I went to Austin on the morning of Oct. 30 to do a presentation for the Austin Diocese teachers - after which I had supper and spent the evening with the Austin Ranks - the high point of the evening was when Ryan told me that I am not old - gotta start a trust fund for that kid! On Thursday evening Linda got a call from St. Ignatius Catholic School asking her to come for a job interview for a first grade teaching position - she was calm and cool, but I was excited that even before completing her student teaching she's getting job offers! Joe and I spent Friday together - ate at a most interesting little Japanese restaurant called "ZEN" (Joe's recommendation) and topped it off with a trip to Amy's ice cream shop and an incredible CD store, "Waterloo." Yes, I did buy a new Andrea Bocelli CD - but only to be polite! (;-)

Friday evening was Halloween and doing Halloween with four kids is a real exercise in multi-tasking! Pat and Ryan were dispatched to their room to don their cowboy costumes and 10 minutes later, Pat tears out to the living room stark naked except for an oversized black cowboy hat - Joe deemed the picture I took of the visage as worthy of becoming a family classic fit for a rehearsal dinner enlargement.

Dad arrived with the trailer on Friday evening - we stayed at McKinney. We had a PCAT Board meeting in Austin on Saturday, after which we spent the rest of Saturday and much of Sunday at Joe and Linda's. We babysat on Saturday evening while Joe and Linda did dinner and a movie. It is a real trip keeping up with four!

Joe and Linda's next door neighbors had held a garage sale on Saturday to benefit Joe - they did pretty well, but the real winner was Hannah who had first choice of adult ladies clothes donated to the sale. She spent the rest of the weekend in all manner of oversized women's clothes and high heels...happy as a lark. Cole put dad to the test on Saturday evening by requesting assistance in his private quest to conquer high school math - negative numbers operations, etc. He and dad worked on problems for a half hour and dad claims that the kid is a whiz.

On Saturday afternoon dad met with the plumber who is going to take the tub out of Joe and Linda's bathroom and re-plumb the area in preparation for the renovations. He expects to do his work this week so that when we're all in Austin for the family meeting on Nov. 15,16 reconstruction work can commence.

We watched "Ice Age" with the kids on Saturday - what a great movie! Naturally, I identified strongly with the sloth, and the similarities between dad and the Mammoth are immediately apparent! On Sunday Joe demonstrated his new computer/speech device - the "Freedom 2000." It is an amazing machine - we all have to be grateful for Bill and Becky making that possible for Joe - it promises a great deal of independence and frustration relief for Joe when natural speech is difficult.

The trip home Sunday evening was uneventful. Driving two vehicles is a bit of a drag, but cell phones and a stop at Don Bravo's in Quero help. Keep the Faith! Love, Ma