school, snow, and family history

School started up again for, well, everybody but me, Hannah, and Henry, with Glen and Andrew being teachers and the rest are students. Hannah starts on the 25th.

The report from the first week in Rexburg is good. Sounds like Eric and Ryan are off to a great start. Eric was able to add another religion class, so he has 3 art classes and 2 religion classes. Ryan has a variety of classes: religion, English, physics and a lab, and calculus.

Andrew's school, The American Preparatory Academy, is currently having their "Winterim," which is a 3 week period in-between semesters where the choices of classes are fun--Andrew is co-teaching a game making class and also helping with a debate class. Heather is taking a multi-cultural education class this semester at BYU.  "So... teaching students who have have a variety of background cultures, beliefs, traditions, and so forth." Sounds like fun. Henry, who will be 9 months old on Tuesday, is now crawling! He loves bananas and green beans. It's weird being a grandma. I just look at pictures of Henry and think "That's my boy!" Weird, huh?

Alex, who made straight A's his first semester at high school (which included 4 honors classes), has one change to his schedule this semester. He's done with his health class, so now is in PE. Congratulations Alex. Not to leave Ryan and Hannah out, they also made straight A's last semester. Way to go everyone!

So, weather.com said that there was 0% chance of precipitation in Fallon Thursday morning. Here is a photo of "0%." The strange thing is, while weather.com (The Weather Channel's website) gave 0% chance, The Weather Channel's app on a friend's phone gave us an 80% chance of snow that morning...

about 5:30 am

yep, 0% precipitation

I went for a walk later that morning. I love the quiet countryside with just the sound of my boots crunching in the snow, the birds chirping...and the sound of a distant chain saw that was presumably cutting firewood.

our yard

Perazzo Ln.

Of course, by the afternoon, most of it had melted. It was beautiful while it lasted. We woke up to snow again this morning, but not as deep, and it took even less time to disappear.

I had a breakthrough in my family history research this past week! I am preparing for my trip to Salt Lake this next week with Glen and his theatre students (I do my own thing during the day and join them for plays at night). I was doing some leg work so I will be able to make good use of my time in the family history library when I found the maiden name, Van Velsor, of my 3rd great-grandmother, Hannah (she is one of the reasons our Hannah is named Hannah). I just need to prove her relationship to the couple that I "know" are her parents and I will have a ton of new names for our pedigree chart. There is nothing like the thrill of finding something you've been searching for for years.

Have a great week, everyone!

Henry pictures, boys off to college, and ...

Our family spent New Year's Eve in various places. Andrew and his family were in Arizona, Alex was at a friend's, Hannah went to the church dance, and the rest of us were across the street celebrating with family. We played games (I lost every one to Becky) and ate and all managed to stay awake until midnight. I don't have photographic evidence, but we had a blast!

Facebook is great for stealing pictures of events that happened hundreds of miles from where we are. As I mentioned, Andrew, Heather, and Henry spend the holidays with Heather's family in Arizona. One of the things they did while they were there was travel 2 hours to go and play in the snow.

with his other grandma...("Randy lay there like a slug..." doesn't it look like he can't move?)

Henry with his cousins

Eric and Ryan headed to Rexburg this morning. And then there were two...and when Hannah moves to Reno this month as she is hoping, it'll just be Alex... wow.

Ryan's eyes are closed

sigh, now Eric's eyes are closed. I just can't win.

and they're off...

A few hours after posting this, I read Eric's blog posting from last night where he talks about heading off to school and, as usual, he cracks me up, so I thought I'd put a link here.

And I might as well post the link to a blog post of his from a few days ago where he gives reviews on some items he received in his Christmas stocking. Yes, Santa does know him a bit. Link here.

We had a great Christmas break and are sad to see it end. The semester starts for Eric and Ryan on Wednesday the 6th and goes until April 8th when they will have one week until they start up again. Glen and Alex go January 6th-May 27th. Hannah's doesn't start until January 25th and goes until May 13th. And of course, no one's spring breaks match up...

Looking forward to a new semester and the New Year!