We started off the evening by having supper together at Taco Johns. This is always one of our favorite places to eat and it was nice to see Erin and Emily's family there. Shiloh met us back at the classroom at 7pm to help with our activities.

We talked a lot tonight about what things we want each other to remember when we are together. The discussion was great and we came up with a list of things we want to keep in mind. This list will be typed up and given to all participants for their binders. The list will also be reviewed often to update it with new thoughts as needed. Here is what was included:
1. No cell phones except on break or in the car.
2. Treat others how you want to be treated.
3. Respect ourselves as adults.
4. No interrupting each other when we are talking.
5. No name calling.
6. No being sarcastic.
7. Person on teh right of you is the person who will help you with any words you don't know in the book.

We also decided to watch the Love Comes Softly movie during our class next week. This will be a way for us to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday and will help us to better understand the book we are reading. Shiloh helped us tonight to put together a list of the characters in our book. It was great to revisit the book and it helped us all remember what we are reading. This list will be used everytime we read our books and will be updated as we learn about new characters. We finished up the night by reading some more of our book.

Emily and Anne wrote up some information to be included in our blog for tonight:

Emily – I love taco johns I linder a list of the characters of the book that was fun it is fun to have a student help that is fun and I like to learn moreing.

Anne – We discussed what we are doing next week. Next week we are going to do pizza and a movie. We didn’t have a lesson. I am reading Twilight The New Moon book. This weekend I painted these Christmas statues. Tomorrow is a volunteer day at Sanford.

Next week we will be ordering in pizza to eat during our movie. We will each need to bring $5 cash with us to help pay for that meal. Have a great week!

Tonight was fun because we were all able to be at class and our new volunteer, Shiloh, was also able to attend. We started off the night by having supper together at Burger King. There was great conversation tonight and I think we all enjoyed ourselves. After having a couple of weeks off for our party and the healthy eating lessons, we went back to watching the People Smart videos. Tonight, our lesson focused on supporting each other as friends. Some of the things we talked about included:
• A friend in need is a friend indeed. A real friend is someone who sticks with us, supports us and comes through for us when we need help – even during the bad times in our lives.
• Friend's don't think only of themselves.
• When you care about someone, you find ways to support them.
• The best kind of help and support is given even when a friend doesn't ask for it.
• Don't be phony when you offer to help someone.

We ended the lesson by breaking into two smaller groups and creating a diagram of what we thought it meant to be a true, supportive friend. Anne, Chana and Shiloh created a picture of a large heart and included a lot of sayings that we should use when helping support our friends. Erin, Emily, Bryce and Kristen drew a friendship tree and described lots of characteristics that we would like to see in our friendships. This was a lot of fun and it was nice to have Shiloh helping out so we could break out into smaller groups like this. Erin and Bryce had some comments to make about class tonight:

Erin: We did an activity about respect and then we went to Burger King for supper. We had a video today. The video was about respect between two people. We did an activity about respect and to see what we did in our groups about respect. We made a tree about respect and friends. It is important to our friend’s problems.

Bryce: I heard the news about that army person in Texas. My grandma’s having surgery this weekend. In class I learned about friendship and peer support and about each others life. We drew a friendship tree.

We rounded out our night by reading some more in our book. Next week we will be talking about what rules we have for our time together. It is important for us to spell out those rules so that we all know what is expected of us during our class time. We will also be eating supper at Taco Bell. Plan on bringing $5-$7 with you to pay for your meal. See you all next week!

I apologize for just now getting our updates posted. I left for a conference the morning after class and only just today had access to a computer.

We had a wonderful class on November 3rd. We started off the night by having supper at one of our favorite places - Hoageez. We all really enjoy eating at this restaurant because it is comfortable and quiet. It is a nice place for us to sit and visit for awhile.

After supper, we welcomed a new person to group - Shiloh. Shiloh is a student with the University of Sioux Falls and she is working with us to fulfill some of her class obligations. Shiloh will be participating in class with us on a regular basis. It was great to have her with us!

We also had a dietetic intern from the Center for Disabilities come and teach us some information about healthy eating. Brittany did a great job of teaching us about the harmful effects of drinking too much pop and what things we can do to avoid nightime nibbling. We even did an experiment with an egg to see what pop will do to our teeth. Erin brought the egg home with her and will bring it with her to class next time so we can see what happened.

We met in a different room this week. Because of this, we did not have access to a computer for some of the participants to type up their responses to our lesson. This next week, we will be eating at Taco Bell for supper and will be back to our old schedule or watching the People Smart videos.

Tonight we decided to celebrate by holding our first ever Halloween party. It was a lot of fun, even though we were able to sneak in some learning throuhgout the night. We started off the evening by ordering pizza from Pizza Ranch - Bryce's choice. While we waited for our pizza to be delivered, we played a couple of rounds of Halloween bingo. Great fun was had by all of us!

While we ate our pizza, we watched an old Halloween episode of the Addams Family. Chana, Bryce and Emily all shared some creative stories and plays with the rest of us. We also read some scary stories and played some educational games. We rounded out the night be created some ghosts for us to take home and taking lots of funny pictures of us all in our costumes. Here are some comments from Emily and Chana about the events:

Emily: We gont to have a Halloween part it is fun I love Halloween I love Halloween Im a pick laned we had pezzay to that was fun too. Rend a pome to avery boned that was fun to…………

Chana: we played bingo and we watch a movie on the screen and ate pizza and did the play with Chana and Erin and Bryce and now we are doing the Activities and all love Halloween and we got to listing to Emily stories it was so fun.

We meet again next Tuesday and will be having someone come in to talk to us about healthy eating. We will also be having a volunteer join us to help out with some our activities for the next couple of months. Next Tuesday, we will be eating at Hoageez - Erin's choice. Plan on bringing $5 - $7 with you to pay for your meal. See you all then.

Tonight was extremely busy as we tried to pack many activities into our 3 hours together. We started off the night by eating out together at Arby's. It was Anne's turn to pick and we all thought it was a great choice. Although, not all of us did a good job of following the new tips we learned from Christina on healthy eating. Some of us wondered if those yummy fries counted as veggies for our "healthy plate" :).

Tonight, we only had one lesson on how important it is to not rain on someone's parade. This was a very funny video clip and we all admited that we may at times also get kind of negative with our friends about ideas we aren't that happy about. We learned that:
• It’s hard to be someone’s friend if you automatically shoot down all their plans and ideas without considering their merits. If you don’t respect any of their ideas, you show that you don’t respect them as people
• A good way to show that you care about someone is to be receptive to their ideas and look for ways to help them carry out their plans.
• If you have serious concerns about something a friend or acquaintance wants to do-if you sincerely believe that it’s not in their own best interests-you can voice your concerns in a way that shows caring and consideration. When you’re caring and considerate in sharing your concerns, others will generally be caring and considerate in listening to your concerns. What you get from people is generally equal to what you give.

Bryce and Anne also added the following:
Bryce: We are reading a different book – Janette Oke, Love Comes Softly. My grandma’s in the hospital and she had surgery this morning. My dad went to visit her at Sanford. We are planning for our Halloween party next week.

Anne: I was thinking about picking Tuck Everlasting for our new book. I am going on vacation this week to Arkansas. There is a movie that I want to see, by Nicholas Sparks. I haven’t read the book yet, Dear John. I have a new blog and it is called Reesie’s Kitchen.

We finished out the night reading some more of our book. Next week, we will meet at the same time and same place, but we will be having our Halloween party. Bryce picked for us to order in pizza from Pizza Ranch, we will be playing some games & we will read some scary stories. Plan on bringing $10 cash with you to pay for the pizza. You may get some change back from Kristen, but we want to make sure that everyone has enough money with them. See everyone next week!

Unfortunately, I have to cancel class tonight as I am not feeling well. We will meet again on October 20th. Since we missed a class, we will need to change our schedule for picking where we eat. For next week, Anne will be picking and she has chosen to eat at Arby's. Plan on bringing $5-$7 with you to pay for your meal. See you all in a week!

Tonight was a lot of fun, in spite of the cold and damp weather. We started off the evening by having supper together at McDonald's. The place was packed because of a school that had also stopped for supper; however, they cleared out pretty quickly and things quieted down for us so we could enjoy our meal together.

We were very lucky and had a guest speaker join us tonight to talk to us about healthy eating. Christina Erickson is a dietetic intern with the Center for Disabilities. She brought in a variety of food models and showed us what would be appropriate portion sizes. Christina also talked to us about the food pyramid and we all learned that we are NOT eating enough vegetables. We then took some time to talk about what a healthy plate would look like. Christina helped us all learn some tips on how to eat healthier.

We did not have time to watch any of our videos, so we spent the rest of the night reading our new book. Erin & Chana took some time to write up some thoughts about class tonight:

Erin: We had a speak today and she take a about food and how much food we eat after day to eat good food and pop and green tea or H2O and we are read a good book to we did not
the move with are speak today we lead a lot today it was a fun day to have a speaker come in to take to us a about healthy foods a day we eat a lot of food she likes I love strawberry and mike and frit.

Chana: We went out to eat at McDonalds and Christina talked about healthy food and we held out the stuff and we name the fruit groups and we color the food plates we talk about staying healthy my favorite food was milk because it make the bones strong we talk about how much the serving is in milk.

Tonight, Chana picked for us to go out to supper at Dairy Queen. This is definitely one of our favorite spots to eat! We also decided to stop at the gas station to pick up a few treats for class - this isn't something that we do that often, but everyone really enjoys it when we do.

We finally finished the Indiana Jones book that we have been reading since May. This was a very exciting book and Bryce did a good job of picking it out. The book was a bit more difficult for us than we had originally thought, so it took us longer to read it than planned. We started reading our 10th book, Love Comes Softly by Janette Oke. Chana picked out this new book and we are all excited to start reading it. Anne will pick our next book, so I have asked her to start thinking about what she would like to read.

Once again, our time was a bit limited tonight, so we only watched one video and did not have time for an activity. We watched the PeopleSmart video 1.3.2 and learned about how important it is to apologize to our friends when we do something wrong. We also discussed the following points:
• Breaking a promise can really hurt your friendship. Use this as a chance to deepen your friendship by apologizing to the other person.
• Some key steps to apologizing are: 1) admit your wrong; 2) apologize sincerely; and 3) do something for the person to show how much you value them.
• It can be hard to apologize sometimes, but it takes a mature person to be able to do so.

A couple of the participants wrote the following about their experiences with class tonight:

Anne: We went to Dairy Queen and we FINALLY finished our book after about 5 months!!! We are getting ready to start the next book, Loves Comes Softly. Next we learned how it’s good to apologize to people and always good to say it like you mean it. Next Tuesday, we have a guest speaker.

Emily: We want to DQ and we tick a bout keep a promes. We fish rend INDIANA JONES AND THE CRYSTAL SKULL It tick a long time Im gland we are nod with it.

Next week, we are excited to be having a guest speaker. Christina is a dietetic intern through the Center for Disabilities and she will be presenting some information on healthy eating. We will be having supper that night at McDonald's (I know - probably didn't fit well with our presentation :)!), so everyone should plan on bringing around $5 with them to pay for their meals.

With the conversion to the new website format, I have been unable to access this blog for awhile to provide anyone with updates. The class continues to meet and I will continue to update as we move forward. Last night, we started off the night at one of our favorite places to eat - Hoageez. The food is good, but more importantly it is a quiet place where we can all visit with each other easily. We are all very comfortable meeting here!

Thankfully we were all able to participate tonight. We reviewed our activity from last week on volunteering. Everyone has had some great experiences volunteering & there was a lot of discussion about how great the people are that we meet through these activities. We also watched a video on how important it is to keep agreements/promises we make with others. The following are some highlights from our conversation on this topic:
• Trust is very important with friendships. Keeping your word to your friends can be one of the most important things you can do to keep that person as a friend.
• When you break promises with a friend, you show that you are immature.
• Be clear when you make agreements with others and don't make promises that you can't keep.
We did finish out the discussion with an activity & will be revisiting this at our class next week. The evening ended with us reading our books. We are at the tail end of the Indiana Jones book and I think we are all very excited to start our new book soon. Our next clas will be on September 22nd and we will be eating at Dairy Queen. The following are some comments made by Erin and Bryce about our class last night.

Bryce: My cousin is getting married next year. Tonight we learned about keeping our promises. I think it is a good topic for me to help me keep my promise to my family. We had Hoageez, I had corn dogs with fries and a bottle of pop.

Erin: we wash a move a about be on time and get to work and I have a best friend name Chana and we went to Hoageez and we take and we are not done with are book we are hafe done in it we are going to stare are new book soon and I have a lot of friends in book club it is fun in book club some time.

We started off our night by eating at CiCi's pizza (my choice this week). This is always a lot of fun because it is laid back, not too noisy and we all enjoy the food. We spent some time tonight talking about what kinds of things help to make our book club successful and what types of tips we would have for others who are looking to start their own clubs. There were some great suggestions from the group - make sure to pick a time and place that works for everyone, take turns picking books because everyone has different interests and make sure to include time for socializing with the group, like going out for supper together or taking turns bringing treats for a break time.

We also have the opportunity to have some of the Center's Dietetic Interns come in to our class to talk to us about healthy eating. Everyone again had great ideas for topics that they would like to learn more about - watching our carb intake, making healthy food choices at the vending machines or when we go out to eat at fast food restaurants, what are the serving sizes we should be eating and how pop and other sugary drinks can impact our bodies. I'm hoping to have someone come in to do some activities in September.

Tonight, we watched a video on being too personal. We talked about asking personal questions of others and having other people tell us personal stuff that we just don't feel comfortable hearing. We learned that:
• Being curious about others is natural, especially when we want to get to know them. It is also fun to find out things about people we want to be friends with. But being too personal too fast can be disrespectful.
• You should always have a list of safe topics that you can use to start off a conversation with someone you don't know. This will help you stay away from things that are too personal.
• If someone tells you that you are being too personal, do not argue. You should change the subject to something that is safer.
We finished up the discussion by coming up with ideas for safe topics of conversation if we just meet someone new or are unsure on what we should say to someone.

We ended up our night by reading a little more in our book. We had a great time tonight & Anne and Emily wanted to share some of their comments:

Emily: We went to ci ci and that was good I love pizza I love my class with Kristen and my friends we fill like a family and we watch a move be to prend I love be in class because it teaches me thing and I love being her and I like listening to people too it was fun at ci ci tonneter I love going out to eant it was fun too and I like to see you all banck a gend ok……

Anne: There are three of us in the book club who have summer birthdays. To celebrate, we are going to go out to eat at Applebee’s and maybe have a birthday drink together. I am looking forward to going to a game this weekend – the Chiefs and the Vikings. We are looking forward to starting the next book, Love Comes Softly. I am thinking of new books for us to read next.

We enjoyed our time together tonight as it kept us indoors in the cool air conditioning :). We started off the evening by eating out at Taco John's - this was Chana's choice. Once we got back to the classroom, we reviewed our homework form July 21st and then watched one of the People Smart videos on being loyal to our friends and family. The video was pretty emotional as we saw someone get made fun of for the way that they talked. So, we had some great discussion on how it can hurt other people's feelings when they get made fun of and how we should always stand up for our friends even when it is hard. We also leared:
• Friends don't badmouth or gossip about each other behind their backs.
• You may get a laugh from someone when you make fun of people, but it isn't worth getting that laugh at someone else's expense.
• It is important to resist pressure you may feel from others to be disloyal to your friends.

We spent the rest of the evening reading our book. We are about 1/2 way done with our Indiana Jones book and are going to be spending more time trying to get further along. Erin and Chana both had a chance to comment about the class tonight:

Chana: We went to Taco Johns and we ate. We watched a video about being loyal. We did an activity; we drew a picture about someone we were loyal to. We are going to read our books. We are taking turns reading our books during break.

Erin: we went to taco johns for supper and we had fun and I read a book from home and they we take a about loyal and not make fun of people and stick up for them they we have to read are book they we are read a good book we like take turns to read are book this time it is a lot of books we read as a group they we go home and sleep and come back and have more fun and we have so fun soooooooooooooo we have a lot of fun see you next Tuesday ok see you they

We will be meeting again next week on Tuesday, August 18th. We will be eating out at CiCi's Pizza, so everyone should plan on bringing $5-$7 with you. Hope everyone stays cool the next couple of days!

Tonight, we decided to watch the Indiana Jones movie that our book is based on. We have all been having some problems with understanding what is going on in the book because many of the words are confusing. So, it was helpful for everyone to know a bit more about the story. We ordered in pizza based on Emily's choice for the night. So, we enjoyed pizza, brownies and a good movie. I don't think we could have asked for a better time. We rounded out the night by reading a bit more in our book.

Remember that we do not have class on August 4th because I need to go out of town. We will meet again on August 11th and will be going out to eat at Taco Johns - Chana's choice.

Our time together is always fun, but tonight was an especially good night. Maybe it was the great weather, or the fact that we were all in great moods and ready to learn - either way, it made for a very enjoyable time together. We started off the evening by having supper at Taco Bell. Bryce picked the place to eat & he wanted to try out something new that they had on the menu. The meal was good, cheap and quick, so we were able to get started on our class right away.

Tonight we had time to watch 2 videos. Before the videos, we talked a lot about the difference between a friend and an acquaintance. We also talked about how important it is to work at our friendships and in helping to turn an acquaintance into a friend. The first video we watched was on sharing. We learned about the following through our discussion and the activity:
• An acquaintance doesn't become a friend right away. It takes time and many experiences together to be friends. Sharing is an important part of this process.
• Friends don't think only of themselves. They care about their friends. Sharing shows that we care about them.
• The best kind of sharing is when you do it before someone asks you for something.
• Sharing with a friend can make you feel good about yourself. You make someone else feel better!

Our second video was on keeping in touch. The video showed us how important it is to stay connected to our friends. That way we can be there to help them when they need it and they are there to help us when we need it. We learned the following:
• A friend in need is a friend indeed. It is important to be there for your friends when they are going through rough times. Staying in touch will help you be a good friend and will show you are friends through good times and bad times.
• Keeping in touch shows people that you care about them and want to know what is going on in their lives.

Bryce and Emily wrote up some information that they wanted to share with everyone:
Emily – We whent to taco bell for supper and came back tom the center and we taled a bout friends how they are important to us and we did a lont of dechend a bout forest that was fun and we liend a bout it chand and Bresy and Anny Erin and I we had a lont of the fiends.

Bryce – My brother passed his boards. And my cousin is getting married this August. The class is better than other classes because it Kristin Kiner put the class together. I like to see all of my friends, going different places to eat and we read about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Skull.

Next week we will be ordering in pizza (Emily's choice), so everyone will need to bring $5 to class to pay for their part of the meal. See you all then!

I apologize that this information is just now getting posted. We had a great meeting last week. Erin picked for us to go out to eat at Hoageez - a new place for us, but definitely one we will visit again. We watched a very interesting video about how important it is not to lie to our friends. Some of the things we learned were:
• Lying is a serious violation of trust and trust is a really important bond that makes people friends.
• Any lie, even if you think of it as a “little white lie” shows a lack of respect for your friends. Lying is a bad habit to have!
• Being mature also means being truthful. If we are supposed to try to be adults, then we need to do hard things sometimes. Telling the truth can be hard and painful, but it is important to do so we can show that we are mature and responsible.

We rounded out the night by reading some more of our book. Anne and Erin shared also wanted to shared some of their thoughts about class:

Erin – we play a game call the true or lie game it was a lot of fun we wash a move call lie to your friends and tall the true or have fun with a game and we are read a good book like Indiana Jones and the Kingoom of the crystal skull it is a nice book to read and it is hard to read some words it is a lot of fun in book club I help Kristen at work every Tuesday morning

Anne – The video kind of showed you why liars don’t have very many friends at first and then it showed you the better way to handle the situation. Which was the one girl who lied the first time to the other girl, the second time she included her which was the grown-up way to handle it. There is a book that I am reading on my own that they turned into a movie – GI Joe…It is an action book kind of like the one that we are reading now. Some people may remember the toys, the action figures.

Remember that we have class again on July 21st. Look forward to seeing everyone there!

Tonight was a chaotic because of the storms. We went out to eat at Culver's (Chana's choice) and then on our way back to our class location, it started storming out. We made it inside right before the rain started pouring down. We were happy we all stayed dry, but unfortunately the bad weather meant that Anne could not join us. We really missed her and hope that she can come next week.

Tonight, we learned a lot about strengthening our friendships with others. First, we watched a video on going out with our friends. This led to discussion on the following:
• Going out to meet new people can seem risky. If you only think of the bad things that can be happen, you will never want to do anything new.
• It is important to meet people half way so you can a chance to experience fun & exciting things. You have to take risks in order to get the reward which could be someone new in your life.
• If someone is mean to you when you go out, don’t let that stop you from ever going out again. Not everyone is like that, so remember that this one instance is something to learn from.

The second video we watched was on standing by our friends. We learned that:
• Being loyal to a friend is one of the true tests of a friendship.
• When things get tough, that is the time when you find out who your good friends are.
• Standing by your friend through their rough times can help you earn respect from that friend and others around you.

We finished up the night by reading our books and almost all of us made it home before the rain started again. Our next class will be held on Tuesday, July 14th.