Are we still in Louisiana?

We woke up to quite a shock this morning. It's not uncommon to happen in north Louisiana but I can only remember once or twice in my lifetime that it happened here. The boys are having a ball playing in it. They can't stay out too long - we aren't exactly prepared with the right kind of jackets and gloves. Snow is not a main factor when picking out winter wear down here.

Our house

Connor

Garrett

The boys having a snowball fight (did I really just say that?)

We are used to extended news coverage for hurricanes but today they are staying on with "Snow Coverage 2008". Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed we don't lose power. The lights keep blinking on and off but so far they are staying. Apparently there are a bunch of loose limbs still left over from Hurricane Gustav that are starting to fall under the weight of the ice/snow. What's really strange is on Tuesday we were wearing short sleeve shirts and this weekend they are forecasting temperatures back in the 70's. What a change a day can make.

Buzz's new learning enviroment

What a long but fun journey to get to this point. Landon has progress significantly since his activation and one year ago I decided to design and build a Website for parents with students on a AV curricula path. This task has been one of joy and humbling work. I thank God on a daily bases for allowing me to help my son's development and it is my personal goal to help others in the same situation.

I have built a new Website called UseMyEars.com. The site is designed to be an eLearning environment for students on an AV track. It has been constructed to align instruction with the Auditory Leaning Guide’s learning outcomes. This guide is a four-year curricula path with a specified set of learning outcomes. The results of these outcomes should be the mainstreaming an aided or implanted student into a normal classroom setting. It is also intended to be a social network for people dealing with issues of deafness.

One of the frustrating things about helping Landon in the early days was the lack of information on the outcomes of unilateral vs. bilateral implanted children. I returned to graduate school with this problem in mind and the result is UseMyEars.com. This site will be researching if there are any significant differences in the educational progress of students based on the technology used to aid hearing. (Hearing aids vs. Unilateral CI vs. Bilateral CI children) In the future, Jennifer and I would like for other parents to have all the information available to present research to insurance companies and make decisions about their children’s future.

Landon's Dad