ISTEP, you step, we all step for ISTEP! Indiana's standardized test was given this week, and I'm glad it's done. Unfortunately, due to changes in policy, we have to give it again in the Spring. One of my students brought in an ISTEP cake for us all to enjoy. Yum! This week, I had a lot of fun at different singing gigs. As mentioned earlier, I was at the Corydon Jamboree on Saturday. On Monday, Ed and I played with Forever Gold at the Clothe-A-Child benefit at Thornton Park. Go to the Forever Gold slideshows to see pics. (Forever Gold will be playing the Marshall Autumn Festival in Illinois tomorrow night! Cool!) Once again following tradition, Lisa and I built a BMS-OMS bridge by singing the National Anthem at the county-rivalry football game. Guess what? I walked to that game, then walked home! It feels great to have the cast off. I'm looking forward to training for the Mini this winter. Check out a new Fun Stuff site, Mag 7 Race Series. Find a race YOU would like to run or walk! My poor Momma won't be walking much in the next month or so; she broke a bone in her leg today! The break is at the base of the bone, right on the ankle. We are the bone-breakin'-est family ever!

What. A. Weekend. On a beautiful Saturday, I followed Dad for part of his first round in the Senior City Championship. That night, we all went to Corydon, where I sang at the Jamboree. The next morning, it was a bit windy (Hurricane Ike aftermath), so I suited up in rain/wind gear to follow Dad for his entire second round. What followed was one of the most legendary rounds of golf I have ever witnessed. As he and his group played, the wind got more and more fierce. Eventually, they were playing in wind gusts that reached over 80 m.p.h., and sent tree limbs, walnuts, trash cans, and a whole host of other things, flying through the air at us. Dad won the tournament, but the story that ruled the day was wind that caused hundreds of downed trees and most of Bedford to lose power. Ed and I just got power back this morning. At the entrance to Mom and Dad's road, a large pine tree was almost completely uprooted, blocking the highway. However, Mom and Dad never lost power! Lucky them! Some NLCS schools were canceled on Monday, making 2008 the first year we've had to cancel for ice, snow, flooding, and wind in the same calendar year. I made slideshows of both the Senior City and the wind storm, and both have some fun animated pics so you can see the force of the wind!

If you didn’t know already, I’m a fan of Care Bears. (See this old post.) My students at BMS know this, and often bring little Care Bears to live in my classroom. Several new additions to the room, plus a blog by Bob Bridge, have caused me to reminisce about my furry friends. I still want to make a Care Bears web site sometime. Here’s a picture of my collection as it was in 2001. It’s even bigger now; but I’m smaller now, as you’ll notice in the full picture! :o)

Happy Grandparents' Day! I am proud to unveil a new JoKai.net and JoKai CobbWebs site: JoAnnaKaiCobb.com! Because I've started singing professionally a lot more lately, I thought it would be appropriate to have a web site that includes my schedule, info about me, links to my singing buddies' sites, and an area to sell CDs when I make one. Yes, Dad, I do promise to make one! :o)

"What's THAT?" you ask. It's my left tibia (biggie) and fibula (littlie) as they connect to my ankle. It's a bad cell phone picture of an X-ray, but it shows evidence of healing! The separation has filled in, and now I'm sporting a nice little line of calcification (meaning it will be stronger). You can see where the crack was—and still sort of is—in the fibula near the top of the picture. There's still a bit of healing to go. My cast is only to be worn outside of the house now, and I'll be out of it completely by Sept. 23. Don't worry: I won't take off running right away. I'll give it plenty of time to get stronger.

Happy Labor Day, and Happy September! I decorated my house for Fall today, but I'm going to wait until actual Fall to decorate this site. We had a neat Labor Day weekend enjoying the Claude Akins Tournament at Otis Park. The Saturday team—Ed, Sam, Dad, Uncle Bill, and Jeff & Michael Tillet—shot 17-under, as did Ed's Sunday team. We had a lot of fun golfing in the nice weather. On Saturday night, I went to the Ross Country Jamboree to watch a friend perform and ended up singing myself! My next gigs are at the Corydon Jamboree on Sept. 13 and at the Marshall Autumn Festival with Forever Gold on Sept. 20.

Three-day weekend, baby! The Cobbs and Hackneys are looking forward to the Claude Akins Memorial Labor Day Scramble at Otis Park tomorrow and Sunday. Forty-eight hours from now, Otis will have hosted four scrambles and lots of fun. Ed, Dad, and Sam are on a team together tomorrow morning. Hopefully I'll be able to get some sun time this weekend as well. Abbi has been entertaining us with her little poolside antics lately. In other news, I have an appointment with my bone doctor on Tuesday. I'm pretty sure I'll be getting permission to take off the cast this time. It needs to happen soon, because my left calf is quickly vanishing. I'm going to have to wear long pants until my legs match again. Knowing that I'll be able to run again this fall has me considering new goals. I think I'd like to run my first full marathon next summer, God (and fibula), willing...

Today, I made a bold hair move by getting some BANGS! I haven't had bangs in 15 years, and those were the "Bedford Bangs" variety. (See any picture circa 1990 from "JoAnna Through The Years" on the Fun Stuff page for proof.) My new bangs are side swept and hide-able, if necessary. It's a nice change without being too drastic. Unfortunately, today was Picture Day at school, so I just missed getting the new look immortalized in the annual photo. In other news, Broadway at the Band Shell was a big success for BRI! Ed took some pics that are posted on Bedford Online. The photo at the right was taken by Garet Cobb of the Times-Mail . Check out this article to view more of his pics!

Since it's been too hot to do much outside, I've been enjoying virtual worlds today! This afternoon, I adopted another Webkinz, Chili the lil' penguin. He joins Mew the alley cat and Lenny the cocker spaniel in my Webkinz house. If you have a Webkinz account, add me! My username is JoKai, of course. Also, I don't think I've ever mentioned my MySpace page here. It has reconnected me with tons of friends from the past. You have to "be my friend" to see my profile, so set up a MySpace account and add me! I'm going to have to venture outside tonight to sing at Broadway at the Band Shell. See you there!

I have lots of little items of interest to report today. First, Thursday's big match was won by Dad, 5 and 4. It was a tight match at the turn, but Ed's putter wouldn't cooperate on the back. I enjoyed following them around and cheering for both of them! Second, Abbi enjoyed a little raft ride on Saturday. Check out the pics at her site! Next, I sang at the Corydon Jamboree on Saturday night. It was probably the most fun I've had yet in Corydon. I've made lots of good friends while country singin' the last few months, two of which are Gordon, a fiddler, and Jean Ann, a pianist. They are both in the house bands at Corydon and Nashville, and we get along famously! After singing in Corydon, I drove straight to Parkview Field for Jimmy's 24-hour fundraiser, Pam's Challenge. When I joined him at 12:20 A.M., he had already covered over 60 miles. He and I walked a slow mile together, while he chattered about his highs and lows during the previous 18 hours. At the end of the challenge, he ended up covering 71 miles and raising $35K for the Limestone Girls' Club. Go Jimmy! Next, I've finished my class about teaching with Geometer's Sketchpad, and I've added another sketch to my geo sketches page. It's a kaleidoscope! Finally, I have book recommendations for you: the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. Those books are awesome! Also on my current recommended reading list are Stargirl and Love, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli and Uglies, Pretties, and the other books in the series by Scott Westerfield. How is that for a post of disconnected stuff? Ha!

The first days of school have been a lot of work, but a lot of fun! I have 107 students this year, and we are all enjoying getting to know each other. In other news, tonight, Ed and Dad will be playing a match against each other at Otis Park for the Match Play tournament. I'm rooting for both of them!

I enjoyed the heck out of Summer '08! I'll be leaving for my first day of the 2008-2009 school year in a few minutes. Since school is starting anew, I have freshened up JoKai.net as well. There are 19 new pictures on the side bar to the left. Email me with your guesses of which ones are the new ones! In other news, I am pleased to announce that the book to which I contributed, Kiss My Math by Danica McKeller, has hit the shelves! Get your copy today, and turn to page 253 first! Finally, here is a pic from the 08-08-08 show at the Little Nashville Opry. Goodbye, Summer!

Here it is—the long awaited 08-08-08! I hope it turns out to be your lucky day. Abbi didn't have such a lucky day yesterday because she got a haircut. While it's not her favorite activity, getting the cut ultimately makes her irresistibly cute and earns her lots of attention. She added some fun pictures to her page. Be sure to check out the last one, as it has (what Abbi thought was) a funny joke. In other news, I recently mentioned that I'm taking a license renewal course that is focused on Geometer's Sketchpad. Because I'm enjoying it so much, I decided to make a page to share some of the sketches I've made. Right now, there are only two sketches (tessellations), but I'll add more!

Friday's performance of Yesterday Once More by Forever Gold was legendary! We had an incredible time, mostly because the audience pretty much came unglued from their seats and rocked out with us! I have pictures, taken by Mom, available for viewing at both ForeverGold.us and in the Forever Gold section of the JoKai.net Slideshows page. Check out both of 'em! If you'd like to catch me singing this weekend, I'll be at the Little Nashville Opry on 08-08-08 at 8:00 P.M. (Ha!), and at Mansfield Idol at 5:00 P.M. on Saturday. Next weekend, I'll be at the Corydon Jamboree on August 16 at 7:30 P.M. Looking even further ahead, I'll be appearing at the local Broadway show, a fundraiser for BRI, on August 23. In other news, I learned today that I will be wearing my ridiculously hot cast for at least one more month (the hottest one, of course). I saw the J-shaped break on today's X-ray, and I've been very sad ever since. Oh, well. At least it's not W-shaped.

August. My least favorite month. Between the ridiculous humidity and the stress of the first week of school, August brings a lot of hassle. I'm trying to have fun in these last days before school starts, though. I've been visiting and playing with Abbi, who has some new pictures on her site. Also, I've dubbed Summer 2008 as "My Limestone Heritage Summer." It started with a stone carving class, then the architectural treasure hunt, followed by my writing of the Lawrence County verse for "I've Been Everywhere," and wrapped up with a trip to the Empire Hole, the quarry from which the stone for the Empire State Building came! My friend Dave works for IN Limestone Co., who owns the quarry, so he took Mom, the Higginses, and me on a tour. We also visited the infamous "Pyramid" and a working quarry. This tour was one of the highlights of my Summer! Click here to see an overhead view of our tour. Now, I'd like to visit the Tunnel in Tunnelton, but neither Ed nor Sam will take me, and I'm too scared to go by myself! Finally, last night Forever Gold performed Yesterday Once More. We had a lot of fun! Check back here later this week to see pics!

I've had three fun days of singing this week! It began Thursday night when I sang the National Anthem at an Indy Indians game. Luckily, we were blessed with low humidity and bearable temperatures! On Friday, C.J. Watson was in town, so Forever Gold performed a little concert with him. I wrapped up the performances with a trip to Ross Country Jamboree last night. It's difficult to describe how much fun I have there. My favorite song I did last night was "Blue Moon of Kentucky," which I did LeAnn Rimes style, with a slow beginning. The fiddler, Adam, who's from Kentucky, put his hand over his heart and stood at attention during the slow part. It was pretty funny. I've made lots of great, talented friends on the country music circuit this summer. I wish I would've started doing this sooner! Because of my new, awesome slideshow page and excess web space, it's easy to add lots of new pics now! I have a slideshow for each performance from this week. Click here to see the C.J. concert pics (last in the list), and here to see the Indians and RCJ pics (last two in the list).

Mrs. Cobb's Math Class is ready for the 2008-2009 school year! Mom and I worked to get everything ready on Tuesday. I'm looking forward to the new school year, mainly because I am taking a cool license renewal class right now that deals with my favorite computer program, Geometer's Sketchpad. However, I will miss summer! We did some pretty fun things in Summer '08, and here are some slideshows to prove it! For Mom's birthday, my family made an architectural treasure hunt. Check out the slideshow to join in the hunting fun! Finally, I added pictures from Forever Gold's appearance at the Springville Festival to the Forever Gold slideshows on JoKai.net, and to the slideshows on ForeverGold.us. Enjoy!

The Cobb Family Vacation to Cincinnati was legendary. Ed, Sam, Mac, and I visited Kings Island on our first evening there. Ed and I took turns riding roller coasters with Mac, and Sam and I went to the top of the Eiffel Tower to check out the view. The next day, Ed and Sam golfed while Mac and I visited Kings Island again. I lasted nearly three hours walking on my broken leg in 100° weather, when Mac suggested we get a wheelchair for me. It turned out to be a great decision. He didn't mind pushing me around the park because we were able to go right to the front of the ride lines since I was "handicapped." One of my favorite parts of that day was watching Mac feed the fish in a pond inside the park. Those fish fought viciously over the food he threw to them! The next day, we played mini golf, visited Newport Aquarium, and went to Columbus to see a concert featuring The Why Store and The BoDeans. The day after we came home, I drove to Scottsburg to sing at the Ross Country Jamboree. It was unbelievably fun! I was surprised, and a little nervous, to see my name on their marquee when I arrived at the theatre. There were so many awesome musicians there. I encourage everyone to check out one of their shows. I will be back at RCJ this Saturday at 7:00 P.M. Before that, I'll be singing the Anthem at an Indy Indians game on Thursday, and will perform with Forever Gold and C.J. Watson at Little Theatre on Friday!

I kicked off the morning with a Remicade infusion. The nurses had trouble getting the IV to thread, so it was a pretty painful start. Once I was all hooked into the medicine, everything went fine. Next, Mom took me to Bloomington to receive my first bone stimulator treatment. It was pretty easy, but I learned I'm going to have to wear my cast for at least three more weeks. Of course, I want to do whatever it takes to heal this leg, but I'm so discouraged. Especially annoying is the thought of having to limp around Kings Island the next two days. My doctor suggested the boys push me in a wheelchair. He even gave me a prescription saying I'm "OK to ride roller coasters." Ha!

After making the new slideshow page, I thought it would be fun to add the Photo Booth slideshow! This is a silly slideshow of pictures taken on the Macintosh computer we've been babysitting this Spring and Summer. (I mentioned it in the May 12 post.) In other news, my stone carving class is over. I'm sad that it's done, but I learned so much! My favorite thing that I created was my second rose. Hopefully, they will offer an intermediate class in the fall. Speaking of the fall, that is the season I'm aiming to make my running comeback. My insurance approved a bone stimulator that I will wear for 30 minutes per day, for two to five months, at which point I should be able to start training for the Mini. My goal is to be running comfortably by Thanksgiving, and I believe it can happen! Until then, I have a ton of bookings to enjoy. I'm at the Corydon Jamboree this Saturday, at Ross Country Jamboree in Scottsburg on July 19 & 26, with Forever Gold at the Pac on Aug. 1, at the Little Nashville Opry on Aug. 8, then back at Corydon on Aug. 16. Come enjoy some country singin'! I've gotten a little taste of country this week at the Lawrence Co. 4-H fair. While my favorite animals are the goats, I enjoyed spending some time with a sheep who was sheared to look like he had leg-warmers.

This year's Independence Day was the coldest July 4th in my memory! The temperature was in the mid-60°s, and it drizzled on and off all day. We wore long pants and jackets! I marched with Let's Go in the parade and wore a patriotic tank top I had purchased the prior week, expecting that the weather would be Fourth-of-July-ish. I froze! It was still a fun day, though; just check out the slideshow! I've been tardy in posting about the Fourth because I've been working on organizing JoKai.net slideshows into one streamlined page. Check it out! (I may change its layout a bit, but the content will be the same.) Because I now have more web space, I even resurrected old JoKai.net slideshows. In broken leg news, I ran three days last week, only to be greeted by a swollen, achy leg on the third day. I have CT Scan today; and at the end of the week, I'll get some sort of bone stimulator to wear. I'm worn out with this leg. Finally, it's necessary for me to brag on Sam. He earned a score of 34 on his ACTs! To check out what that means, visit this site. Way to go, Sam!

Happy 2nd Anniversary (yesterday), Ed! My friend Amber is the new Lawrence County Idol! I was thrilled to "crown" her LC Idol III at the Otis Park band shell on Friday night. Speaking of the band shell, that historic landmark is the design base of a new JoKai CobbWebs site, Elite Tours, Inc.! Elite Tours offers one-day excursions to a variety of places, mainly showcasing the limestone industry for which the area is famous. Its owners are the same folks who organized the stone carving class I'm enjoying this summer. Visit their site, and learn more about the Lawrence Co.!

Sam had his Senior Pictures taken today! I'll post some of them when he gives me permission! I am proud to report that this is my first post to be created on my sweet new RED laptop! I love it! Yesterday, I spent all day moving files and installing programs, but made up for it today by spending much of my time sunning with Mom and Abbi. In web site news, I archived the Spring 2008 What's Up posts, and there is a link to them at the bottom of this page. Finally, I'm singing at Lawrence County Idol at 7:00 P.M. at Otis Park tomorrow, and with Forever Gold at the Judah Heritage Festival on Saturday at 8:30 P.M. Come to either one for a special vocal surprise!

Happy Summer! Summer began at 7:59 P.M. on Friday, and we rang in the season with a Forever Gold concert in Springville one minute later! We have another appearance at Judah this Saturday, after which I will post both Springville and Judah pics on the Forever Gold pics & clips page. Earlier in the week, I enjoyed another stone carving class by cutting an eighth note into stone. I doubt I'll ever be a superstar carver, but I'm getting better! On Thursday, Ed, Sam, Mac, and I took a trip to Caribbean Cove in Indianapolis. Despite a bloody nose from Mac and our inability to find an operating putt-putt course, we had an awesome time! We also visited the dam at Monroe Reservoir in order to see how flooding had affected the lake. The water was gushing from the dam, and many trees were under water. Finally, I am proud to share what is probably the coolest ever Fun Stuff page: The Dialectizer! For a seriously good time, enter my What's Up link (http://www.jokai.net/whatsup.html), and read the redneck version of JoKai.net. Fry mah hide!