An Update!

Okay, time for a lengthy update . . .  Starting from youngest to oldest:

Bella - She's crazy.  She's total pug.  She just does what she wants and is quite silly.  She's adorable.  She's potty-trained - at least we think so!  We haven't had any accidents in a few weeks so we're hoping we are done with that.  We got a bunch of dog chew-toys from our neighbor; Bella's favorite ones are the lion (with its shaggy mane) and the skunk (with its shaggy tail).  I think the shaggy ones remind her of her VERY favorite chew-toy:  Brigham!  She still doesn't get free-reign of the upstairs and so we are back to that annoying phase of having baby-gates everywhere.  Really, we have one baby-gate for the back up-stairs, a long piece of plywood to block of the back down-stairs, and the girls' gym mat to secure the front up-stairs.  It stinks.  But Bella's worth it.

Brigham - He puts up with Bella and all her shenanigans.  I think he likes her - 95% of the time.  The other 5% he is just annoyed by her ("Will you please stop gnawing on my ears?!").  He loves going biking with whoever takes him and loves chasing after the bunnies and the birdies.  He still is my favorite running-partner.  He still is pretty much the best dog ever.

Lucy - She is now a second-grader in Mrs. Lopez's class.  She loves school.  She is building this "pizza airplane drop-off" something or other during the class' STEM time - she tells me about it all of the time.  I went in to her classroom on Tuesday and got to see it.  It's made from all recycled material.  Her class seems good and she's happy with her classmates.  She will begin competing this year in gymnastics and is very, very nervous about that.  She still has a few skills she needs to master on the bar, but overall she is doing great.  She is now in official piano lessons.  Her teacher was the librarian at Northside for like 30 years, but retired right before Lucy began school.  So now Lucy gets to have Mrs. Creasey.  So far, she's loving her teacher and piano!

Emmy - She just started her final year at Northside, sniff, sniff.  She has Mrs. Metheny and we are both thrilled with that.  Emmy likes her class and hopefully will have way less drama this year as one specific girl is not in Emmy's class again.  But there's already been a bit of drama with some other girls - not much, just a bit.  Emmy will be competing level 4 this year.  She is still struggling with her kip, but she's pretty solid on everything else.  Her floor routine looks lovely.  She just had her first babysitting job last night - our neighbors and one of Lucy's best-friends, Genevieve.  G (her spelling-nickname) has a little brother Edwin.  They live just about 1/2 a block from us and so we figured it's a good start to independently babysitting.  She's trying to get a little group of kids to babysit one Friday a month at our home, so we'll see how that goes.  She wants to earn money to go to BYU's week-long stay-in-the-dorms gymnastics camp next summer.  Awesome.

Jonas - He is in 7th grade and seems to like it okay.  I mean he's happy, but also told me that some of the classes are boring.  Which I believe!  Hopefully classes will get better as they finish up all the testing they have to do.  He is in Jazz band and they have before-school practices four days a week.  So he leaves a little before 7am to be there for that.  He likes band, I think!  But I think he's most excited about the days he'll get to miss school for band competitions, etc.  :)  He is doing STUCO again (student council).  He tried to be the vice-president, but was out-voted by the female majority for female leaders.  But whatever.  He can try again next year.  He attends the weekly after-school meetings, helps out with concessions at the sporting events, and will be involved with the other student-activities that happen throughout the year.

Miles - He is a 9th grader!  Freshman!  He goes to seminary each morning - leaving by 6:30 am to get to the church, via his bike, by 6:45.  He seems to be enjoying it so far!  He then comes home and spends 3-4 hours doing his BYU online courses.  He is taking geometry, world geography, and english (reading/writing).  Oh, he also is taking a required "student development" course that introduces the students to online learning.  He seems to like it and understand the concepts he is being taught.  He took a geometry quiz from the first unit and got a 93% and so that's pretty good.  He then takes a lunch break and reads a lot.  Too much almost!  He's read about 8-9 books (big books), from one series, in the past 2 weeks.  He goes to the high school every afternoon (2:05 class M, T, Th, F and 1:15 class on W) for either art or Project Unify.  He enjoys both classes.  He is doing the high school's mountain biking team and they have practices every Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 5-7.  He likes that, too!  Unfortunately the races are on Sundays and so we haven't been able to be a part of that.  Which, in some ways, have made Ben and I feel like non team-players.  But whatever.  Have some Saturday races for crying out loud!  :)  Actually, there is one race this season on a Saturday and so we'll see if Miles is interested in doing it.  Miles' pet rat died.  Nobody was too traumatized by it.  I think Lucy was probably saddest of us all.  I think Miles was bummed, but also knew that the rat didn't get the best care.  We'll see how long Jonas' lone-rat will last . . .

Me - I'm just doing what I do.  Working a tiny bit.  Exercising (mtn. biking, running, road biking, and swimming).  I like having a mix!  It's not bad having Miles home during the day.  I do try to not be upstairs too much (Miles' desk is at the top of our stairs).  Some mornings I'm running errands, at the school, grocery shopping, or sleeping if I've worked the night before.  Other mornings I'm working on the computer doing our banking, looking up stuff for activity days, etc.  So it seems to work out just fine.  I'm heading out today on a racing trip with other women.  We are going to Breckenridge for a 10K run on Saturday.  My third weekend away from home!  If I had realized that, or had thought about how far away Breck is (4 hours!), I probably wouldn't have signed up.  :)  So I guess it's good I didn't think.  It should be a fun trip.  We are hiking a 14er tomorrow!  I've realized those are hard on me and am not too stellar at them!  So we'll see how I do. 

Ben - He is really wanting some change in his work, but is not sure what that really means.  In some ways, he's bored with just circulating cases at the surgical center.  He loves it when he gets to first-assist, but that doesn't happen enough.  This year it has happened way-less than in the previous 3-4 years that he's been doing the first-assist thing.  He looked in the hospital as they were hiring a RNFA (registered nurse first assist).  However, it's good he didn't do it as, as he has observed when he works at the hospital on Mondays assisting, he probably would be doing more circulating and less first-assisting.  No reason to leave the surgery center for the same job at the hospital.  But he might try and take some call-time at the hospital - a couple nights during the week and maybe a weekend a month.  We'll see.  He is doing some advancement to become a Certified RNFA (I think that's what it's called).  He's ordered lots of books and now needs to figure out when he has time to study!  He's a busy man and will be excited when the boys are done mowing for the season.  :)  That will free up some time.  (Oh yeah, the boys have mowed a good deal this summer and have made some great money.  They are lucky to have a great dad help them out, too!)

Anyways, I'm running out of time and people/pets to update, so that's a wrap!