Quick Update

I see I haven't posted here since the beginning of the school year that has recently ended. wow. Many things have obviously happened.

The twins wound up going to public school for fourth grade. I thought I needed a break, and I probably did, but they are coming back home for fifth grade. They did very well in school. And they seemed to like it. They made a couple new friends. But, I don't see what they actually learned. At the end of the year, they were still using methods that I taught them in third grade math; their Grammar and sentence structure seemed to have stagnated, or regressed; Taylor is still shy; Tyler is still 'energetic'. Overall, they had an easy and very unchallenging year. Fifth grade will be different, but I won't be a stressed that I am not doing a good enough job. If I do half what I usually teach, it will be more than they got this past year.

Alex had a mediocre year, grade-wise. I think (and hope) that it was part of being a seventeen year old. When I was that age it bothered me when my grades; not him. He's too laid back and doesn't get upset when his grades are average. He has been recognized often, throughout the past three years at SSPP, for his leadership qualities and spiritual life, so that's something to be proud of. It is the only reason we keep shelling out the tuition for a Catholic high school. Alex has been working at Subway for about a year now, and I am very proud of him for that. Between school and work, he is kept very busy. Right now he is in West Virginia with his Mission Team. Vicki went as a chaperon. They'll be there for a week, working hard and getting very little sleep. I'm thinking they'll be loving every minute.

Connor finished up eighth  grade. He'll be joining his brother as a ninth grader at SSPP. He took a placement test last December that indicated he was at the equivalent of the end of ninth grade. He's a wiz at math, just finishing Algebra 2 at home. He'll be taking it again in ninth grade because I didn't use an 'accredited' program blah blah blah or something. I decided not to argue; let him have an easy first year of high school. He hasn't been in 'school' since first grade and since he'll be playing soccer in the fall, an easy academic schedule will help keep the stress down. Still playing piano and playing travel soccer. His team took first place this spring.

Kenzie is still doing all things that Kenzie does. Just finished sixth grade; going to hopefully finish Algebra 1 over the summer. I will use an 'accredited' homeschool course for Alg 2 so she'll be able to skip it in high school. Maybe Geometry, too, if we can get that far in the next two years. She's also still playing piano. Periodically, I post some of her and Connor's stuff on youtube and/or facebook. She's also gotten back into travel softball, after taking  last year off. For most of this spring she was on three teams: a rec team, and two travel teams. It's a long story, but she ended up dropping off the one travel team because they weren't travelling enough (and when they started, there were too many conflicts with the team she began travelling with earlier). She rejoined Bayside Breeze, from a few years ago. They wound up being shorthanded due to injuries, so it worked out for the best. They only had 9 girls last weekend, and are playing in a State tournament this weekend with only 10 girls (even though the one girl may still not be at 100%). Anyway, things are very busy in Kenzie's world.

Two days later:
Still trying to write this update post.

Let's see, who needs to be updated.... Bekah, Kearsyn, Adam. Well, Bekah started a little homeschooling this year. She's reading and doing math somewhere around a first grade level (and she's just now old enough for Kindergarten). She usually bugs me to "do school" with her enough for me to give her new concepts once in a while; the rest she does on her own, by reading whatever she can find. She can't wait until we start up for real, in a couple months.

Keary's still our peanut. She is so petite! Right now, she weighs less than Adam. He's 20 months, she's three and a half. She's got quite the personality, talks constantly, and is everybody's best friend.

Adam is our fire plug. About as round as he is high. Linebacker, all the way. We'll never be accused of starving him, that's for sure. He makes a lot of noise, but doesn't say too  much yet.

As for Vicki and me, not much has changed. She's still grumbling about work, I'm still grumbling about much she works. I'm looking forward to the next couple months of summer, although we'll be starting our summer school schedule tomorrow (just a little math each day or so). Right now, as I may have said above, Vicki is on the Mission trip with Alex. They've been gone since Friday and are already missed. I'm trying to figure out how I'll get Kenzie to practice this week, and Tyler to altar server training, but it'll work out somehow.

We may have some big news in the near future, but we're not talking yet, so stay tuned.