A Hipper Crowd of Shushers

Check out the link below to the article about how cool (and not-frumpy) librarians are these days!

A Hipper Crowd of Shushers

Now really, after reading this article who can criticize the "Secret Masters of the Universe" aka Librarians?

"Librarians are the secret masters of the universe. They control information. Never tick one off." --Spider Robinson

That's right, otherwise you'll be in trouble and your library accounts will amass huge amounts of fines for those overdue books and dvds, not to mention your interlibrary loan privileges will be revoked!
Hahaha...

Celebrating Lynette's Teacher of Excellence Award!

On Friday, Feb. 8 2008 my mother-in-law Lynette Wayne was named the National Education Association's Teacher of Excellence! We are all very proud of her hard work, and are so happy that her dedication to education has been rewarded on the national stage!
Check out this website to learn more about Lynette's career and award: http://www.neafoundation.org/gala.htm


Article from Pioneer Press:

Hastings / Teacher wins NEA excellence award

Pioneer Press

Article Last Updated: 02/09/2008 08:37:10 PM CST

A Hastings teacher received a prestigious National Education Association award this week, becoming the first Minnesota educator to receive the honor.

Lynette Wayne, a teacher at Christa McAuliffe Elementary in Hastings, was named the winner of the NEA Member Benefits Award for Teaching Excellence on Friday night in Washington, D.C. She was chosen from five finalists.

Wayne, who teaches first grade, is the first Minnesota teacher to win the Teaching Excellence award.

"I'm really proud to represent Minnesota," she said Saturday. "I think Minnesota has many outstanding teachers, so I hope this is just the first time we have Minnesota represented."

The award is given annually to one teacher who "personifies and exemplifies outstanding and creative instructional expertise," according to an NEA news release.

- Elizabeth Mohr

Maddy... the growing puppy!

We've had Maddy for two weeks now and she is getting used to being at her new home, exploring and sniffing around every room in the house. She has experienced her first visit to the vet, including a shot! She is certainly a growing girl weighing in at 5.5 lbs (up about 1.5lbs since we first got her). She also had the joy of meeting the Roto Rooter Man and the plumber who are working on fixing our frozen kitchen pipes (Oh, joy...) We have been kitchen-less for a week and really hope that everything will be fixed by Tuesday night. Frozen pizzas and take-out Chinese have been on the menu lately!

In other Maddy News:
She has discovered that she can climb the stairs in our house, adding extra time for her to find a good hiding spot before we catch up with her. This usually involves Maddy sitting on top of the heat vent in the kitchen. Also, the puppy training continues for now. At least it is a little warmer outside- otherwise, we have one cold little pup!

Maddy and Christy

Snuggled in for a nice long nap.

Posing for yet another picture!
Our little babe is growing up, her ears are starting to stand up like a true Boston terrier!

My first pet!

On Thursday we welcomed a new member into our family- Maddy, the Boston terrier. Chris grew up with dogs, but I've never had a pet other than fish so it is taking some getting used to! But she is the cutest little thing so I can't help but love her!
She is very playful, but also loves to chew on my hair! What a goofy little pup!

Maddy loves to sleep in her big blue bed!

Exploring the house and chewing on her toy (as usual!)

Chris loves little Maddy!

We successfully made it through our first Christmas as a married couple. Not that it was all that hard...we had fun with both sides of our families! The Wayne family Christmas was an exciting weekend as usual filled with many games of cribbage, hand and foot, great food and even a little shopping.

We also had the chance to host our first family holiday dinner for Christy's side of the family! It was great to be able to see my Aunt Pat and cousins Katie and Nate from Montana. The only people missing were Alex, Erica and the newest addition to the family Elsie who sadly had to go to a funeral for Erica's grandmother.

We were able to make two delicious turkeys and all kinds of side dishes with a little help from my mom and aunts! The only disaster was having the garbage disposal break down which resulted in a visit from the plumber the next day who also discovered a leaky pipe behind the wall... oh well such is life- better to fix it now than have a flood in the basement later!

Here are just a few pictures from this Christmas!

The Lowe Family Christmas at Chris and Christy's!

oops, the blog won't allow me to add pictures right now... check back later!

New Car...

We finally decided it was time to replace one of the ancient Honda Accords, so after a lot of research by the resident librarian and multiple test drives we settled on a new to us (used) car. We are loving our new silver Hyundai Sonata! It is very similar to a Honda Accord, but more in our price range!
The only problem we had while buying the car was the fact that we forgot our checkbook at home. So Chris' parents Brad and Lynette kindly brought it to us, and proceeded to buy a new car of their own! It certainly turned out to be an expensive favor for them!

Christmas time is here...

This past weekend we went to a tree farm near Hastings and cut down our tree. Chris had the joy of cutting down his first real Christmas tree. We think it turned out pretty well.
We just hope it can last until we host the Lowe family Christmas at our house!