it's sibling day! bummer for all of you single children (guess you'll just have to find something else to celebrate)

i did my civic duty. i called the house chair about the bill we want to pass. (if you didn't know i was in an education policy class, you might think i called out to the chair in my house..like a kitchen chair about getting rid of a counterfeit bill....or that one of us-probably not the chair had eaten a bill and needed to pass it out of our system..or you might even think i was calling my chair about walking past a certain hottie named "bill"...but NO), as those of you who have followed this blog know, i have been in this class since december, and most recently, we are trying to get the tx house of reps to see and support a bill about recruiting and retaining the most effective teachers possible in classrooms.

we had a great class last night, speaking/listening to what our local dallas board trustee had to say about local policy and explaining how our board does things. it was very enlightening. i wish more of our trustees were as diligent as he is in looking at things and putting actual thought into what is happening and needs to happen to help improve our school district.

-also yesterday-
my class went to the book fair. woohoo! there are actually several books that i want!

how CUTE is this baby sloth??! too cute, i tell ya!

this morning on the way to work, on the radio, the commentator totally referred to a spelling bee as a sport! WHAT?? it's true.

today is national sibling day- HAPPINESS TO ALL SIBLINGS! so, here is my tribute to my brother, david:

first airplane trip to visit the grandparents

look at what my parents did to us at Easter!!

yes, my dad was the pastor and we were the main attraction, at least in our minds (i think david is picking a wedgie in this one-or he just thought he would make special pose-putting me in a headlock). please notice my open mouth-i'm pretty sure that is not how my parents taught us to smile...

...but then again, my brother has the open-mouth smile as well-this was in college, when he worked for the sound department

so, he really wanted to stencil the chiquita banana symbol on the side of his baby (the car, not his real baby below)-totally cool 80's

and david with their first child-who is now growing up faster than she should!

david and i had a lot of fun growing up. we shared some of the same friends and i always wanted to play with his friends. in wisconsin it was riding bikes, playing funny dress-up games with the mcguinty's, sand box, tree house, football, baseball and when we were in iowa, we did everything together with our youth group, from Bible quizzing to snowball fights and snowmen, to going pretty much anywhere in the little yellow beetle...

 then in HONDURAS we did a lot together when we were older. we played basketball with friends, played water-gun war all over the neighborhood at night, climbed water towers and ate hawaiian pizza while watching fireworks, hiked back to the river to slide down the natural rock slide, drove around the strip drinking tao's iced tea...there wasn't much that we DIDN'T do together with friends when we were in high school.

my sibling is pretty cool. he is much more intelligent than i am-he would come home with calculus and physics tests with a + and i would find them in the trash can and think, "dude! if that were mine, i would frame it!" he is much more level-headed than i am, and he is very patient. i wish we didn't live 11 hours apart, but whatcha gonna' do?! i'm not a great sibling because i don't call very often-i am not good at talking on the phone. but i do try to get a letter off once in awhile! so, david, here's to you!

happy sibling day, ya'll!
julie