September 2004

Babies no more My last gossip page entry was exactly a year ago. Joshua was just born. Well he just turned 1 year old (as did Mac back in June). I just wanted to share this picture just to show what a difference a year makes. Sad news about Eloise (March, 1996 - August 16, 2004) Eloise was basically an indoor cat but would on occassion sit out on the porch and check out our side yard. A couple weeks ago while she was sitting out, Poco the german shepard next door came around the corner and attacked her, putting his mouth around her chest. This happened right as she was trying to get back in the house. RAW is beating himself up over the fact the sliding screen door was shut. I told him if she would of got back inside Poco would of followed her in the house and Hollace would of witnessed it or the dog could of attacked her. Raleigh fought off the dog and dragged him back to his yard. I heard this horrible commotion and seen Raleigh fighting off the dog. I didn't know he got Eloise and thought he was just attacking Raleigh. All I could do was stand there at the door and scream. He evenutally dragged the dog by his collar back into it's yard. We then went off to try to find Eloise. I finally seen her cowering in the garage. Raleigh got his hand bit up pretty bad from her trying to get her into her carrier so we could take her to the vet. Me and Hollace ran her a mile down the road to the vet while Raleigh went off to seek medical aid for his hand. Eloise was drooling, growling and hissing when they got her out of the carrier but eventually she stopped breathing. That dog broke a lot of her ribs and probably punctured a lung. There was no blood or wounds on her. We are a very sad family. Hollace starts school Kindergarten that is. Unfortunately the 8 year old public school was condemned last spring when it was discovered that over 50 roof trusses were cracked. Further investigation found other serious building flaws and now they are considering tearing the school down and rebuilding. In the meantime the 600+ displaced grade school students from Gavin township are now occupying a section of Antioch/Lake Villa's brand spankin new high school. I wasn't thrilled that Hollace would be spending her first year in school in a high school where the drinking fountains are too hard to reach. Last year the preschool at our church that Hollace has been going to these last 2 years started an all day kindergarten. Now, the failing public school isn't the only reason this private school was attractive to me. With an all day, there is a lot more learning going on, with last year's class reading by Christmas. Class size was a plus, the private school is capped at 15 students. Not sure what the private is, probably over 20. And the private school is right across the street and the relocated public school is probably at least a 20 minute bus ride. Not sure what we will do next year because especially if they have to rebuild, that school won't be ready until the 2006 school year. If they just go with a repair, we will never feel confident and according to RAW, she won't be stepping foot in there. Not totally thrilled paying for kindergarten but you know I think Hollace will definitely benefit education-wise and hopefully the roof won't fall on her. So far Hollace is loving school. She is very bummed that she has weekends off, she wants to go all week. She already has some friends and on Thursday she was the special student of the day. She came home with a book with pictures that all the kids drew of her. See her first day and second day for that matter, in pictures here   The Race ...the movie I have edited my first feature film, well all 2.5 minutes of it. It is a 3mbs Quicktime movie. 3.4Mb QT