Rachel's busy

Of course, we all are but especially her. We're getting into the swing of the schoolyear.
Some of you know and some of you don't but Rachel switched from clarinet to saxophone this year. She has been doing very well at practicing her saxophone. The band director has not been able to come to school yet because of health problems. There has been a substitute teacher so far and most of the time has been spent on theory and paper and pencil projects. This has given her a chance to work on her own to try to catch up with everyone else. The regular band director is hoping to come back this week. It will be interesting to see how he responds to her change and progress now.
Rachel also decided to run for Student Council Representative for her homeroom. Now that she has found out her competitors, she doesn't think she'll win but we'll see. She can make campaign signs and then next week she has to make a speech. The election results will be announced at an all school assembly next Wed afternoon.
Last week, we were listening to the radio and they were talking about See You at The Pole coming up on Wed. Sept. 27. She remembered that last year there was only 1 other car in the lot at 7:00 when it was supposed to start. I said that now that Rachel was in middle school, she could help with promoting it so that people would know when it was to start. She asked 2 other girls if they wanted to help but they weren't interested. She didn't let that stop her though. She asked the principal if she could put up posters to promote it and he said fine so we spent an evening printing signs for it. She has also asked the wife of our Christian Education Pastor to help sing some choruses that morning since they have children at the school too. So she is going right at it. She has even been thinking through what they should sing. We are really proud of her for not just sitting back on this event and letting it pass by. I know our youth group promotes it a lot but she isn't part of the youth group as it starts at 7th grade not 6th. If you want to know more about the event, the website is www.syatp.org.
Well, it is time for Joshua to get home and I haven't gotten much done so I have to go.

School's back in session!

Yes, the children started school on Tuesday! All 3 of them this year! Joshua is in morning kindergarten and has the same teacher the other 2 had. He is really enjoying school and has no problem separating from me for that time. Stephen started 4th grade on Tuesday. He has a new teacher to the school but she seemed very nice at our meeting a couple of weeks ago. Then there is Rachel, she started middle school! This is new territory for all of us, but so far, so good. She has a very nice home room teacher as well.
We spent Labor Day holiday up at Lake Ann Camp for another work bee. It was a very nice get away. Aunt Marlene, Tammy, & Joe met us there with Rachel Friday afternoon. We showed them around a bit before we got settled into our cabin. Rachel & I spent the weekend working in the kitchen. Rachel isn't allowed to serve the food till she is 14 but there were lots of other ways she could help. She wants to spend the summers working in the kitchen as soon as she is old enough. That will be fine with me since it will mean that she gets her week of camp for free.
We did have some minor incidents will we were there. Friday night Rachel fell off the top bunk bed while sleeping. She woke up crying and said that her head hurt. The next morning, it wasn't her head hurting...it was her bottom. Moving caused her quite a bit of pain Sat. but she survived and now the only evidence of it is a major buise on her elbow. When the men came in for lunch on Saturday, Joshua looked quite worse for the wear. Seems he took a tumble down their tubing hill which is in the middle of their disc golf course that Mark and another friend were working on. Once I got his face cleaned up though he looked much better. Mark also ended up with a scratch on his face but everyone survived just fine.
I took pictures of the kids on their first day but don't have time to get them online right now. Will have to try that soon. Boy, do the 3 hours that Joshua is gone just fly by. I'm trying to make sure to focus on my Avon during that time but it seems that 11:15 gets here quicker than ever. Now it is almost time to go get the rest of the crew. I'll try to get on more regularly but you know how that goes.