First Born

This year has been full of many firsts for Isaac.

He has more responsibility, more choices and more opportunities afforded to him because of his age. Yes, he is getting close to the end of his childhood, and I am trying not to think of it. Instead, I am concentrating on the many things he can now do for himself and me.

Here is the short list:
Pack his own camping gear - except for the socks. I don't know why he never has socks.
Camp without his parents
Clean his room - but this does take days to do because he is really messy.

Mow the lawn

Vacuum
Clean bathrooms
Do the dishes
Earn his own way to camp :)
Read books to himself
Help his sister with homework
Hoe a garden
Play piano very well
Sell a bizzilion boyscout cards and earn money for his pack

Retrieve dogs when they get out of the fence
Solve Wii and Computer problems

This is the part of older kid that is really great. I'm not going to mention the daily hormonal hysteria where he turns red and cries over very little things that won't matter at all in the next 45 minutes but at the moment seems monumental. Nope, I am not mentioning that stuff.

Graduation

I feel like I need to explain the hiatus I took from my blog. So please read below and know that we are well.

This is the time of year for many graduations. This year it is My turn!. This Saturday, if I chose to walk, I would be presented with a Masters Degree in Elementary Education. This represents three years of work, toil, pain, sweat, cancorous sores, ulcers, and pestilence. Actually, it really wasn't that bad until this last year when my classes seemed to demand more projects and kept me from writing in my blog.

So, in reality - I didn't quit my blog, but have been too busy to stop and write the stories. Unfortunately, I have probably forgotten most of the stories from this year too. Grad School mixed with three children have certainly fried my brain.

But I am looking forward to many wonderful, crazy experiences and hopefully some really funny stories too.

So stay tuned. More writing is coming shortly.