Dudley's Dozen Dogmas: Our Guiding Principles

How this came about...a few month's ago, my girlfriend posted her family's guiding principles on her blog. I became inspired and have been waiting for Lucas to join us from Seattle so we could sit down and write ours. Here it is. We all contributed ideas and think these principles represent our family well.


Dudley's Family Guiding Principles

We appreciate the presence of God in our lives and honor and respect the faith and beliefs of others.
We honor and respect ourselves.
We practice unconditional love for one another.
We accept one another for who we are and others for who they are.
We view every day as a gift.
We value laughter, silliness and outright craziness.
We take time to be with one another.
We respect and treat our friends nicely.
We get joy from creating music and value the arts in our lifes.
We do what we can to help others.
We take loving care of our pets.
We strive to keep our bodies healthy by exercising and eating nutritious and delicious foods.

Local Newspaper Visits Forrest's Class

Charity Drive Helps Kids Flex Math Skills by Venice Buhain, The Olympian
LACEY — The first-graders at Faith Lutheran School have counted to more than 1,000 for a good cause.

That's the number of toys and books their class has collected so far for St. Peter Family Medicine, a teaching clinic at Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia.
The donors are the school's 150 students, in kindergarten through sixth grade.
The clinic's patients include low-income families, parent volunteer Rachelle Dudley said.
"You can walk out with a brand new (stuffed) animal so you're not afraid to go back again," 7-year-old Anna Grace Hartly said.
"Sometimes if you have something that you don't want, you should give it to someone instead of throwing it in the garbage," she added.
Some of the donations will be going to the hospital's sexual abuse program, Dudley said.
Not only have the first-graders used the opportunity to learn about helping others and volunteering, but teacher Peggy Broman is using the experience to help the students practice their math skills.
As they gather the toys and books from each classroom, the first-graders learn how to use tally marks.
After tallying the donations from each classroom, they go to a scoreboard in the hallway to give one sticker to each classroom for every five donations.
With the scoreboard, they practice counting by fives and 10s and estimating amounts.
"We wanted it to be educational, as well as something they give from their hearts," Broman said.
Eye on kindergartners
The class with the most donations will get a pizza and treats party.
"We're pretty sure the kindergarten will win because they already have so many," said Erica Slemmer, 6.
"We could get to the top because I still haven't brought my stuff," said classmate Seth Humble, 7.
Broman said the unexpected part was how picky the students have been in accepting donations. They have been thoughtful and thorough in accepting high-quality gifts.
"We have to do the job of, 'Would I want this book?' " Anna Grace said. "Because some people just throw it in the box without thinking about whether it's dirty or whether they would want it."
Erica added, "You don't want to get a dirty old toy."
Venice Buhain covers education for The Olympian. She can be reached at 360-754-5445 or vbuhain@theolympian.com.

Update! As of today, total donations over 2000 items!

Welcome Fatima!

Dr. Fatima is an EF Language student from Brazil. She is here to improve here English, but we think she speaks very well already. Fatima is an endocronologist. She has 2 daughters; 13 years old and 15 years old (who is Lucas's new pen-pal). Her husband is a mining engineer.

We are really enjoying her visit and are learning a lot about Brazil. For instance, Brazilians speak Porteguese, not Spanish. Similar to Australia, the Porteguese sent all their criminals to colonize the "new land." Did you know that Brazilian women usaually keep their maidens names when they get married? Do you know the name of the animal in the photo? It is called a cabivara. They inhabit the lake near her house. Did you know that they do not have such things as foreclosures in Brazil? The government or banks can never take your house? 12 oranges cost less than 50 cents. And ladies - a pedicure and manicure can be had for only $7.00 US. Check out the Brazilian recipe below.

Friday's Rock!

It's Friday night, sitt'n back with bestfriend Deaven, eating pizza, watching Avatar. Can life get any better?