Friday, December 22, 2017

Semester Wrap-Up

Two months since my last post! I'm fairly certain I've reached a new low in blogging, but I'm not ready to give it up any time soon. I treasure this decade or more of my family life I have recorded here, and I always hope that someday, I'll start blogging again regularly.

This semester has been an adjustment for me as I began teaching writing classes for Brave Writer. Man, I love these classes and the Brave Writer lifestyle and being immersed in partnering with students as they find their writing voices!  I have devoted most of this semester to teaching not only Brave Writer classes but also my own classes at our co-op, so I am really relishing this break.

The really big news, though, is that Duncan is now officially an Eagle Scout! We ended this semester with his ceremony this past weekend. It was a perfect ceremony. There was not a dry eye in the room when my Dad, age 92 and an Eagle Scout himself, gave Duncan the Eagle charge.



Here are a few more photos from this wonderful day.






We're so proud of him. Boy Scouts has been so central to our lives for so many years, from Tiger Cub to Eagle Scout for both of our boys. Randy is glad to still have another year and a half as Scoutmaster. He has as much fun (most of the time) as the boys do—and the adventures! Randy read a list of all the activities Duncan has participated in during his years in Scouting, and we were all quite astounded. Hundreds of nights spend camping, hundreds of miles hiking and biking, hundreds of hours of community service. Duncan has earned the Triple Crown of high adventure, meaning that he's gone to three of the four high adventure camps (Philmont, Sea Base, and Summit). He'll top that off with a fourth in February when they spend a week in Minnesota at Okpik Winter Adventure, dog sledding, skiing, sleeping in an igloo… Incredible!

So that's what has been happening in our own Small World during the past  couple of months. Laurel got home last week, and I am treasuring time with her. She's finished first semester of her junior year with another 4.0, and I couldn't be prouder of my beautiful daughter. Jesse also finished his first semester of graduate school with a 4.0, which he was absolutely thrilled with. His first class was a statistics course, and that has never been his forte.

I hope to catch up more, to blog more frequently and capture more of the every day moments that I love so much. In the meantime, I'll be trying to get that last minute shopping done, baking cookies, and watching Christmas movies like crazy.

Merry Christmas!

Linked up with the Weekly Wrap-up