel was invaluable.

On Sunday it snowed in Pinon and school was cancelled for Monday.  One student, unsure if we were still going would end up following us down.  One student would be unable to leave because of the mud on the dirt roads.  Another student was in the dorm but no one could get a hold of her.  Everyone else came.  Since we could not take the dirt roads our arrival was later than planned, we missed our lunch.  The students and I were very hungry when we went down for dinner.

Today I looked over the competition schedules only to see that students were not on it!  This was something that I was able to work out with the FEA Assistant Director.  Both students were able to compete in their events!

There were a lot of fantastic presentations today.  My students decided to spend the day working however.  They helped one another, gave each other feedback, and asked questions.  I am so proud of their commitment and teamwork.

Tomorrow will decide if we go to Arlington, Virginia or not.  Here's hoping.  No matter what I am very proud of their hard work and dedication.

Error in Family Search

I’ve been looking at our family tree on familysearch.org and I have been looking a few people up this morning.  I was getting excited but I ended up finding an error on the family tree which means that none of these people are actually related to me.  Still had fun though.

Pacatianus was a soldier in the Danube Legions.  He was known as a usurper of the Roman Empire.  He proclaimed himself to be emperor and started marching toward Rome.  Very little is known about him and his life since his own men murdered him before he could arrive in Rome.

His grandson Valerius Licinianus advanced through the ranks of the Roman military and eventually was married to Emperor Constantine’s sister.  He was given a portion of the Roman Empire to rule.  At this time the Empire had been spilt into four sections.  The emperors turned on each other until only he and Constantine were left.  They made a peace agreement that did not last since Constantine wanted the entire empire.  Constantine defeated him and forced him into exile.

Licinanus’ great grandson was the last Roman Emperor ever to rule over the entire empire.  Flavius Theodosius also known as Theodosius the Great started out in the military.  He served in Britain as well as on the border with Germany.  He was briefly exiled but then brought back due to a desperate situation.  He served so well that he was made a Roman Emperor in 379.  As emperor he made a treaty with the Visigoths. He led the visigoth troops against a dangerous usurper and beheaded him.  After a brief excommunication he became a die hard Catholic and oppressed pagans and even closed down many temples.  After defeating another usurper he briefly reunited the empire.

His daughter ruled the empire after he died.  With the sack of Rome by the Visigoths she was carried away out of Rome and forced to marry the King of the Visigoths.  Our tree has her together with the King of Thuringia.  From what I’ve read his wife should be Amalaberge d’ Ostrogothie.  While he has a very similar name to the King of the Visigoths and they lived during the same time period this mistake is massive.  Like I said though, it was still fun.

Music Yes, Alarms No

Xander loves going to sleep with music.  Xander also loves his sleep.  He is not a happy boy when he cannot sleep or when he gets woken up.  Last night the Kindle, that I usually play his music on was dead and the battery was not charging.  So Xander did not have his music to sleep to.

He got up in the middle of the night, came into our room and climbed into bed with Pamela and I.  He was with us for about an hour.  When I put him back in bed I decided to play him music on my phone instead.  Xander seemed to like the music and all was well with the world again, or so we thought.

I had forgotten to turn off the alarms on the phone.  Instead of waking up in time for work I slept in and poor Xander woke up.  He was very grumpy when I came in and turned off the alarm.  Pamela and I had to hurry this morning but it looked like Xander had gone back to sleep.

I heard from my mother-in-law that when Xander did get up for the day he threw things into our toilet and it got clogged.  Three year old playing or toddler style justice?

Our Day Out in Memphis

Memphis and the surrounding areas were not hit as hard by the bad weather as Nashville and some other places.  Yet school was cancelled for the day and many businesses were closed.  Pamela and I wondered what we would do with our day.  Things picked up speed when I went out and brought Pamela some brownies and such.  Pamela made some phone calls to see what was open.  We ended up going to Southaven, Mississippi.  Pamela loved the area.  We went shopping and went out to eat.  It was a lot of fun for us both. 

Pamela has always loved looking at houses and apartments.  We tried our best to look at apartments and houses around the area in Southaven and Olive Branch but everything was closed due to the weather.  It was nice to go cruising with my wife.

Tonight we went out to BB King's Blues Club and ate some incredible brisket and listened to some great live music.  There were people in the club from Austria, France, Australia, England, Wales, Sweden, and Canada.  There were also a lot of people who like us were from out of town but not quite so far out of town.  It's really cool to spend the evening in a world famous location and listen to some real good music.

Only a couple of things left to do before Pamela and I fly back west tomorrow.  Here we go for another busy day in the life of the Maynard's!