Summer again

I can't believe it's been over a year since I wrote anything. Obviously this year has gone by much too quickly. The boys have grown so much. Jacob is now taller than both Kevin and I. Garrett is about 6'1" now and it's only a matter of time before Matthew passes me up.

In just two weeks, Matthew will be finished with elementary school and that will mark the end of our families' elementary school days. Jacob will be a ninth grader working out this summer for his high school's Freshman Football team and Garrett will be a junior in high school, and spending time this summer making decisions about what colleges he truly wants to pursue. Kevin has been at his job in the DC Metro area for nearly a year and I still feel like it's his "new" job. I guess that comes from staying at Fort Hood for seven years. Not common in this military life we live.

Matthew has grown from being Matthew to preferring we call him "Matt." When did he grow up so much? He is excited about middle school and looking forward to starting band and trying out for the competitive soccer league in a few weeks. He has grown into such a soccer player. His skills are limited only by his desire to improve.

Jacob has had a great last year in middle school. Having been to a different school each year of middle school, he has adapted quickly and taken to each of his new schools. He ran track for the first time this year and seemed to really enjoy it. He's planning to play football in high school and is also excited about starting Air Force JROTC this next fall. He continues to excel academically and is growing into quite the responsible young man.

Garrett has had a busy year in tenth grade. He took a heavy academic load this year with honors and AP classes, and yet remains in the top 5% of his class of over 400 students. He played football again this year and had a good season, chose to give up basketball this year, and put his focus into baseball starting at the end of football season last fall. It was a long rode as the new kid in the program but he ended the season as a starter and one of the most consistent batters on the team. He is excited about next year's season on varsity and plans to prepare for it by playing ball both this summer and in the fall. This will be the first year he hasn't played football since 5th grade and it will be hard not seeing him catching passes in the game but he is learning to make decisions that are not always easy but are based on what things mean the most to him. He is also giving up band this next year. Another tough call, but he will continue to play the saxophone and the guitar in church. He played his first band solo this year on the Alto Sax and played beautifully. He also sang his first solo and had a leading role in our church youth musical this Spring. Jacob also had a speaking part and it was so fun to watch them both perform. I hope they'll be able to do it again in the future.

Jacob and Garrett aren't the only performers in the family. Matthew performs this weekend in the church children's musical. He is playing the Royal Carpenter in "That's So Daniel" and he has a singing part as well, with a couple of other boys. It's going to be a joy to watch!

Kevin is working hard in the beltway and we've had to adjust to him not being home as early as we'd grown accustomed to, but he's accomplishing great things at work just as he has been doing for the last 20 1/2 years. That's right. He went over 20 years last October. What a milestone! I'm so proud of my Army Officer!

I still spend much of my time driving kids to and from their various activities, trying to keep the house in order, and being my kid's biggest fan! I love being a part of the music program at church, singing in the choir, playing clarinet in the church ensemble and directing the drama portion of our recent youth musical. I'm also teaching scrapbook classes at Michael's now and juggling those hours with the schedules of my family. I'm gearing up to start a new business soon as a consultant for Thirty One Gifts and am really excited about this new opportunity.

Spring into Summer

Wow, can't believe it's been so long since I've posted anything. It's been a busy year here in Rhode Island and now it's really going by quickly. We will be moving in a month to the D.C. area and although we are very excited about our new adventure there I am realizing the many things we've failed to see and do while here on the coast in New England. I thought that fall here was spectacular but I think that I love the Spring here even more. I have never seen so many gorgeous flowering trees and bushes. The Rhododendrums and Cherry Blossom trees are amazing. So much color! The bay is filling up with sailboats and we've seen the first few cruise ships of the season. I am really going to miss living right on the coast. I always thought I'd like living by the ocean and have not been disappointed in this first experience.

As of today, the boy's have exactly one more month of school (I know, I know, everyone is finishing up this week or next but they started much later here than we are accustomed to). They have all had such a productive year. Garrett is one of a handful of freshman who have had straight A's all year. He has had a successful year in football, basketball and baseball, even if his football and baseball teams weren't exactly winning organizations. It took a while but he earned the starting First base position on his Junior Varsity baseball team and now he is really looking great playing First for his Babe Ruth team. They are currently the only undefeated team in the league...His latest academic success has been having his World War I project on Alvin York become the example his teacher wants to use for future classes to show them what an A+ project looks like.

Jacob has had a terrific academic year as well. He has had great grades all year but this past term he really bumped it up a notch as he made straight A's and was recognized by his English teacher has having the only perfect grade in his class on his recent analysis of "The Diary of Ann Frank." Then last week he was the only student in his class to score a perfect score on his math skills exam. This is math we're talking here...I remember just a couple of years ago when math was his most despised subject and frustrated him so much.. Currently he has a 99 in the course. Awesome! He had fun this year playing basketball here in Newport. The community program here provides a very fun environment that is less competitive and more just a time to play and improve your game. He and Matthew have also excelled quickly with their Tae Kwon Do. They have recently earned their Green belts.

Matthew is growing up so fast. He will soon be a fifth grader...Still can't believe my "baby" is ten now. He has had a fun year with so many friends here in the neighborhood. He and Jacob have had fun progressing together in Tae Kwon Do. Matthew is such a natural at it...He's very fun to watch. He played both fall soccer and indoor soccer in the winter and continues to amaze me with his footwork. I hope he'll continue to play. Academically, he continues to do well. As usual, he amazes us with his math abilities, but he's also finding quite a love for science and history. I always thought Garrett was the history buff in the family, but Matthew may very well rival him in that area. It's been fun for him learning about the Revolutionary War and the early days of America and realizing that we currently live in the part of the country where all of it occurred.

I can't look back on this year without also noting how proud I am of Kevin. In just a couple of weeks, he will earn his second Master's Degree as he graduates from the Naval War College. It has been a year of much studying and writing for him and although there is not as much "downtime" as many who have been here before would lead you to believe, it has been great having him home more, even if much of it is spent with him closed up in our room upstairs writing and reading for his classes. It's been a lot of education crammed into 10 short months but I think in the end, he will say it was worth it. To cap off the year, he will have his recent paper sent to the Provost and President of the War College. Who knows, perhaps his suggestions will someday be prompts for improving the educational environment here.

Well, one month from now we will be preparing to leave New England and head to Virginia.. I can't wait to see what opportunities will await us there.

December 5, 2009

Well, as is so often the case, I've gotten way behind on updating my blog. We've been busy with the usual family activities and they've been as fulfilling as they usually are. I really enjoy watching my children and participating in the activities they enjoy so much. Kevin has been busy with school and tons of reading and studying but this assignment has been nice as he is home much more often than normal and we can go on frequent walks along the water together and have many lunch dates.

The football season is over for Garrett and he has launched into Basketball season as the Freshman team prepares for their first game next week. Jacob and Matthew have both earned their yellow belts in Tae Kwon Do and Kevin is trying to convince me to start class with them in January. That should be a sight to see. Jacob will start basketball in January and Matthew will begin indoor soccer next month also, so we'll have plenty of our evenings booked as usual. I am enjoying singing with the Navy Choristors and Nautical Notes. This weekend begins our schedule of Christmas performances. It should be fun and a great way to welcome in the Christmas season.

The house is decorated and most of the presents are bought, now I just have to get them wrapped and under the tree. I'm hoping to enjoy much of the month sitting down to some long overdue scrapbooking.

MUSIC

Okay, so my house is always noisy when the boys are home....but now we have reached a new level of craziness. I'm so glad my boys love music but it can be a little tough on the ears sometimes. Garrett has his alto saxophone and now he's taking guitar class at school so not only does he practice (which sounds pretty good) but then he goes off and makes up some song about a donkey....don't even ask me about that one....perhaps writing lyrics is not his gift.

Then there is Jacob with his trombone and occasionally he chooses to practice the piano. Again, he's pretty good and I enjoy listening but not necessarily at 9:30 at night....

And now Matthew is going to take the Strings class at school and is going to learn to play the violin. Hope they don't all decide to practice at the same time!

Matthew cracks me up though. He came home yesterday from school and tells us he can choose between the violin and the guitar. He says he's choosing the guitar because he wants to be different from everyone else in the family and the instruments they play. He then looks at Kevin and says "Well dad, you have the radio."

Then today he comes home and tells us that he's going to learn the violin so he can make money at the subway in New York. (I'm a little worried if that's the direction he plans on going!) lol!
Then he follows up by saying that when he meets some cute girl he'll be able to play for her outside her window. I'm going to have to keep a keen eye on that child!

Summer

Wow, summer will come to an end soon and it has been so crazy. We started off with Jacob and Garrett heading to summer camp, toting me along as the girl's camp sponser. It was an awesome week. Meanwhile, Kevin and Matthew stayed home and prepared the house for our move to Rhode Island. The next week we finished up things at the house while the boys were at VBS. Then we left and spent about two weeks at my parents in North Texas, with a side trip to a Texas Rangers game to hear our brother-in-law sing the National Anthem before the game. From there we went to East Texas to spend the weekend with Kevin's family and celebrate the 4th of July. After a short visit back at my parent's we embarked on a 5 1/2 day trip to our new home in Newport, Rhode Island. We saw some beautiful country and had the chance to experience some fun things. We fell in love with the countryside in Northern Missouri, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania. We took several hours and drove and walked through Gettysburg. We spent our last night of the trip in New York City visiting with Kevin's cousin, Katie and her sweet family. Although we sort of got lost getting back to our hotel in New Jersey and so it ended up being a very late night we enjoyed the visit to NYC and hopefully I'll be able to convince Kevin to go again.

On July 15th we arrived at the Naval War College and were able to immediately sign for our military quarters in Newport, RI. We immediately fell in love with the location as we have the ocean on both sides of our neighborhood.

We've spent the last month getting moved in, putting several thousand pounds of household goods in storage because they will not fit in this house...but it's been good. The boys have tons of kids in the neighborhood to play with. We can walk to the beach and they can swim and play. We can sit and just watch the sailboats in the harbor. It is gorgeous here.

Although it's been crazy, we've managed a trip to Boston for Kevin's birthday. We'll already going again next week as we were able to get tickets to a Red Sox game. I figure we'll be going to Boston a lot over the next year.

School doesn't start here until after the first week in September, but Garrett has started football practice and is quickly learning to love his new high school and team. The coach has already penned him as a leader on the team and the kids have quickly befriended him and love to call him Texas or by his old football nickname, Tighty-Whitey. He's having a blast.

We've got about three weeks left before school starts and plan to hit the beach several times before then...........it's going to be a very fun year here in Newport!

In the midst of the move

I am ready to get to Rhode Island. We have now been in a transient state for approximately three weeks and it will be four by the time we actually get to Newport. Our household goods were loaded on the moving truck on June 11th and I am ready to have my stuff and be settled in my new home at the Naval War College. The good news is we received a call today and as soon as we arrive at the NWC we will meet the housing associate at our set of quarters. Apparently we will receive keys and be able to move in the same day we arrive! Way cool. Tomorrow we'll find out how soon we can have our household goods delivered and everything will be all set. We drive out of Graham on Friday for our 5 1/2 day drive to Rhode Island. It's going to be a grand adventure!

I probably shouldn't be even on the computer as the packers come on Tuesday to start packing our household goods for the move to Rhode Island. But, it's been a really hectic week with a lot of accolades and commendations for the boys. But, school is out, summer is here and we're looking to have some fun, memorable times as we enjoy summer activities in the midst of a cross country move from Texas to RI. We're looking forward to driving through a part of the country we haven't really seen much. I expect it to be beautiful!

And now it's time to brag on the boys. It has been such an exciting week. I'll start with Matthew. Matthew had an awesome year! He has improved so much academically this year. He was commended on his Math TAKS test and passed his Reading Taks with ease. He also made the honor roll for the 2nd semester.

Jacob had an incredible year for his first year in middle school. He was commended on his Reading TAKS test and received a certificates for academic excellent from most of his classes. He also had the highest average in his science class and was honored by the School District with an academic achievement award. He made the highest score he could at the Band Solo and Ensemble competition. He ended the year on the AB Honor Roll and is looking forward to the challenges 7th grade has for him.

Garrett had a banner year capping off his middle school years with style. He was commended on all 4 of his TAKS tests, with a perfect score on the History. He also received a district level Academic Award. His earned 1's at his solo and ensemble competition also and had a terrific year athletically. At their 8th grade celebration ceremony he got to lead the Pledge of Allegience because he is finishing middle school at the very top of his class. He received an award for his TAKS accomplishments, an award for being commended on his End of Course Algebra test, and received a Presidential Award. He has had some an awesome three years and is really looking forward to entering high school in the fall.

It's been a fun and busy year and I'm looking forward to what God has for us as we move and start another adventure in our family's life.