Ruth is very busy with school work. She has some hard classes this year. She is really enjoying her AP Psychology class. She likes learning about the workings of the brain and what makes humans tick. She is still working at the Kumon center. She works on Tuesdays after school and Saturdays. She is busy with keeping up with friends too. Her good friend, Brianna, moved from our ward over the summer and that was a hard transition. Brianna still lives in the area and the girls are both so busy with school they have a hard time getting together. The last few weeks they have met up on Thursday afternoons for a bit, in-between everything. Ruth is also working at her driving skills. We let her drive as often as we can, but find it hard to find opportunities with her busy schedule. Last Sunday I took a drive with her around to the other side of the mountain and it was nice to spend a little time together. Her driving is getting better but we still have a ways to go to log 50 hours of drive time before she gets her Provisional license.
Ruth with a friend at our ward chili dinner
Andrew is very busy too. Marching band has been demanding on his time. He goes to school early every morning, leaving our house at 6:00. He has marching band before school and many days has things with band in the afternoon. The Friday evening football games have been fun but tiring. It is hard to go from 6am to 10pm on a Friday. Then to get up on Saturday for rehearsals or last week a car wash to earn money. He is enjoying it though. He is keeping up with his school work too. Andrew also finds time to do things in the yard. He is harvesting his peppers, and they keep coming. He decided to try drying some and strung them up in the garage. He likes to explore and look at things. Recently he caught a small scorpion and put it in a jar to observe. He is working on his scouting. Last week at a court of honor he received four merit badges he had finished. Today we plan on getting some signatures on his Eagle project to get it finalized. (We are bit slow in getting that done because of our computer problems.) This week end Andrew, Spencer and Neal will go on a camping trip with the boy scout troop.
Spencer is enjoying school. It is fun that he comes home with a smile most days. He enjoys having classes with his friend Jonathan. They always work together when they can. Often I get a phone call after school from Spencer saying he is at Jonathan’s house and they will be doing homework together. I think they also have lots of fun. Last week I went to pick him up from Jonathan’s home and I could hear them as I approached the house. Spencer was playing his saxophone and Jonathan had a trumpet out. It was rather loud. I am glad he has such a good friend. I went to the middle school for a parent night and was able to meet all his teachers. He is a hard worker and does well in his classes.
Spencer being silly with pillows stuffed up his shirt, eating a brownie
Caleb is healing well from his accident. He does have some scars but I am hopeful they will lighten up as time goes by. He went about two weeks without riding his bike to school but then one morning he said he wanted to ride again. I am glad he wasn’t afraid to get back on. He loves bike riding and also playing basketball. He is always talking about his game he had at recess. He has so many friends it is hard to keep up with them all, he is a social kid. He loves math. Right now he is working on a math interactive website he uses at school and wanted to log into at home. He is also working on writing stories on the computer. He loves to read and goes through books pretty quickly. He likes making up songs on the piano, I still have to work with and encourage him with his lesson material. He is quick to learn and is doing well with music. A couple of weeks ago Neal took Caleb to the school for an evening activity that the Sandia Labs sponsored. It was “math night” and they had all sorts of activities and games to do that involved math. They both enjoyed going. Caleb enjoys going to cub scouts. Last week at Pack Meeting he earned his Religious Knot and some other awards. I think his biggest reason for enjoying it is being with his friends and hopefully shooting a few hoops if they gym is open.
Caleb at his school jog-a-thon to earn money for the school
Neal and I went to a Family Strong Conference together last Saturday. It was a nice day. It was a conference organized and sponsored by our church and the Catholic church. They had some great speakers. The key note speaker was Dr. Foster Cline. He wrote the books with “love and logic” themes. He was entertaining to listen to and gave me some things to think about with relationships and parenting. It was nice to spend the day with Neal and talk about things we were hearing. I am glad that we took the time to go. I have enjoyed reading and listening to books. I went to a book club last night and enjoyed the discussion. I am in two book clubs right now, so I always have plenty to read. I am also working on a Christmas quilt. I have it ready to be quilted, I plan to start working on that during General Conference next week. I have worked on pictures and working on photo books on the computer. I seem to find time for a few things each week. Things are also busy trying to keep with with the family activity.
Neal wanted to get some firewood. We haven’t done much with our fireplace here because we haven’t had a source of wood to burn like we did in Texas. At our Texas house Neal was taking out old trees and we had a constant supply of wood to burn. Neal bought a pass from the Forest service to collect wood. It has to be down wood, no cutting down trees. But, he has enjoyed going up into the mountain were he can collect it and bringing back loads. He has done it for the last few Fridays. (He has been taking some days off to catch up on his vacation time.) The old chain saw is working great. Now we have a huge pile of wood to burn this winter and many years to come. I don’t see how we could burn it all in one year. Neal is riding his bike to work twice a week. It is a good work out for him. He has also joined a biking group here with friends from our ward. He went on a long ride a few weeks ago with them. I think it was about 77 miles. He rode from our house, around Sandia peek to the road on the east side of the mountain and then rode up the road to the summit of the peek, and then back home. He does that on his road bike, he hasn’t done much mountain biking recently.
Well, I guess I found things to write about. We are enjoying family life and the busy time of it. I am thankful for a good life.
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