Update

Time gets away... I know I still have pictures I wanted to get up here, but I had problems when I tried. I still need to find some before pictures of our wall, and upload those and the "middle" ones. I'm nearing the end of construction of the first cabinet, and then we'll start on the second before finishing with the bookshelves and the mantel. Also, we'll still have tiling to do. And then we have to see if we can afford to do the floor of the living room now, which we'd really like to do... So we'll see where it all ends up.

Jessie had a minor bout of the flu week before last. I don't know if I ever mentioned that she decided to run for Student Council--Elementary here is only through 5th grade. The student council officers are fifth graders, but the fourth grade classes each have two representatives. Jessie won the election for girl representative for her class. Sadly, the day of the first meeting was the day she got sick. That turned out to be the only day that she missed, however.

Jessie's also back in bowling. For a few reasons, we ended up not doing the scholarship league this time, though we'll evaluate that again in January. She's still doing well with that and enjoying it. She's been busy with some medium-sized geography assignments, and also trying to complete several book reports.

I was somewhat surprised when she brought home the book, "Someone Named Eva," a story based on history about a Czech girl who was taken by the Nazis and trained to be a perfect Aryan. We weren't really anticipating such subjects coming up, and were somewhat concerned about her readiness for such serious material. So I skimmed through it so that we could make a more informed decision. In the end, I think it was a good experience for her. And I realized that some of what happens wouldn't have nearly the impact on her that it does on me. Anything touching on the Holocaust or the racial policies of the Nazis brings up all those feelings and memories of walking through Buchenwald, and living for seven months in its shadow.

Brennan had his first big assignment, a "Dinorama." He decided to do his on Triceratops. It was somewhat painful to get him to work on it, but he really did a good job. We planned on making his triceratops out of clay, but it turned out our clay was dried out. So he ended up making it out of salt dough, and that actually worked very well.

Brennan has had two baseball games now (with another rained out). The first game he hit the ball all three times he came up. His first time he made it to first easily. The second time, the bases were loaded and he hit it right up the middle. The second base man made a good play to get the ball, and landed on 2nd base, forcing out the runner. But two runs scored, and Brennan was safe. His third hit was again more or less up the middle, and by the time the shortstop got the ball, he realized Brennan was already almost at first and didn't make a throw.

In the second game, Brennan was able to make a play at 2nd on a ball hit to him. He struck out his first and fourth times up. His second time up, he hit a good fly ball into the outfield, but it went pretty much straight to an outfielder, who was able to catch it. But two runs scored on the play. The third time he came up, he hit a line drive into the outfield for an easy single. He's really hitting it much harder than last spring, and even though his bunting in practice is still at the level it was before, he hasn't been asked to bunt in a game yet because the coach expects him to be able to hit it swinging away.

Sunday was the primary program. As always, that means it was a very memorable and special meeting. Both Jessie and Brennan had memorized their parts and scriptures and presented them well, speaking clearly and confidently. They both also knew all the songs, and once again Jessie carried the rest of the primary in the singing. Our new primary president teaches singing, and has asked us to have Jessie take some piano lessons to prepare to take voice lessons, because she really wants to teach her. We're trying to figure out the best way to do this.

Another entertaining part of the program is that there's a 2-year-old girl in the ward who adores Jessie. When Jessie came up to do her part, she was beside herself: "Hi Jessie! Hi Jessie!"

A month or so ago I was released as the Finance Clerk, and called to be a ward missionary. Dee, as always, is busy with Young Womens. She's also adjusting to teaching without her co-teacher from the past three years (and friend), whose husband got a job in California, and organizing the school workroom that she's in charge of with the PTA. I've also ended up with a PTA position, putting together the PTA newsletter. Which then turned into putting together a combined PTA/school newsletter at the last moment... I'm also trying to write some web applications for the little league to use to manage practice fields and batting cages, and this year I'm the first base coach for Brennan's team.

Well, that's probably all I can think of right now.