Do I hear school bells ringing?

As always, the summer has flown by and it is almost time to begin another school year. I do still enjoy the excitement of starting another school year; but it's not nearly as fun as when I was a child and got to go buy a new lunchbox, pens, pencils, notebooks, etc. But I can go get a new desktop calendar/planner! Of course like most, I will be ready for a break in a few months!
Oh by the way, I don't know that I've ever posted anything about what I do. I am a speech-language pathologist and I work at Kelly Springs Elementary School. I am proud to work for Dothan City Schools and am very excited about the Yes We Can Dothan! movement. (which is another post in and of itself) I work primarily with hearing impaired students and I absolutely love it. And this year the autism unit from Landmark is moving to my school and I will be working with those students as well. I am very excited because these are two populations of students that I have a great passion for.
I should kick myself for not having posted more about these two areas because early identification and aggressive therapy/management makes such a tremendous difference with these children. I will try and be do a better job and post things from time to time (don't want to bore anybody!) about warning signs, typical development, etc. I know a lot of you (if there are "a lot" actually reading this blog, haha) have children and may have questions about their speech and language development. I would love to answer any questions or talk to you about concerns you may have. Feel free to ask me on here or you can email me as well.
Ok, so I have totally digressed from the topic of school starting back, but I guess there really isn't a whole lot to say except for it's just days away now! I wish everybody a great school year, especially to all the teachers and school based employees out there. It can be tough some days, but we still love it anyway right? :)

So glad to be back...

but it looks like I'll be leaving again Friday for a weekend at Shocco Springs. But that is ok, because I think it's going to be a great experience. I just dread being on the road again.
Anyway, maybe at some point before the summer is over I will actually post something worthwhile! I just cannot seem to get the motivation going right now. I will post however some of the thoughts I had last week while living at the Comfort Inn.

The Joys of Hotel Living:

1. Listening to teenagers be loud and run up and down the halls (They were a youth group from MS and actually checked out Monday morning. They actually weren't terrible and I'm sure I acted the same way once upon a time.)
2. Having a room right by the interstate/280 (not sure which b/c I am directionally challenged)
3. Being constantly worried about the cleanliness of your room (There was a stain on my sheets when I arrived and I asked for them to be changed. And I cannot tell you how many stained bathcloths and towels I had. It was quite disgusting. I don't think I've ever had that issue in a hotel before)
4. Walking around in socks all week in response to #3 and the remnants of a bag of roasted peanuts being on the floor when I first entered my room on Sunday.

All that being said, I always had hot water and the shower was spacious, the breakfast choices were good and the staff was pretty friendly.
I also got to eat at some yummy places while in Birmingham (The Cheesecake Factory, Zoe's, Iz Too, Fox and Hound) and catch up with some friends. And the reason for me being there to begin with- the conference- was fantastic! :)

Gone for too long!

Hello all! We just got back late Friday afternoon from a family vacation to Pigeon Forge, TN. Yesterday, we went to to PC for my cousin's 16th birthday party. And after church, I will be leaving for B'ham for a conference and won't be back home till Friday night! It makes me tired just typing all of this. I do enjoy being on vacation and going places, but not two weeks back to back! And I have missed reading your blogs so much! I can get to them on my phone, but if there is a lot of pictures I get impatient waiting for it to upload and just give up. But when I'm all alone in my hotel room every night this week, I might just have to wait so I can be caught up on what's going on in your lives!
Well, I must go get ready for church now. Can't wait to be back home, rested and back in my normal routine of sleeping late and reading blogs with my morning coffee! :)

Happy Independence Day!

I know that our country is far from perfect and that we are not having the best of times right now. However, we are still in a much better place and position than many countries around the world and for that I am grateful. Do you ever wonder sometimes why God allowed you to be born here in America and raised the way you were, as opposed to being born in a third world country? We asked that question to some of our students at VBS. And the answer we (well our associate pastor Mike Golson) gave them was that maybe we are to use our resources and talents we have been blessed with in order to do His work (which is so say, be a missionary in some shape, form or fashion) here on earth. I didn't really know I was going to say all that until I typed it; I was only going to talk about us being blessed to live in the USA! But that point is definitely something to ponder.
Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful day today. Stay cool and be safe!
I hope you will enjoy this video of one of my favorite patriotic songs sung by members of the Gaither Vocal Band. Unfortunately for whatever reason, I cannot embed the video. Probably something to do with my computer skills as opposed to the actual video. :) Anyway, here is the link.

http://www.tangle.com/view_video.php?viewkey=c28028f81ee7af2bdf15