More Virginia trip details

*  After the baccalaureate service, we were privileged to meet and visit with several of Katie’s professors.

*  Of note is the fact that, without exception, they went on and on and on about what a great student and wonderful person she is.  Dr. Spinney and Dr. Favelo also said how thankful they were that they’d be keeping her around and that she’d be working for them.  What did that mean?!?  It seems they have hired Katie and Leslie part-time to help proof freshman papers (the incoming class is about twice as large as theirs was, and since all PHC students take history classes their freshman year, the history profs are anticipating an unusually hefty workload) and to help tutor freshman students in writing history papers.  Knowing that these top-notch profs want and value your daughter’s help definitely does a mom’s heart good.

*  Furthermore, the history profs, realizing that their four graduates – yes that’s FOUR history majors (allegedly the most difficult major at PHC) out of 57 graduates – had done highly commendable work, wanted to give them some tangible reward for their exemplary efforts.  They pulled the students and their families together and gave Katie, Leslie, and their two classmates each a genuine 1946 Congressional Medal Of Honor, which had been awarded to combat veterans of WWII.  WHAT an awesome and appropriate gift for those history majors!!!  Katie wore her medal on her gown the next morning when she graduated.  I smiled through tears.

*  For me personally, Friday night was the high point, but Saturday morning was great, too.  The service  was long and numerous people spoke.  Katie graduated summa cum laude with high honors and a 3.94 GPA.  I was terribly proud and happy!

*  In addition to Scott, Josiah, and Andrew, these friends and family were present for the Big Event:

~ From North Carolina, Grandma Roberts, Aunt Becky, and Aunt Kristy

~ From Arkansas, Grandma and Grandpa Varner

~ From Delaware, Dave, Sue, Ryan, Courtney, Emily, and Rachel Brown

*  It was challenging to try to figure out how to best accommodate and please so many people (who had all come from so far) in such a short span of time.  We have learned, in this graduation season, that these kinds of events bring together groups of people who are all close to the person being celebrated, but not necessarily close to each other and sometimes that can be awkward.  We opted for a picnic lunch at a nearby park.  Turns out we snagged a pavilion that another couple of PHC grads had reserved for their party, so we cut that short.

*  Katie’s apartment is small, but quite functional for the three young ladies.  They will make it their own in no time, and I’m sure it will be a blessed home base for them in this season of their lives.  I won’t mention here how high the rent is, other than to say that we’ve never paid that much a month for anything!  I guess when you live in the most expensive county in the continental U.S., you simply have to trust God, work hard, and deal with a cost of living that is so far over the top that it makes my head swim.

*  The Browns left after the picnic, my folks left later in the afternoon, and the North Carolina, Missouri, and Virginia contingents retired to their hotel.

*  The Aunts took Andrew to Starbucks.  Why did they feel compelled to start him on this habit?!?  He now claims to like coffee, but I’m pretty sure he really only likes all the stuff you can put in it.

More to come, including that mysterious man on the bed. . .

One of those skills our kids should master before leaving home

Today I taught Josiah how to do something he hasn’t done before.

Well, he may have done it a time or two, but it’s surely not a task he’s practiced with any kind of regularity.

No, it’s not ironing, although that is on my mental list of “skills to pass on to Josiah this summer.”

No, it’s not cooking, although I probably should add that to the list.  Cooking’s priority rank  is lower because, while his R.A. at PHC will give demerits for not having his pants creased, he won’t starve if he can’t cook.  And that food is going to cost us all (sigh).  Katie never eats breakfast and so went with the 14 meal-per-week board plan, but Llamas definitely prefer to input calories at least three times a day – more if you include the mandatory evening ice cream serving.

Josiah has opted to grow his hair a bit longer, and since he’s doing a presentation with his dad this evening – and he needs to look sharp – I had to teach him how to comb his hair.

He bought a comb today for that very purpose.  He’s never owned a comb before.  You see, as a young child, the Llama was a bit of a challenge, and I decided to cut my losses (pun intended).  I buzzed his hair short, and it never needed to be combed.  Believe me, we all had enough else to deal with, without that!

So his hair has always been short, until last week.  When it started to get long.  And last night I trimmed it, just because if you have very coarse, thick, wavy hair, when it gets long it starts to curl around your ears, and that’s okay if you are a girl, but not so okay if you are a young man!  So I trimmed it around the edges and left the rest of it long.  This was no simple task, because, as I’ve told Scott for years, I really have no idea how to cut men’s hair.  Buzz it all one length, yes; actually cut it properly, no.  I think it turned out okay, and I told Josiah that I wouldn’t be offended if he wanted to go to Wal-Mart and have someone there fix it.

Tonight, there were various curls sticking out in various places, and it needed a part of some kind, so I told him to soak his head and towel dry it.  I combed it and then sprayed it like crazy.  It held for a while, but after the presentation tonight, it was coming loose again.  I think if he’s going to wear it long (er) like that, he’s going to have to go with some mega-hold gel or putty or something.

Like other aspects of my life, it’s just a new season!

Jeopardy question: What is two?

Answer:  The number of crutches required for a llama with a sprained ankle to navigate a backyard cookout.

It’s been a full day for Team Roberts.

I took Andrew to meet his boss to help clean the Rendezvous.  Scott and Josiah went to play tennis and Josiah sprained his ankle. I went to Wal-Mart to get some more food for tonight’s cookout.  We all attended the homeschool graduation ceremony at First Baptist.  Scott went back to Wal-Mart to get more food, because several people at the graduation said they’d see us tonight.  We had the cookout, but sadly, Josiah was not able to play kickball.  Josiah went to a movie, and the Grays stayed to play bridge.  (The guys won this time.)

It was a true bummer for Josiah to be injured the day of his big party, but I think he made the best of it.  I also think I got pictures of almost all the 32 people who attended.

Close call

Tonight I challenged Andrew to a game of Gin Rummy.  I warned him in advance that since I have played a lot more than he has, I was likely to win.  He did not seem to share that logic.

I pulled out to an early lead of something like 71 to 35, but then, over a series of three or four hands, he pulled back to tie it at 83 all.  A game is 100.  I ginned in the final hand for a bonus of 20, but he only had five points in his hand, which was quite commendable.  So my prediction came true, but the guy is awfully close to catching me.

He’s close to catching me in another way, too.  I am fairly certain that by a week from Thursday, he will have pushed me back down to being, once again, the shortest person in the family.  I’m thinking I haven’t been in that position for about seven years – when the girls had passed me, but I could still look down on Josiah and Andrew.  Now I won’t be able to look down on anyone, and I’m sure there’s a spiritual lesson there.  = )

 

Took a nice walk with Andrew

We went across the bridge and down to the creek on that side, by Roxanne’s house, and then followed the old road/path down around the backside of the cow pasture all the way to the horseshoe bend.  We walked for about an hour all told, and we had some good conversation.  I have learned that he opens up much more when we’re walking or riding in the car or something, than just sitting at home.  It’s as if the doing/moving/going makes him more comfortable to share what he’s thinking.

One of his questions tonight was, “Mom, what would you do if our house burned down?”  We had left the oven preheating for pizza.  = )  I told him I’d make sure he was awake and out of the house (he’s a very heavy sleeper), and then if possible, I’d grab my computer.  He said, he’d collect, “all my money, and then some clothes, which I’d put in a bag, and my deodorant, and my wallet, and probably some of my things. . . “  I told him that in a fire he wouldn’t have time to do all that; that it would be a matter of get and go in order to get out fast; that sometimes in a crisis situation, the most important thing – in fact the only thing – is just to keep living.  Then he said he’d just take his money and whatever else he could grab fast.

We talked more about money and the value of it and how we spend it and why.  All in all very interesting.

Also, it’s sucker season.  I wouldn’t know this, not being an angler at heart, but a good old boy was walking around the bridge the other morning and when I asked him what was up, he said he was looking for suckers.  I gathered that suckers were fish.  He pointed out a couple under the bridge.  He told me that he’d been over to this hole three mornings in a row, but someone had always beat him to it and fished them all out.  He was from Crane, which, according to google maps, is about a 48-minutes drive from here, and he’s been getting up at 5:30 AM to come over here for suckers.  His girlfriend told him not to come back without any, so he was fairly desperate.  It seems that people catch these suckers, clean them, and throw the rest of the fish back in the water, so the area around the bridge is full of trash and dead fish right now.  Yuck.  And down where Andrew and I were walking, at the main access point, there were dozens and dozens of dead fish in the water, right at the creek’s edge.  Of course, the crows and vultures and stuff will take care of them in a few days, but I didn’t get to wade like I wanted to.

Maybe tomorrow!

Llama of many skills

I may have mentioned this in the past, but it hit me again last night when I was printing some stuff to take to church.

I had just printed ten copies of a Jessica update, and before I could go to bed, I needed only to print one measly copy of a recipe to give to a friend.  I hit the print button, and nothing happened.  Being either a woman of great faith or a total fool, I hit the print button again.  Same result.  I decided that my computer – which I really should name, I think, but I guess that will be a task for another day and a survey for another post – had decided that it didn’t like the print button.  Well, perhaps it would find the full print dialogue more to its liking.  I opened that dude, set the various options appropriately, and hit ok.  Nothing happened. Being a creature of habit, I did it again, with, of course, the identical result.

At that point, I did what I normally do when some computer-related something fails to deliver as promised; although, come August, I won’t be able to do it, so sometime soon I’d probably better start developing a work-around. . .  I opened my google chat and asked if Llama-Tech could make my printer print.  Now, the nice thing about Llama-Tech is that most times, excepting Tuesday afternoons, Llama-Tech responds quickly, fixes my problem, and charges me nothing. Gotta love that South American beast of burden!

Sure enough, within two minutes, I heard the hairy mammal trundling down the attic stairs.  The Llama has had a hard time sleeping on his less than wonderful mattress and box spring, and so has moved his “stall” to Katie’s room.  I am pretty sure the biggest result of the move is that he is now able to simultaneously trash twice as many rooms as before, but at least he is sleeping.  He also has the advantage of claiming that way up there in the third floor he just can’t seem to hear us calling to help put away groceries or whatever.

So he examined the print situation and quickly determined that he had no idea what was wrong or how to fix it.  His only idea was to turn the printer off and back on, which he did.  Then he told me that that process might take a while, because the printer – we call it the Big Printer – always feels compelled to check itself (reminds me of those upper torso exams we women are supposed to do) when you turn it off and back on, and those checks take a while to complete.  That made me think that maybe I should just send the recipe to the Ancient of Days printer in the closet – we call it the Little Printer – which would take longer to print the page, but would start sooner and so might actually let me fall into bed a bit earlier.

And THAT made me think of the noise the Little Printer would make as it fed the paper, aligned the ink cartridges, and printed the job; which is why I asked Josiah, “So, tell me, what noise does the Little Printer make?”  To which he replied with the perfect and very funny series of sound effects that always makes me laugh uncontrollably.  I laughed uncontrollably.  He is indeed a Llama of many skills.

 

Just can’t relate

The other day Josiah offered to help me make burger patties for the Promise Keepers cookout tomorrow night.  He clearly did not know what he was getting into.

Burgers for Team Roberts were many years ago ordained to be made a certain way, and that way is messy and tedious.  We had five pounds of burger meat, and following the various designated additions, I intended to end up with 20 burgers.  I know exactly how much meat to squish in my hands to make a quarter-pound burger, but since Josiah’s hands are considerably larger than mine, his burgers kept coming out too big.  I pointed to our sample meat ball in the bowl and urged him to relate his to that one

His reply cracked us both up:  ”Mom, I just can’t relate to a handful of raw meat!”

So proud of Andrew

Andrew is making great strides in the areas of honor, attitude, and initiative!  I’m really pleased that he is becoming quick(er) to repent, he’s a lot less disrespectful than he used to be, and he’s taking ownership of completing his daily checklists.

Way to go, Andrew!

Boys, boys, boys

One of our current projects and prayer requests is to help Andrew connect with boys his age whom he can befriend.

A couple weeks ago, we hosted a cookout for Scott’s Promise Keepers ball team and their families.  One of the guys has a boy (Brett) Andrew’s age, and they had a lot of fun together.  Another guy couldn’t come that night, but he also has a boy in that age range (Chase).

One of the guys who’s been coming with his wife to our home group has a boy (Garrett) about Andrew’s age.  Garrett spent the past couple months with his mom in Kansas City, but came home this week.  We actually knew Garrett when he was a baby, but hadn’t seen him in over ten years.  Andrew had never met him.

In our undying quest to connect Andrew with boys, Scott brought Garrett and Chase over to play and and swim on Saturday.  The guys all seemed to have fun – bouncing on the trampoline, biking, swinging, and then swimming at Big Rock.  It was a good thing.

Then Sunday night, Garrett and his family came to group, so he and Andrew got to spend more time together.

This morning, Jerry (Brett’s dad) called to say that there was a bus going to a Springfield Cardinals game tonight and they had one free ticket and would Andrew like to go?  WOW!  So I took Andrew in to Branson to meet the group.  Get this.  It was a HUGE tour bus!  I don’t know what the connection is, but Jerry and his wife and two sons were there, and right now Andrew is enjoying a minor league baseball game, totally free of charge, with BOYS!!!

I’ve enjoyed our summer with Katie

We have gotten to do a number of things that are fun together:

~ culling the library

~ watching ball games

~ playing Take Two

~ playing pool

~ collecting children’s church stuff

~ sorting the games

~ cleaning the playroom

(do we detect a theme here?)

She has also played Bridge (with ANDREW as her partner), Scattergories, and a few other odd games, and she has graciously fixed numerous computer issues for me – including making Andrew’s math score spreadsheet calculate.  Whew!

In general, Katie makes me smile.  What a nice lady to have around!