Michael is an adult

Michael is officially an adult now, and we are so impressed with how he is turning out! He's doing amazing things in school- he has always gotten straight A's, always.  He is student body president, and a great student body president- the school administration loves him because they can ask him to do something and he immediately does it and does it well.  Right before school started, he was asked to give a short speech for the incoming freshmen.  When he was done, the next speaker wasn't available yet, so he was able to keep the program going for a few minutes by interacting with the students while they waited.  He is taking hard classes, but also he has figured out how to come late half of the time (late arrival) and also to leave early every day (career prep-he has a job).  He is involved in robotics and is on a Destination Imagination team because his friends were doing it and he thought it would be fun.  He is a huge help around the house- he has learned how to be capable of doing anything that we ask.  He is good at troubleshooting problems or fixing broken things.

He's pretty tall.  He seems tall, but when you take a picture standing next to him is when you really notice how tall he is. 

Last spring he got to go with the youth in our ward and tour Ensign chemical's field offices.  They got to wear all of the protective gear.

He did amazing on his PSAT score- scoring so high that he made National Merit Semi-finalist.  He then went and took the SAT and got a 1580 then a 1590, and since it was in opposite subjects, if you superscore, he got a perfect 1600!  He got a perfect 36 the first time he took the ACT.  

He loves to read satire and one of his favorite things is the Birds Aren't Real movement.  He finds it very funny.

He was really good at getting his applications in.  Since he did them all himself, he kept telling us they were almost in, they were almost done.  Then one day we got a large envelope from the admissions office of Texas A&M, so then we realized he had already applied and gotten accepted-  both to TAMU and University of Texas. He still has several applications pending, and then he is hoping to get some scholarships, and based on where he gets in and what scholarships he gets then he will make his decision where to go.  He has always had a dream to go to MIT, but it is hard to get into and very expensive, so he is having to figure out if it is worth it to him.

 This next year is going to be so exciting for him, but also there will be a lot of changes as he prepares and moves out.  I am not ready, but he sure is!

Ellie's Freshmen Year

 The summer before freshmen year, Ellie became good friends with some new friends- Bella, Annise and Grace, partly because she did track with Grace.  The four of them hung out all the time her freshmen year, including sleep overs and hanging out with friends and all the fun things. Partway through the year, Bella decided to leave their friend group, but Ellie, Annise and Grace remained good friends.  

Ellie was super busy at school with cheer and track.  Cheer was busy in the fall with football games and then basketball games.  As soon as cheer slowed down, track picked up.  She was able to make the varsity track team and compete in long jump and triple jump.  It was fun to see her push herself.  By the end of track season, she was exhausted.  It seemed as though she may have pushed herself too far. 

Ellie took hard classes and got straight A's in all of them. She had an AP class and passed the AP exam.  

She went with Joe and Michael on a tour of the Ensign facilities.  They got to don protective gear and see what being in the oil field was all about.

She spent every opportunity that she could driving herself, so that she could get practice driving.  Right from the start she was a good driver, which made teaching her really easy.

At Christmas, Ellie thought it would be fun to put Christmas lights on the house.  They put up one strand and called it good.

Spring Break in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida

As soon as we returned from our cruise after Spring Break 2020, Ellie, Darby and Ava started planning what they would do for spring break the next year.  First they wanted to go on a cruise, but I was still traumatized from the cruise we had just gotten off.  Turns out they still weren't running cruises at Spring Break so it was a good call.  They ended up planning a trip to Florida the Santa Rosa.  Darby flew in and we all drove to Florida together.  Ava's mom planned most of the trip, but I went along with her.

It was fun to get away for a few days and Ellie and her friends had a great time. They met some boys on the beach that they talked to a couple of times and they thought that was super fun.  The beach was absolutely beautiful and only a short walk from our condo so it was fun to go out and the girls could go off by themselves.

 

Some transformations

Adam's room as he was in the process of moving out.

When Adam moved out to college, we cleaned out his room and Michael moved into his room.  That gave Nate his own room.  We decided, with all the moving, it was a good time to update our carpet.  Once the carpet was updated, I realized that I hadn't done anything to the gameroom for quite a while.  We had the gameroom, Michael and Nate's rooms painted.  Then I cleaned out a lot of things the kids had just grown out of in the gameroom.  I painted the cupboards over the computer upstairs so that they matched the walls better.  It was nice to get a little update upstairs.

Gameroom after the paint but before the new carpet.

Gameroom after everything.

I also painted the walls and ceilings in my room.  After I did that, I realized that I didn't like the color of our furniture with the new carpet and wall colors, and so I went ahead and refinished all of the furniture in our bedroom.  I didn't want to just get new furniture because Joe had built the bed for us, and I really liked it.

The bed color before.  Joe had put a special finish on that showed off the curly maple he had picked for the wood.  Over time it had turned more orange.

I started with the back of the headboard to make sure that I could actually do it, and not ruin the bed.

I also had to do the nightstands, the dresser, the "naughty chair" and the frame on the mirror above our dresser.

I thought I would use the old hardware on the dresser, but when I got done I found that I liked different ones better.  I bought several at first to see what looked best.

The finished bed with the new quilt I made over quarantine.

The new dresser, the mirror wasn't done yet.

It was a lot of work, but because of covid, all of my classes were online and I had more free time so I found having something to do was very helpful to my sanity.  I was very pleased with the outcoome.