The Kids

It’s been a while since I’ve posted an update on what the kids have been up to so I thought I’d do that now.

First and foremost, they are very, very, very excited that there is only one full week of school left. Next week is the full week, then the last week in May they have one day off for an in-service day for the teachers, then the first week of June they have two full days, and three half days. The last day of school is June 8th! They don’t know it yet, but after school lets out they go to work at the North Franklin Street work camp for the rest of the summer.

In the last post about the kids, Paddy was playing basketball and taking swimming lessons. Basketball season is over and he has now moved on to baseball. He is still doing swimming. He doesn’t seem to care much about which sport he is doing at any given time, just as long as he is doing it. The one constant is that he talks trash at all of them. Next week he is going on a class field trip to the Herr’s potato chip factory. He is very excited about that.

William, on the other hand avoids sports at all cost, especially if it requires communication with another human. His primary mission in life is to collect every fact about every animal that has ever lived on planet Earth, and remember it. At the rate that he is going he will done with that project by the start of the next school year. Yesterday (May 17) his school went on an all day field trip to Washington DC. When we arrived we mapped out the most direct route from the bus to the Museum of Natural History. We’d have William tell you about it but his head exploded. He was doing pretty good until he came upon the exhibit with a real giant squids (there were two, a male and a female!). Lets just say he is a pretty happy boy today. See photos from our trip here.

Emily is also pretty happy, for two reasons. First, we finally hooked up her hand-me-down iPhone. She now has a gizmo with a phone, email, text message, and internet that she can carry around with her. Second, and probably, the main reason she is so happy, we let her dye her hair. It is now black and purple. These were not freebies for her. To get them we asked her to pull up her grades, which she did. Next year, at Henderson High School she will be in all honor’s classes. We are very proud of her. She is also doing well in fencing. She will be moving up to the intermediate class soon and will be learning to fence with an epee (a type of sword).

See more photos of the kids over the last month or so here.

Happy Spring time!

Russell