A milestone

On Friday night after Amy's play "High School Musical, Jr.," we stopped off for a celebratory milkshake. There was a moment where Amy said something to Reed – I don't even know what – and they both laughed. I swear it truly was their first ever inside joke.

Maybe one day they really will be pals? I hope!

Can't believe I forgot this!!

I'm sorry, but how did it happen that we have a kid old enough to get his learner's permit?!? We blinked and there he is. Reed actually wasn't really interested in getting his permit, since he's a homebody...Tod resorted to bribing him with $50. (For the record, I wasn't really consulted on this plan.) He was also worried that if he had his license, I'd be sending him to the grocery store every 10 minutes. While I hope that eventually he'll see that driving is fun and it's nice to get out of the house and do something helpful to your family, for now I've told him that once he gets his real license, if I need a quick item from the store, it will be totally optional for him to go get it (barring unusual circumstances like illness, which I've already stipulated). He drives a hard bargain.

He took the test and passed it...Tod's been taking him out to practice in the parking lots between Lunsford and Cardinal Ridge Elementary, working toward the required 45 hours of practice needed to get your actual driver's license. I am not sure I have the temperament to teach him, I think I'd be a nervous wreck and would make him more nervous. I may not ever even ride with him until he's 30. LOL

I guess we'll see about signing him up for behind the wheel training, and then he'll take the classroom part of Driver's Ed in school in the fall, hopefully. 

Buh-bye, BDM!

Thanks for the miles, BDM!

We bought our navy blue 2010 Honda Odyssey minivan (known in my head as the Big Dumb Minivan) in late August 2009, when Amy was 4 and Reed was almost 6. It was fairly good to us over the next nearly 9 years and 113K miles, and certainly rode us around in comfort with lots of space, but lately its issues with burning off oil had become untenable so this week we made a switch. We bought a silver Hyundai Santa Fe (cue the "Santa Fe" song from Newsies, which Amy has recently been obsessed with [the play, not just the song, that is]) that's a bit smaller than the minivan was, which comes with a lot of the electronic bells and whistles that we never had before.

It was a little like saying goodbye to an old friend to sell the Odyssey. Amy was a bit emotional over it too. She came out to sit in it one last time before we sold it, and lingered a long time. I'd turned it on to make sure there were no more CDs in it and Bon Jovi's "Never Say Goodbye" was on the radio. I didn't even notice, but she said "Well this is a fitting song." Indeed.

For me, I guess mostly it just that the van safely carried our family so many places over nine years, it's sort of like part of the family. But also I had a little extra sadness that my Mom rode in the van at least once, maybe more...so that's just one more connection between us that's lost forever. A little silly, I know. But it still made me sad. I hope the van gets fixed up and carries around another happy family for years to come.

I hope we'll get lots of good years from the Santa Fe...facing its first real test this week with a 5-day vacation to Wrightsville Beach in North Carolina for a big family vacation. Here's hoping we are able to fit all of our junk in it!

Be good to us, Santa Fe!

Silly traditions of teen boys

I'm not certain but I think this tradition was started with Reed's pal Harrison Hill, who gave him a birthday card meant for a 7 year old when he was maybe 12 or 13. Since then Reed has sometimes chosen "kids" age cards for his friends, or cards that just don't otherwise "fit" -- like this card he bought for Robbie's birthday last month...it's in Chinese.

Love his sense of humor.

First official volunteer job

Reed's spent a bit of time volunteering at the food pantry with Tod, but this summer after not finding a job that worked out, he has been volunteering at the Gum Spring Library with the summer reading program.

He's been super responsible about it. He did a test-run bike ride to the library to see how long it'd take, so he knew he should leave at 9:20 to get there in time to start working at 10, and each time he did it all on his own. Baby steps toward being a responsible grown up!

Next up...hopefully getting a job at Cox Farms for the fall festival!

School's out for summer!

We made it through another school year! Both kids had great grades – Amy had straight A's, including A+ in both English and US History 1865-Present (she missed literally ONE question in the whole year!). Reed had all A's except one B+ in Algebra II/Trigonometry.

Reed didn't participate in a lot of extracurriculars, but he kept his head down and earned great grades, and kept up with his longtime friends. He still won't even get his hair trimmed, which is fascinating. (I like his long hair but still think it would benefit from a trim, but he won't budge on that and it's not worth fighting over – hey, we're saving money on hair cuts!)

Amy had such a great time in the drama production and trudged through a tough year of Spanish with a teacher she just didn't match up well with, but still ended up with an A on the year in that class (which goes toward her high school credits). She had her school-day friends but not a lot of interaction outside of school, which I think is something she wants to work on in the future (over-the-phone interactions in middle school are tough!).

Really proud of our kids!

What the????

The other night at dinner, Amy was talking about a comic book series. She said "I can't even tell what the hel....HECK is going on!"

Total silence. We all looked at her. She turned bright red. It was quite a moment! It took a minute for us to recover enough for Tod to gently remind her that wasn't really appropriate language.

What the hell!?!?