Just an Update . . .

Well life has gotten busy these past few weeks/months. Which is good in many ways. It feels more normal. Our town no longer has a mask-mandate, neither does church . . . so that's pretty great. The CDC is the biggest joke and I have no idea how anyone there still has a job. Huh, there's my 2-cents for the day. :)

Ben - He goes for his second in-person drill weekend this weekend. He'll actually be staying (at least sleeping) at my parent's place this time - as opposed to sleeping in the barracks. He's stressed about his jobs, the world, taking Jonas mowing, and getting the garden planted. :)

Me - Nothing really new. Work. Run. Take the dogs on walks. Cook dinners. Help organize YW camp - which we're doing with another ward.

Miles - Hmmmm, I don't have a lot of nice things to say about him at this particular moment. I am beyond frustrated with him in many aspects of his life, to be completely honest. Ever heard the term "Super Senior"? That will most likely be Miles. Yes, just as my sister mentioned years ago about homeschooling/online kids . . . they tend to fall behind. Big-time mom and child failure. Don't call me to talk about it - I will probably cry. Call Miles and let him tell you about it. It's beyond frustrating and even embarrassing. Oh, maybe I will mention one nice thing about him so I can remember some good things that he does . . . He took the SAT last Saturday. It was his first time doing so and he didn't know all the tricks and trades . . . This was basically a "practice" test, even though it's the real test - but the plan was/is for him to do this one, get a feel for it, practice and study for it in the fall and take it again. Anyways, when he got home from it he told me how on the last section he was only able to get to 12 of the 20 questions. I told him, because I knew this from Jonas, that he should have just guessed on the last 8 questions before his time was up. He replied, "I thought of that, but I wasn't sure I should or could because he seemed like cheating." I think that's a pretty honest action on his part!

Jonas - He got a job as a lifeguard, yay! Ben took that picture on his first day - although he was "shadowing" that day. Unfortunately he has his eyes closed and probably won't let us get another shot of him again, ha. He did his shadow shift and then wasn't scheduled for another 2 weeks. But he'll go next week and then hopefully for the summer he'll be able to work quite a lot! We're definitely proud of him in passing the lifeguard certification test and in getting the job. I think it will be great for him! He's finishing up his freshman year at the high school. He's into an "agriculture" phase and idolizes "hicks" at the moment. I don't know why. He's mowing a few lawns this summer.

Emmy - Well she finished up volleyball and loved it. She's now doing track. All of the sports are shortened due to covid, so track is like only 3-weeks long. She has a scrimmage meet today. Her events are the 200 and 1600 (which is the mile). She won't be the fastest, but she won't be the slowest either. :) She's ready to be done with school. I mean, she likes it - but she doesn't love it Covid/asbestos style. Meaning, at the Pavilion with 70 kids in one class at a time. I don't think it's an ideal learning environment for her. So we're just trying to finish up this year and then restart next school year!

Wow. Here she is, dressing up via make-up, markers, and a broken paper-clip for her nose-ring. We are all sure glad that's not what she normally looks like . . . :)

Lucy - She had quite the week this week - barfing about 2 dozen times from Tuesday morning at 2:30am (long night for us . . .) until about 5pm that day. She started out barfing about every 15-20 minutes for the first few hours, which of course were in the "middle of the night." Once the day started, she slowed down a bit. The stomach bug is definitely going around . . . I know of many families that have had it. Bummer. But she's back at school today and so that's good. The big news for her is that she will be skipping 5th grade and going to 6th grade/middle school! We had the meeting last month with a whole bunch of adults (plus Lucy) and everyone ended up voting a "yes" to approve the "acceleration." We sure hope it's the right thing to do!!! Ahhhhh. I guess now and here would be a good idea to explain this . . . as this is our family's journal really. So here it goes:

I had the thought come to me a while ago about having Lucy skip 5th grade. Probably because 5th-grade was a lame year for all of our other children. There was just so little learning that year! (As Miles later said when discussing this in our home: "Most kids in my 5th-grade class didn't know multiplication." I know that's not an exaggeration because I would volunteer in my boys' class. Frankly, most kids were still struggling with addition . . . Jonas said, "We were doing 3rd and 4th grade math all year long.") Then there was the fact that one of Lucy's best-friends is starting 6th-grade this year. But I didn't do anything about the thought then. But then it came to me again during Spring Break and I mentioned it to Ben on our backpacking trip. He actually thought it was something that we should look in to . . . so as soon as I got back, I learned what I had to do and we proceeded with the "acceleration" request. Long-story, short: after testing data, the official Iowa assessment, thoughts and concerns, pros and cons were all discussed, a vote was taken and it was unanimously agreed for Lucy to enter 6th grade next year. So crazy. The social aspect really was the driving force for us - as so many in Lucy's church group and thus social group outside of school will begin 6th grade next year. Friends are such a huge aspect of the middle and high school experience! We understand there will definitely be challenges, but think it will all work out for good!

I guess that's it for now!