GROWING UP

Over Memorial Day weekend, our family headed to Manti to celebrate Brian’s 20 year high school reunion. Friday night, we met for dinner with about 30 of his class mates and their spouses. I think he had 84 graduate in his class so this was just under half of his class. This was a big difference from mine which was around 500 kids in my class. But one of the things that was brought up over and over was what a blessing it was to graduate from a small class. I could see that most of the classmates really cared about each other because they all knew each other. It was fun for me too, because I went to Snow College with a lot of the people. Saturday night we went to the high school’s reunion dinner. The years of ‘39, ‘49, ‘59, ‘69, ‘79, ‘89, and ‘99 were celebrating reunions. Brian’s sister, Dana, and brother, Richard, were on the committee. It was a nice dinner and a lot of history of the school was shared. When we left, Brian said “You know your getting old when you start enjoying information like that.” Sometimes, I can’t believe it has been 18 years since I graduated. At times it feels like just a couple of years ago. I don’t feel any older. As a matter of fact, I feel younger. Isn’t life interesting.

My kids are graduating in a sense. Logan has successfully passed kindergarten and has loved it. His program was this past Friday. He was so excited and did a great job singing. One of his songs was about peacemakers and how they “talk about it, they don’t fight about it”. One of the parts in the song was that peacemakers walk about when they feel too mad to talk about it and take time to cool off. The other day, Logan and Kylee were fighting about something. Logan got really mad and walked down to his bedroom. I tried to get him to come back so we could “talk about it”. He ignored me and climbed into his bed. I let him have some time and then went and talked to him. I asked why he didn’t want to come work it out. He said, “You know that song Peacemakers talk about it, well I was too mad to talk so I walked away to cool off.” I thought that was such a cute story. He really takes the things he is learning to heart. He has done so well this year and has loved it. He has an amazing kindergarten teacher, Miss Chris. I have had the opportunity to volunteer in his class once a week and have loved getting to know the kids and watching Miss Chris teach. I am really glad I waited a year to send him to kindergarten.

Braden and all the 4th graders presented a program this past week too. It was really good. All the songs were about Utah. He dressed up like a pioneer. Braden hasn’t like school very much this year. He is still doing pretty good, but things were a bit more trying this year. I have notice with all my kids that 4th grade was a challenge, more socially than anything. Hopefully, he will have a great teacher and friends next year and he will love going again.

Steven and Sammy did well too. Sammy earned a 4.0 every quarter. She did amazing. I never had to remind her to do homework. Half the time I didn’t even know what she had to get done. She is very motivated and grades are important to her. Steven made a lot of progress this year. At the beginning of the year it took him all day to get his work done. By the end of the year, he was getting stuff done without being reminded and had time to play an hour or two. I have the greatest kids.

Summer is only 4 days away and I am looking forward to it. Maybe not as much as my kids, but we have some fun things planned this year. It will be nice not to stress about homework and deadlines, but I am a bit worried about the fighting that has increased this year. Hopefully we can stay busy enough that they don’t have time to fight. But, Brian and I are also bribing them with a trip to Disneyland if they earn it by getting along. Wish us luck. And Happy Summer!!