Hoping you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. November seemed to speed right by as we head into the last month of the year. We had lots of school related activities. We went and toured three private schools for next school year, two of which we applied to). For one of the schools, Cordelia got to go for a Middle School day experience. For the other school the three older kids will be going to a school day experience in early December. The kids also had days off school for Veteran’s day and Thanksgiving week. Thanks to help from Aunt Kelly and Grandparents Powers, Alicia and Tim were able to get in some work on those days. We spent Thanksgiving with the Powers clan and enjoyed delicious brisket thanks to Tim’s master cooking/smoking skills. We also got to pet-sit the Guinea pig that used to be the school pet and is now owned by one of the students.
Cordelia is doing well in school. She got one of the leading roles for the Christmas musical. For November they learned about the first Thanksgiving and made a fictional story about being a Pilgrim. Cordelia finished off her ice-skating session and passed Academy 1! The next classes are focused on jumps and spins. She’s continuing to practice with the synchronized skating team and they will be performing at her rink’s Christmas show. She’s also practicing a duet with one of her friends for the Christmas show.
Anthony is also doing well in school. He got a speaking role in the Christmas musical. Anthony wrote a graphic novel for his fictional story of the Pilgrims. Anthony finished his current soccer league and season of Skills 3. He’ll be starting the invitation-only “Super League” in December. With the days off from school, Anthony got to do some extra soccer camps.
Lydia continues to enjoy school. She had a fun time at the Thanksgiving breakfast helping retell the Thanksgiving story. She had bit of a hard time with her homework this month. In swimming she is getting much stronger with her three strokes and is becoming more motivated. Unfortunately for December we’ll be switching her swim instructor. Hopefully the new one will also be good. She continues to have a fun time at her tumbling class.
Natalie is enjoying Primary and had a cute Thanksgiving song. She’s continuing to get quicker at recognizing number and letters. Natalie’s new instructor is doing an amazing job at pushing her to be more independent with her swimming. She leveled her up again and is at level 4 now. She can now roll to/from her back independently, and is learning the freestyle stroke. Natalie finished her first session of soccer and will continue with the new session in December.
Alicia’s list of tasks is long between work, school applications, and home life. At work she was able to hold a final gate review for one of her projects and get it transferred to the production team by the end of the month. She’s now planning the phase 2 and 3 parts of the effort to add improvements. Alicia continues to maintain the kids’ homework, sports activities, and squeeze in some playdates for the kids. AWANA has still been active but with all the other tasks, its priority has taken a back burner to the minimum weekly maintenance level.
Tim made a push at work to meet the end of November deadlines in preparation for a big meeting in early December. That led to some long days. In addition, he got pulled away for a day and night to support another group in Julian, which didn’t help him meet his actual projects deadline. Tim is prepping for his half marathon in mid-December. On the home front, Tim completed the cabinet and drawer front of the laundry room cabinet, which turned out great. He also did some rearranging in our family room to make it more open feeling. We’re also prepping all the materials to do our pantry overhaul. His teaching at AWANA continues to go well. We’re enjoying engaging with Cordelia and Anthony in a small devotional study through their T&T books on Thursday nights.
We reviewed the plans for our bathroom home improvements and those should be submitted to the city in December. We’re continuing to pray for peace and clarity on the school decision for next school year. While we’ve applied to two private schools, we still have charter/homeschool options to evaluate in January. Ultimately, none of the schools give the decision on admittance until March, so it will be a while before we have a clear answer. We’re looking forward to lots of things going into December: final weeks of school in December, kids’ Christmas musical, Cordelia’s ice skating performance, date night at the company Christmas party, and a week-long visit with the Russin clan in Tucson.
