We’ve had really pretty weather all last week. It’s just been cold, at least compared to the temperatures last weekend and this weekend. Ben has been fighting a cold all week.
TWO ANSWERED PRAYERS! God is good! Here are two things we have requested prayer for in the past that you now can join us in thanking Him for a positive answer. First, back in March we asked you to pray for Brent and Cindy Roycroft in the adoption of their son Ty. As of Monday the Roycrofts got the papers making the adoption final!
By the way, looking back I think I failed to report this: Brent used to be the Minister of Music at our church but he left for a similar position at Calvary Baptist Church in Murfreesboro. Their last day with us was actually the same day Mom was recognized for her retirement. Brent and Cindy, you have no idea how much we miss you!
The other answered prayer is Elizabeth Graves. This was the girl who had the brain hemorrhage back in early September. She and her mother, Michelle, have come home from rehab in Atlanta. She still has a lot of therapy in front of her, but it’s all stuff she can do at home now. Elizabeth even went back to East Robertson to visit her classmates Monday. Vicki saw her briefly and said she looked like she was doing really well.
BASKETBALL SEASON. Jenna and Ben are playing Upward Basketball again this year. Their first game isn’t until January but practice began last week. They both practice on Tuesday night: Ben at 7:00 and Jenna at 8:00. This is because Jenna has moved up to full court ball and it sure makes for a late evening for them.
SPELLING BEE. Jenna competed in her class spelling bee this year. The first and second place winners get to represent their class in the school-wide spelling bee on Thursday. She wound up being third in her class which makes her the alternate if one of the other two kids can’t compete. I think Jenna was disappointed she didn’t make first or second place. She made the comment that she hoped one of the other two kids get sick Thursday. Then feeling a bit guilty she quickly added, “but that they’ll be okay.”
WAKING UP A NIGHT OWL. Vicki is not a morning person. Saturday morning she planned to go to breakfast with several ladies from church so she asked me to make sure she was up by 6:40. By 6:42 I was really trying hard to wake her so she would not be late. I knew I finally had her attention when she exclaimed, “Quit shouting at me! I’m just now aware that I’m awake.”
HAPPY BIRTHDAY VICKI. Vicki celebrated her birthday today. Pauline had us all over for dinner yesterday and then we went out to eat tonight (between piano lessons and Cub Scouts). I think the best thing that happened to her today was right as the kids were going to bed. We had actually sent the boys to bed and Jenna was still up talking to Vicki. Right in the middle of their chit-chat she stopped and said to her mother, “I could just talk to you all night.” Vicki knew from the expression on Jenna’s face, the twinkle in her eyes and the tone of her voice that she meant every word.
GROWING PAINS. I’ve had to make a change. If you are really observant you have already noticed a new URL to our family web site above. Why? In a word: dial-up. I was really happy with what I had done and the site was getting close to what I had envisioned. However, behind the scenes the site was already over 200 pages and when you change links on one page that has a huge ripple effect. Making small changes sometimes meant uploading dozens of pages to keep from breaking links and the integrity of the site. Doing that on a 48 Kb connection from home is awful and taking the site on my laptop to somewhere with a faster connection is getting old. And all this isn’t even thinking about the more public side of the Cygnus Chronicles site and what I want to do with it.
Following the example of two friends of ours I created an account on Blogger and set up a blog of our own. This will be the new home for our family site. You can find it at swannfamilynews.blogspot.com. It isn’t exactly what I had in mind but I can log in, paste in a new post and log out within a couple of minutes.
Our pictures are the next project to tackle. These will have to be uploaded away from home of course. Again, following the advice of friends, I have created an account on Shutterfly. I don’t have anything up yet but when I do you can find the images at swannfamilypictures.shutterfly.com (there is a link to this from our blog).
I’ll save the upcoming change of email address for another time and stop here before I confuse anyone any further.
Joe
