Christmas List

Hi Everyone,
I am putting the Christmas list on the blog again this year. Just click on the comments button at the bottom, click the Name/URL button, add your name, and then you can add your list to the text box. If you want to, send me your list and I will post it for you. Then, you can just watch the list grow and check it any time you want.
Heath

School has started

Well, Terry is back to being a Bulldog with the start of his year, and Rowan is officially a Warrior. She had her first day of begindergarten today; thus, the smiling girl with the backpack. When I picked her up at the elementary, she said, "Mom, I had a great day, and I didn't get in trouble." That made me smile....we had talked about being a good listener and using her manners. Ritch and I thought she might try and boss; Ritch says she comes by that naturally....from her mom. : ) Anyway, she spent the afternoon and evening telling us about the day's events, and then she fell asleep immediately after going to bed. My first day with students was also today; my freshmen are known to be troublesome. I am planning to work them from bell to bell.....no time to cause trouble. Check back with me in a month or so to see if my strategy is working. : ) Ritch is also busy with work and looking forward to taking the week of Labor Day off; he wants to do a few more projects around the house before fall.

Well, we will see most of you in Rapid in a little over a week. Love ya......Paige

Week One

My first week is in the books, and so far it has gone well. Spent a lot of time with football, including two-hours in the rain Friday morning. Was not a pleasant walk home. The coaches have been using a lot of motivation about "perfection" and "playing deep into November" with this team. From what I have seen, I don't really think that it's just a bunch of talk. My job with the varsity lets me be a somewhat impartial observer, so it should be interesting to observe at least. For my position as a freshman coach, we have 5 (I think) games scheduled plus some will play JV (probably), and only 16 freshman...just better hope for good health.

I've gotten my room decorated as much as it's going to be, for now at least, and have been working on my powerpoints and other notes for my classes this last week.

Still have a lot of work to do, but next week is nothing but meetings/workdays, and then the 25th and 26th are 1/2 day orientation days, so I have till two Wednesday's from now to be ready for class. So as long as I don't dink around too much, I should be fine. Attached are some pictures of my room after we got 2 inches of rain in under an hour last Sunday, after the crew working on the roof did not cover up the hole they had made. My room is on the first floor, so this is the damage that worked its way through the roof, the 2nd floor, and into my ceiling. A room on the second floor, when I looked in there on Sunday, appeared to be raining indoors and had a good 1/2 inch of standing water on the carpet. Great way to be introduced to your school.

Terry

Thanks to everyone

I just wanted to quickly post and say thanks to everyone who sent cards/calls/etc. when Noel's dad passed away. He is doing okay -- he jumped back into work so that is keeping him busy. Not much else going on with us....a few business trips here and there. We are planning on coming to Nebraska Labor Day weekend for volleyball and (hopefully) football games, plus we'll be at Jason's wedding so it will be a busy first week in September.

Hope everyone is doing well and again, thanks for all the kind words! See you all soon.

We're not crazy... I promise!

Hey Everyone,
I'm with Paige, summer is almost over and I am not ready for kids to come back to campus. I am teaching a brand new class for Journalism this fall, and I really need to get to work on that. I went to Vegas for a conference a few weeks ago and had a great time. I didn't win any money so that was a bummer.

Beckie spent over a week in Scottsbluff with her Mom. Val had her knee replaced, so Beckie went out there to help out, cook, clean, be a nurse, and chauffeur.

We added to our family as well. Here is a picture of Edward. He was found in the Scottsbluff WallMart parking lot, and a nice vet took him in and nursed him back to health. They couldn't save his eye, and had to shave him to treat his ringworm, so he looks pretty funny. But his hair will grow back. No one wanted a one-eyed, shaved cat, and being the big softies that Beckie and I are, we decided to take him in. I promise, we haven't lost our minds... yet :)

hello all

I just thought I would say hello. I really don't have any news to report; summer is going by quickly, and school is only 20 days away....yikes! I still have one more deck to stain and tons of school work to do before the kids arrive; I guess I better get it in gear. ha
Rowan is going to begindergarten this fall, so she will start school on Aug. 27th. It is an all day everyday program, so we are happy that the daycare bill will be mostly eliminated, but not so sure about her growing up so quickly. Ritch said the other day that she was way more excited to go to school than he was to send her. : ) She picked out a black, cloth backpack printed with red cherries and red trim. She was so proud; she wore it all over K-Mart and told everyone it was her school backpack. I will take the famous, first day of school picture and post it. : )
Other than the basic summer activities and work, we have nothing new to report. All is well with the Havranek family.....we will most likely see most of you at either Jason's or Kaitlyn's wedding.

Foster Parents

So, Beckie and I have been foster parents for 4 kittens from the Humane Society. We have had them for a little over a month. Here is a picture of Sy, Boots, Yowler, and Inky.

They go back to the Humane Society today so they can be neutered and then adopted out. We found homes for all 4, so we know they are going to good places. We have decided we make terrible foster parents, as we don't want to give them up, and we wanted to find homes for them before they had to go back. It was a lot of work, but we did it.

Once a Bulldog...

always a Bulldog. Or so it would seem. I had what turned out to be my final job interview in Alliance on Tuesday, and I left town (for my 6 1/2 drive back to Omaha which was much quicker than I was expecting) with a job offer in hand. I called back today, and barring any major upheaval, I will receive my contract in the mail after the July school board meeting.

After the up and down Spring and Summer I have had, it was very refreshing to actually get some good news. I will be teaching 2 sections of 9th grade World History, 2 sections of Sociology, and 2 more sections of World History (I am not sure what grade). The 9th grade class is only a quarter long, and the sociology is a semester, so my World History class is the only class that is the full year long. One of the two sections of the year-long World History is an Honors class. Why they are having the first-year, new-to-the-district teacher take the Honors class is beyond me, but it should be interesting.

The person I am replacing is moving to the Guidance Counselor position, so I can (and probably will) lean heavily on him. In addition, I believe I was also hired to be an assistant football coach, but I am not entirely sure if that will pan out. They were much more concerned with the teaching part of the position, and that's a great sign as far as I am concerned.

My plan as of right now, is to finish out July in Omaha (I have already given Village Inn my two-weeks notice...couldn't wait to do that!), and move the 1st of August. I will have to travel back to Alliance at least once between now and then to look at, and sign a lease, for a dwelling.

Thanks to everyone who gave me advice and encouragement while I was struggling through the job search (especially Heath, Beckie, Paige, Brenda, and my parents) and, once again, thanks to Breck and Kristy for letting me stay in Ogallala and break up my trip. I am planning on going up and back on the same day for my next trip, so I will really appreciate your hospitality after I see how bad the trip could have been.

Hopefully I haven't jinxed myself with this, but at this point I feel fairly secure that nothing is going to come out of the blue and sink me. The next time I post, S****y Kitty and I should be in the Sandhills.

All is well

Hi Everyone... the storms blew through Lincoln last night and we came through pretty much unscathed. We had one corner of our basement that got a little damp, but we sopped it up with towels and that seemed to work. I need to check our the gutter right there and maybe put down some more dirt and slope things away from the house. When we were renters this wasn't our problem! :) I talked to Anne Marie and she came through the storm fine too. By the time the storm blew up, it would have been dangerous for her (flash flooding in Lincoln) to drive over here, or for us to go get her, so she weathered the storm in her apartment with a neighbor.

Hotel blocked off for Kait's wedding on September 20

I blocked off rooms at the Comfort Inn. They are $58.49 a night and you have to tell them Kaitlyn or Jared's name. The phone number is 308-284-4028. They do have an indoor pool in answer to Brock and Bruce's request. They are also blocking off 5 rooms for the 19th in case anyone wanted to come early.
I asked for 15 rooms, thought that would be enough for the Tuttle's and Palmer's. The Hemberger's are staying at the Holiday Inn Express.

Kris

Appendectomy

Spent the weekend at Bryan having my appendix removed. Tried to post
this from the hospital last night, but their wi-fi didn't like me. I
am home now and can't do much until Wednesday. I am sore, but they
gave me some good pain pills:)

Our new house

Shari asked me to post a picture, so here you go. If all goes well we should move in around Memorial Day.

The snow is melting...

We had a doozy of a blizzard, but now the snow is nearly gone.

We enjoyed looking at the pics of Heath and Beckie's house. We are in the middle of house shopping ourselves because...........we sold our house!!! Yeah!! After 3 years of trying!! We'll keep you updated on the house hunt but we have 6 weeks to be out of this one. Do you have any idea of how much junk we've accumulated by living in one place for 10 years?

Hello from South Dakota

Hello,
I am slow to post, but here goes. We are having a snow day/evening/hopefully, tomorrow too. : ) We started school and then released at 10 am; we have 6 inches of heavy, wet snow, and the wind is blowing.....guess I will have to wait and see about school tomorrow.

I am busy with school, and Ritch is busy with work as well. We are enjoying being back together and working on our life together. Rowan went to kindergarten screening last week, and she said it was an awesome day! Winner has a begindergarten program for younger students, so we are planning to send her to begindergarten because she won't be 5 until the end of June. It will be all day everyday......then she will be in kindergarten the following year. I am thinking a long way down the road.....I don't want her to graduate from high school at 17. So, this extra year is what we think is best.

I love reading the updates........Terry and Daina....nice cat. : ) Kris, I can help you with the research paper. I know what MLA is! : ) And, we too did tons of paperwork and questions for our home study to adopt Rowan. Keep forging ahead....you are right. The boys do need stability and safety to thrive, and it is wonderful that you and Breck are doing this for them. We are proud of you!!! But, it still doesn't make the hoops you have to jump through any less frustrating. I would agree; if there was paperwork required to reproduce the old-fashioned way.......there would be way fewer unexpected pregnancies!!!! : )

Good news.....just got the call. No school tomorrow!! : ) Well, better get Rowan in her pajamas. We are planning to come to Lincoln the first weekend of May to watch Beckie run her marathon.......God bless her! : ) Maybe we will see some of you then.

Love ya all........

House Pictures

Here are some pictures of the inside of the house. I will take some pics of the bedrooms and the yard and post them later. I forgot about them this time.

House Pictures

Drowning in paperwork...

The judge decided that we had to have a home study before we can adopt the boys. I can not say enough about how ridiculous I think this is, but I guess we will jump through all the hoops required. There are pages and pages of probing, intimate questions. Too bad parents don't half to do a quarter of this before they have kids, they might think twice about why they want children in the first place. So we're slowly working on this, and hoping by the time we finish we have enough money to pay for it. We already paid the attorney quite a large sum, and now we need to pay for this. Seems like someone should be paying us to do this and get the boys off state medicaid, you know?

Yesterday we got a huge envelope of paperwork to fill out for the Monroe-Meyer clinic in Omaha. After we fill out this questionaire they will decide if we need to take him to Omaha for autism testing.

I am also in the middle of writing a term paper for my art appreciation class. And I sit here wondering what the heck is MLA? They didn't teach that when we were in school!!! I figure I'm about 1/10th of the way through. I would really like to have it finished next week before I start another big project. But I'll tell you about that if it happens.

Our van breathed it's last breath yesterday, so we are looking for something else to drive. It's a little cozy in the Toyota pickup that Breck drives to work. Hopefully we'll find something this weekend.

Other than that we are just keeping busy chasing after the boys, trying to learn sign language so we can teach Alex to communicate, keeping up with the house and finding time to catch our breath.

Brenda, if you read this, I thought your invitations were beautiful. Can't wait until the big day!! Hopefully you'll share your thoughts on wedding planning with Kait and I, we could use some advice!!

Moved IN!

Beckie and I got moved into our new house this last weekend. We are excited and really tired. We had a lot of help with our friends coming from Omaha, Columbus and Springview to help out. That doesn't even count all the people who helped who live here in Lincoln. Thank you everyone!

I will get some pictures taken and posted soon.

If it's Sunday...

It means I'm going through the jobs section of the World Herald. A lot of openings, but so far the call backs have been slow to come in. I am hoping that once all of the contracts from current teachers have been turned in, that schools will be more proactive.

And for anyone that's interested, here's a couple of pictures of our cat. Daina's family has dubbed it "Ruby", but we call it "Cat" or "S***ty Kitty", depending on the situation of course.

A picture of the boys and Rachel

Shawna was here for a total of 2 1/2 weeks to help me with the boys after my surgery. This is a picture of the kids at the lake. You can see that Alex was ready to run.

By the way, if you want to know what life with Alex is like, you can read this.

An update from the west end of the state...

It's warm and windy, and since we've had no moisture to speak of all winter, it's incredibly dry. That's the boring stuff.
Stuff of note:
We're making progress on plans for Kait's wedding. She and Jared will be home for the weekend.

Ian will be home for 8 days due to spring break. I miss him!

We head to Omaha on Sunday. Alex has a check-up with the neurologist on Monday morning. We've been asked by the team from ESU to ask the neurologist if Alex should be tested for autism. He is on the spectrum, but there are some anamolys (anamolies?) that don't quite fit the autism diagnosis, specifically that he's a very loving and social child. This is not something I wanted to hear, but I guess we will tackle whatever we need to.

Most importantly, we met with an attorney and have started the process to adopt the boys. Michael and Grace asked us to do this a few months ago, but we've taken time to let them really think of the seriousness of the situation. We also needed time to consider all the issues that come with Alex and the cost of health care. We finally decided that these boys need the security that the permanence of adoption brings and we'll tackle the financial and medical issues as they come along. This hasn't been easy, but we feel like it's the best thing to do. Just thought the family should know what's going on.

Kris

House

Beckie and I will be meeting with the sellers of the house we plan to buy, on Sunday. Wish us luck. If all goes well, we will probably be moving around Easter. It seems to be happening really fast. Neither one of us have owned a house before so we are pretty nervous. Renting always meant you could pick up and go somewhere else with very little notice. I guess our lives are changing! :)

First Post

Hi Everyone.... I know that most of you are not nerds like me, and probably don't have a blog... but I thought it may be fun for everyone to have access to this to post goings-ons, whats happening, etc. I am inviting all the Tuttle kids and grandkids to be members of this blog. This space is for everyone to share and post whatever. Stories, pictures, movies, whatever is going on in your lives.

Beckie and I have another blog, http://heathandbeckie.blogspot.com, so I will be sure to cross post. You can send the url to this blog out to anyone so they can read it too: http://youmustbeatuttle.blogspot.com.

There must be a lot of Tuttle blogs out there because I had trouble coming up with a nice, short URL that wasn't already taken. But it worked out well in the end, and seemed fitting. I tend to hear "you must be a Tuttle" a lot when I see someone from Sprigview who I haven't seen in a long time, or when I meet someone who knew Mom and Dad (or my older siblings) when they were in school.

Have fun and start blogging.