Stuff

My Mom sent out a newsletter style update of what they’ve been up to in Nevada.  She invited the rest of us to send an update as well.  I just wanted to save what I sent out so here it is: (It was written on Wednesday, October 15.)

Hi.  We’re all doing well and wondering where the first quarter of the school year has gone!  It ends in 2 days and hardly seems like the kids have been in school long enough to be this far into the year.  But we’re glad as we seem to go from one day off to the next, always aware of when the next break will be.  And then before we know it, the school year is through!  Hooray!

Sam is busy with violin.  He plays with Eastern’s orchestra for the first concert each semester.  Of course he’d love to do it for every concert, but rehearsals are on the same night as youth activities at church.  As it is, he misses about 4 months of church activities each year then goes for the other 8.  This semester’s concert is “Fright Night” which is on November 2.  The orchestra wears costumes and the kids who attend can wear costumes and they have them parade around the audience at some point in the evening.  The conductor does a great job and always has first rate performances.  Sam is excited to get to play in the brand new building which was just completed in time for school to start in August.  It’s very nice.  It sure beats the old gymnasium where they practiced and performed while it’s been under construction!!  In other Sam news, 7th grade was a huge adjustment for Sam and the rest of us.  It’s run very differently than middle school was for me and it’s also different from the 6th grade.  But he’s doing well and thinks he got straight A’s first quarter.  We’ll find out next week.

The rest of the kids are also doing well.  Sterling’s first grade class only has about 15 kids and over half of them were in his Kindergarten class last year!   It’s a fun class, but so far has been mostly review and Sterling is BORED!  He wishes he could go half-day.  I wish he could go half-day.  I’m anxious for P/T conferences next week to discuss our options for him.  He’s a bright kid and loves to write stories with elaborate illustrations.  He’s a Star Wars fanatic lately and would be happy if he could change his name to Luke Skywalker.  Or maybe that was last week.  Currently he also can’t seem to get enough of Calvin & Hobbes and left us a note the other day saying that he was “seceding from the family”.  What 6 year old (besides Calvin) does that?  We’re glad he changed his mind.  He also wishes he could change his name to Calvin.

Well, I don’t really have individual reports on each child, but things are going well.  We’ve been happy to pick up a little more Amerityre here and there as it’s been on sale so much lately.  I’m noticing that, even though food prices are going up, I find the things I need on sale fairly frequently so we haven’t been hit too hard with the financial crunch yet.  We’re thankful to be prepared and have a little put away for such times.

Love, Missy and the gang