Taylor has a birthday and Meg prepares for her play

This week has been so busy!! Taylor celebrated his 17th birthday. I can hardly believe that my baby boy is 17!!! That is just one short year away from being old enough to vote and the deadline for getting his Eagle! Seventeen years has just flown by and I am so grateful that Taylor is such a fine young man. He is such a joy in my life and I enjoy every precious minute I get to be around him! We threw him a surprise party (thanks to the help of Megan and Erika who did all the work....I just supplied the funds LOL!) I think he was really truly surprised! It was fun!


Meg has had her play dress rehersals this week. She is a Pirate princess in the play "Jolly Rogers and the Pirate Queen" She loves acting! Those of you that know her well will not be surprised!

I have been extra busy with all my usual volunteering but also because my very dear friend Kristy's brother was hit by a car on Oct. 8th and has been in the hospital ever since then. I saw him again today and he is doing so much better. It looks like he will be released this week. This brings all kinds of new problems as Kristy now has to juggle his needs with the needs of her children. She is really stressed and could use any prayers.

As I write this we in Florida are finally enjoying some jacket weather!!! YIPPEE!!
It feels so good to need to wear pants! It will only last a few days but I will enjoy it while it does.

TWILIGHT

Taylor and Erika before Homecoming

Last night was Homecoming. Taylor took his girlfriend Erika. They make such a beautiful couple! They had a great time!

This weekend Steve and I went on a little trip to Bend, Oregon.
We hiked up to Mt. Bachelor, Sparks lake, and Tumalo Falls.
All were breathtakingly gorgeous!!!! The air was so clean and crisp!
We loved it there!

Megan has a serious problem!

Megan loves to get all her webkinz on her bed and play school. These are all her little students! She has a dry erase board and she teaches them math mostly. Today I thought I would get a picture of her with all her little students so we will never forget this phase of her life. Someday she will put all those cute little stuffed criters in a big garbage bag and put them away never to be played with again. I will miss them when they are gone. RIGHT??????

BACK TO SCHOOL!!!!

Well it is Friday of the first week of school. Taylor is very happy with his teachers this year and is really excited to have made the Golf Team. He worked all summer on his game and it really paid off! He has a pretty academically challanging schedule this year as it is his Junior year and the most important year as far as Colleges are concerned. At this point he is aiming for BYU (with a little bit of encouragement from Mom & Dad which is hard for Dad (GO UTES!!!) He is in Student Government and working on his Eagle. So BUSY is the key word here! He is such a delightful young man and I love being around him! HAPPY and full of life!

Bret came home for the summer and has been working full time at Tampa General. He has been exposed to some medical careers and has recently decided that he would really like to work in Radiology. So here we go again.....changing our major.....BUT yesterday he did an all day shadow in the Radiology Dept. and came home more excited about that than I have seen him since he got his Drivers License! So we will press on!! With that decision also comes at least another semester at home taking classes via the internet and working full time. We just want him to find a career that he can love. Maybe this is it??? Time will tell!!

Megan is in 5th grade and is taking part in an experimental all girls class. It was something the school asked us if we would like to participate in and since Megan thinks boys STINK and ANNOY her to death.....That was a no brainer!!! So far she is LOVING it!!

I decided this year that I was going to try and limit my volunteering at the High School to just two or three days a week. I went in the first day and just didn't have the heart to not show up the rest of the week. THEY NEED ME!!! I just can't even imagine them being able to service all these kids without help. I love to do it and so I do........

So as the close of the first week of school arrives I am once again reminded of how nice it is to have my children home all summer but also how nice it is to have them gone again!!! :-)

Bored to sleep

Taylor has two A.P. classes that he is taking in school this coming year. For both of these classes he has a summer reading assignment. I, being the responsible Mother purchased these books and planned on getting them read while we were in Utah. Taylor wanted me to read them with him. Which is a practice I started with Bret because some of the books they ask these poor high school kids to read are quit frankly inappropriate reading material for teens. So I would read them with him so I could sensor them as we read. So any way, of course Taylor thinks this is "normal and customary" and I really didn't mind. I like the bonding time we get to spend together. So anyway... our first attempt to read the book for A.P. U.S. History "Founding Brothers" proved to be useless. Every few pages I would have to nudge Taylor to get him to wake up! I tried this a few times while we were on vacation and then decided that he just wasn't getting enough sleep and that we would just resume our reading when we returned home. Well today, with the start of school getting dangerously close and still 4 chapters to read in one book and the whole other book, I told Taylor we were going to get some reading done.
We read for a about 10 minutes sitting in the computer chair and a dining room chair. I was getting kind of uncomfortable in the hard chair so I suggested we move into the living room and sit on the couch. He was agreeable so we moved. I started reading what was beginning to actually be a pretty interesting rendition of the most famous Duel in history (Burr vs. Hamilton) and I am getting into the story. I look up to see if Taylor is as enthralled as I am and this is what I see..............