Update on the Family

It seems like so much changes from month to month with my kids, especially with Rachael.  The only thing that doesn't change with her is she is still dancing.  She isn't dancing as many hours as she was now that she is a full time college student.  She is in a new chapter of her dance career though.  She isn't in VIR this year since that is a high school thing.  At Tapestry, they started a new things this year that is almost VIR, except it is for adults.  It's called Tapestry, Too.  She started that this year.  She was almost guaranteed a spot for that considering Brenna is the director for Tapestry, Too and Brenna has been Rachael's tap teacher for years.  In addition to Tapestry, Too, she is taking some technique classes at Tapestry and a choreography class through ACC as part of her degree plan.  She is also taking 2 other classes at ACC (for those reading this who are not in Austin, ACC stands for Austin Community College), Literature and College Mathematics.  After she finishes these classes, she will only have 1 science class and 1 speech class and all her "basics" will be complete.  She will only have her Major classes left.  She has her acceptance letter to Texas state.  Now, she just has to find out what she needs to do to get into the Dance program, which should be no problem.  We don't see her around the house much these days between school, dance, working, church and her social life.  She's a busy girl.

Andrew is not very busy at all.  The only extra-curricular activity he has right now is Boy Scouts.  The cooking school he was going to shut down in the fall.  They decided to retire and couldn't find anyone to buy it, so they just shut down.  I was disappointed.  I haven't been able to find anything comparable for Andrew to take that works with our schedule and is in south Austin.  He still is interested in cooking.  He doesn't cook much at home though.  I have discovered that Young Chef taught him how to do portions of a recipe, but never really taught him how to follow a recipe from beginning to end and make an entire meal.  He helps me cook a lot, but I have to help him a lot too.  He is now learning how to make more things and he will soon be able to make things on his own.  He still likes to bake a lot.  Given his choice to do anything, he would play video games all day and that is what I want to change more than anything.

Jeremy is still my little handful.  He is so smart and so full of energy.  He loves to play outside with his friends, he LOVES Legos, riding his scooter, jumping on the trampoline, reading, making up stories, creating movies/plays, and playing video games with his brother.  He has an incredible imagination and comes up with great stories.  He really wants to film a movie for cub scouts.  He started Tae Kwon Do in September and he really loves that.  He got his yellow belt right before Christmas.  He is doing great.  We are having a few problems with school work and some behavior.  He is having a lot of trouble dealing with me being in a wheel chair.  I think he is worried sub consciously that I am going to die since his grandma died only a few years after she had to go into a wheel chair.  We took him to a therapist recently and we will see if she can help him work through these problems.  He is such a sweet kid and everyone who meets him loves him.

Stan is still working at Tokyo Electron.  He is doing more woodworking and is geocaching a lot.  He was called to serve as  Bishop of the Austin ward in January, so that is keeping him really, really busy.  He is gone a lot, which is hard on the entire family, but we are blessed by his service.  I'll post another time with all of Stan's wood working things.  He has made some amazing puzzles and toys.  He is going to help my cub scouts make some things in a few weeks.  That should be fun.

Till next time!