Now that school has been back in session for 5 weeks now, I figured we needed a short update.
LOGAN
We've got a high schooler in the house. And we're all so excited because he seems to be really enjoying his freshman experience. His favorite class by far has been sports medicine. His teacher is Mr. Blair, who has been Dave's mentor since high school. We have pictures of Mr. Blair and his family at our wedding and more recently, a picture of Logan at his daughter's wedding. Logan is also enjoying biology...he was one of 7 students to receive an A on his first unit test. He's taking Spanish, PE, Geometry, and Pre-AP English as well. I have to admit that I was very nervous when I saw his schedule in the summer, but he's done an excellent job of getting homework done and going over his notes each night and being an advocate for himself. I know it's way too early to tell, but I think the "fog" of middle school has lifted a little bit (sometimes I think I haven't always talked up Logan's academics, and he's always done well, it's just he really had to be pushed and reminded, and checked to make sure everything was done, and it seems like I'm doing less of that this year). I went to Open House last week and Mrs. Netz said, "I like the way his brain works."
Logan is super excited to be 6'1". He has looked at the Wenatchee soccer goalie records and has high hopes of breaking some of them. He is also going to try out of the freshman basketball team in December. He surprised us this summer by talking about doing football but once the schedule came out, he realized there were too many soccer game conflicts.
Logan is looking forward to driver's training (I don't know how were going to schedule that in). In the car each morning he controls the music and we hear an eclectic mix of Diddy, Biggie, Tupac, Eminem, Adele, Chainsmokers, or Coldplay. He always asks for requests and Harper asks for Cheerleader each morning and Presley asks for a Broadway musical song (he usually says no to both). I'm enjoying our time in the car alone from Foothills to the high school. He continues to treat his phone like it's as necessary as the air that we breathe.
PRESLEY
Our lone middle schooler this year! Presley surprised us this summer when she decided to do school sports this fall rather than the Stage Kids production of Elf. She did continue to take voice lessons and loves her instructor Mrs. McKeown (yesterday she told Presley she loved her hair color). Presley is participating in tennis right now so she takes a bus from Foothills to the WRAC tennis courts and I pick her up there at 5 each night. This is her first year and she has already been moved up to the higher group. They don't really have matches, it's more of a positive learning experience, and one round robin tournament in the last week. She likes it and I'm glad she's doing a sport. She says she'll do 7th grade basketball in January and swimming again in March.
Presley has loved school so far. She loves choir and her core teacher, Mr. Johnson. She was moved up to an accelerated math class this year and it seems to be a good fit for her. She missed a day of school and went to each of her teachers to find out what she missed and her science teacher told her, "you're one of the only students who would ask for make up work". She's not a fan of PE class.
She's been going to the movies alone with her friends, and likes to go to the football games and walk around. She goes to a lot of the kids' soccer games but she's not afraid to stay home alone for those couple of hours either. She loves Wednesday nights because we watch Survivor and Modern Family together. Presley knows were going to Disneyland in March and can't wait to help with Miryn. Presley is a big helper to me in the evening. She'll read stories to Harper or go over Rylan's Passport Club or spelling list with him.
RYLAN
One of my favorite things to hear is stories about my kids from other parents. Recently, I heard from 2 different parents about Rylan. One mom told me that her family was talking about the upcoming election at the dinner table and her son announced, "I really need to talk to Ry about who he would vote for", and then when she asked why, he said "because whenever I turn around to find Ry, he has everyone laughing". Maybe we have a budding politician :). The other mom came up to talk to me at Ry's Curriculum Night. Her daughter is extremely shy and her best friend from last year moved away and she's kind of having a rough start to 4th grade. The daughter sits next to Ry. She told me that their teacher gave each student a vocabulary word on a card and they had to act it out and the others had to guess the word. Her card was "dance" and she didn't want to do it. Ry offered to help her act it out so Ry took her hands and danced her a little around their seating area so others could guess her word. I just love this about Rylan..he has a very natural way of being just silly enough to make others around him feel like they can be silly too. He decided to join Strings this year to learn to play the violin (easily suckered him in when they played the theme song to Jaws) and Math is Cool Club starts on Thursday for him.
Logan wakes up Ry each morning. Logan shared with me that Ry likes to listen to "Rolling in the Deep" by Adele each morning as he showers. Ry loves when both Dave and I tuck him in. He does a somersault to get into bed and then we fly the covers up to lay them on him. When we turn off the lights and close the door he says "love you, have the best dreams" and then "aaaaa-oooooh" and then we wolf howl that back at him (when we were in Wallowa Presley learned and shared with us that wolves howl back at each other to let their pack know they're close).
HARPER
Harper has transitioned so well into first grade. Her teacher was Ry's first grade teacher too, so she remembered Harper. One of the teacher aides in the class told me that she makes paper hearts and hands them out to teachers, aides, and her classmates. I went to her Curriculum Night and her desk drawer is a mess--she had all these small scraps of paper at the bottom of her drawer. She also likes to write simple stories using lined paper folded in half and stapled down one side. She likes math and art, and is slowly but surely becoming a reader of easy-read type books (and I forgot the amount of patience it takes to let them sound out each word, although she's getting better at quickly recognizing sight words). Harper never looks quite the same at pick up as she did at drop off. She secretly wears Logan's old tight white tank tops (like a tank top/undershirt) and I'll pick her up and her nice shirt is off, but she's wearing that. Or she'll put 3 ponies in her hair at some point during the day. Or one day one of her rubber bands broke, so she left that side hanging down, but the other side still up in the pony. Or she'll have an arm full of sparkly bracelets on that weren't there in the morning. She almost always has a new band aid on some part of her body.
Harper is playing soccer right now but thinks she would be a great gymnast. She practices cartwheels in the living room and out on the soccer field too. She has lots of friends and always wants a play date or basically to move in with another family. She likes to change her earrings and mine too and asks when she can wear "long down dangly earrings" to school.
If you're looking for Harper, you might as well look for Rylan. They're pretty tight and play very well with each other. Right now, they're both into Beyblades (I almost threw them all away when we moved to the new house), and making loom bands with Presley. She plays with her Bitty Baby, Ruby Sue quite a bit right now too. She begs to sleep in Ry's room on the week-end, and he usually lets her. She does the wolf call at bedtime too.
It's been a happy and busy fall for us all!
