Wed, 29 Sep 2010
September continuedSo I uploaded a few pictures from the 27th. Here is Melody with her traditional stack of loot.
Here are the people besides the photographer who came to her "family party."
So, what has Thomas been up to since school started? I've been impressed at the way he's handled middle school so far. He's getting up and ready without nagging. He's pretty organized. He has all his work in and is getting involved in after-school activities. Fantastic!
Last week he finished up intramural flag football. He was on the sixth grade winning team. I think he'll be playing soccer next.
One of the things that we've done together is scouts. I'm now working as the eleven-year-old scout leader. Or would that be more correctly said, the leader for the eleven-year-old scouts? Anyway, it's been fun so far. There are only three boys and they've all shown great enthusiasm. We had a campout with the boys and their dads a few weekends ago. I didn't have to plan this, just went and taught first-aid at one station. The boys did all the cooking and Marc had to eat it. Thomas and Marc stayed in a tent (although Thomas reportedly was only in the tent for three hours that night… none of the boys slept much, so neither did their dads). They also did a BSA swim test and got lots of other requirements passed off. We went on a long, hot hike. The boys did fire building, and totin' chip. It was a lot of fun and will make my job as leader easier since the boys did a lot of required stuff. Here are some pictures.
I plan to try to go on about a hike a month all winter. That will give me an excuse to make our family do something outdoors together. We'll see how that goes, but I bought a book that lists local hikes in it, so I should be able to come up with a few places to go.
Thomas' favorite class in school is his GATE class. They are doing a photography unit and he's been taking pictures with a pinhole camera. They have even got to develop them. He's having a great time planning pictures to take. I look forward to seeing his work.
Let's see, he's also been playing cello in orchestra. I think he enjoys that. He sounds real good when he practices, I just wish that were more often.
It's not a lot of information for a month and a half of not writing, but that's what happens when I wait to write; I forget about things. So that is what the kids have been up to.
Marc is still working at Wells Fargo and now he has started classes to work on an MBA. That will keep him out of trouble.
I am still working part-time at Del Mar Gardens. I'm having fun working with the scouts. My quilt has been stalled now for about the same length of time as my blog. I gotta get busy on lots of things. But doing laundry is always so distracting… Anyway, that's our lives right now. I'll try to write more regularly.
More about September
Melody has been busy at school also. She likes her classes and stays after school to do art club and various school-spirit types of activities (tutoring others, planning activities…
She spends a lot of her time on homework, but also has been preoccupied lately about turning thirteen. As a birthday present, Marc and I got her braces.
She didn't think that was a sufficient way to celebrate, so after much deliberation, she decided to invite a few friends to spend the night with her and go to the City Museum. Here is the before picture:
And after five hours of playing hard:
The weather turned out perfect for playing outside and I think everyone had fun. We made it home by 1:30 AM to have cake and open a few presents. I think they slept well when they finally got to go to bed.
Then we celebrated the actual day of her birthday two days later as a family and ate more cake and opened a mound of presents. Her birthday dinner of choice was BLT sandwiches. She was concerned that she wouldn't be able to eat them with her new braces, but after a week of soft food while she had spacers and then almost a week of braces, she is nearly able to eat normally again (except for all the forbidden foods). I guess I haven't taken the pix of her actual birthday off my camera yet, so will have to add them to my next post (where I will also tell you about what exciting things our third child has been up to and maybe a word about Marc and I) Stay tuned…
First month of school
Thought I'd get back to the habit of writing regularly now that school is in session, but it hasn't happened yet. Things have gone well, but we've all been busy. Here are some of the things we are doing.
First, of course, school has started. Here is a picture of the first day of school for Melody and Thomas. It is nice for them to be at the same school. Melody is in eighth grade and Thomas in sixth. They wait for the bus across the street from out house, along with their friend, Alysha. She is in seventh grade. Most mornings I see them off to school after making lunches, etc. On the mornings when I am still at work, they are able to get themselves off and that happens occasionally.
Bryan is a senior this year. I often see him as I head out the door to walk in the mornings. He is going to seminary at a different building than last year, so we don't go to seminary together any more. I usually just say good morning and goodbye to him. Unless I am working and then I don't see him at all in the morning.
He is busy after school as well because he decided to run cross country this year. I've enjoyed that because I used to enjoy running, so it brings back fun memories. Except that his coach had a family event to kick off the year. We had a family race. It was only a mile long and so I encouraged Melody and Thomas to race with me in the hopes that they might enjoy it.Several things resulted from this race. First, I learned how old and out of shape I am. It nearly killed me. Granted, it was a really hot day with high humidity…But I was embarrassed that I had to stop and walk so much. I did beat the lady with the stroller though. Second, instead of inspiring Mel and Thomas, I'm sure Melody will never even consider running in high school now. She hated it. Thomas beat us both so maybe there's hope for him. Third, I gained empathy for the runners through my suffering. That was the coaches' intent. Now when I watch them run, I feel their pain.
Cross country is very different than I remember it a thousand years ago. All of the meets Bryan has been to have been huge. This one was at Forest Park in St. Louis. There were about 350 runners in his division. It would be easy to get trampled in this crowd, especially at the turns. This race was memorable because of the mud. It had rained very hard the night before and the course turned into a giant mud pit. I saw one runner go by with only one shoe. Here's the start.
Here's Bryan in the middle.
And this is at the end.
So this has taken a lot of time after school and a few Saturdays. The other things that has taken a lot of Bryan's time is his new job. He got a job as a lifeguard at the YMCA. I think it will be a great job. Right now he is still in the middle of training. You will be pleased to know that the Y lifeguards are very thoroughly trained.
Of course, he is still busy with school and starting to get ready to apply to colleges and apply for scholarships. We we proud to learn that Bryan is a National Merit Scholarship semifinalist.It took awhile for him to write the required essay and get this scholarship application in. Hopefully it will help him (and us) afford college. Speaking of Bryan, he needs to borrow my computer to do some online training for the YMCA so I will end this and do a further update to this blog entry later.
Jan Dill Hall St. Peters, Missouri
Page created: 09 November 2008
Page modified: 31 December 2009
