What We're Doing

Zach is getting ready to leave for a month long job in Virginia. He's been doing freelance jobs working on editing short films, public service and political commercials, making trailers for movies, and now he's on a film doing grip work (lighting). He leaves this week and we won't see him until mid-November. He'll bookend his trip to VA with visits to Phoenix to see Andrea.

Courtney has her plate full with going to school, studying, working part time in the office, and providing childcare for an autistic child one day/evening a week.

She started a "newspaper" for our church, which included: gathering a team of writers (including a professional journalist), passing out assignments, planning stories, managing production, starting a blog where the writers can turn in their pieces and give feedback to each other's work. It's been a great success! We're really proud of her!

Paige is getting used to a high school workload and lots of homework. She continues her interest in Archery and Art. We resume her art lessons with a private tutor this week. She's our resident fashion consultant regularly letting us know what's cool and what's not. We often find her tearing apart old clothes in order to reconstruct them into something more fashionable. She's always working on something whether making jewelry, clothes, costumes, drawing, or baking. It's hard to keep up with her! On a side note: she's hoping she's done growing because she's just under the 5'10" mark.

Taylor and Ashley are growing up. Taylor will be 12 this week and Ashley turns 11 in April. I'm taking Taylor out for an "overnighter" on Thursday for her birthday. We're staying in a friends beach house in Huntington Beach. It's a tradition for us to have a girl's night out when they turn 12. It's been a lot of fun, and each girl looks forward to her turn.

Both Taylor and Ashely are busy with their school work, also getting used to their new schedules and taking classes at our Academy Day. Every Wednesday, we go to the church where we have classes for the kids in our home school group: they are taking general science, Spanish, art, choir, tennis and PE.

Ron and I are taking a few days off this week to celebrate his birthday and our 26th anniversary. That feels weird to write! Can't believe we're old enough to be married for that long!

Breaking news: we are looking to buy a dog. That's huge news! Ron has finally relented and is lifting his 26 year ban on having a pet. The kids and I have been scouring the internet looking for dogs. The girls are busily working and saving their money to put in our Dog Fund. A lot of the pet stores here aren't carrying dogs, so we have to look for breeders on line. We are considering Shorkies, Morkies or Yorkshire Terriers. The mid-west breeders have better prices so we're looking there.
More details to come...