Time Passes So Quickly!

Almost every time I sit down to write the Swann Family News I am shocked to see how long it has been between writings. So much for my goal of writing about once a week. I have been teaching several in-service workshops the last two weeks so there hasn’t been a lot of time for me in the evenings.

We have the smell of tobacco barns in the air now. Our hot weather has been short lived. This has been the most comfortable summer I can remember.

MIDDLE SCHOOL UPDATE. We have been on a roller coaster with band here at our house. Jenna struggled with this all the way through last weekend. I’ve reported on this the last couple of times. Jenna is now out of band completely and seems to be a much happier girl, but then again, I don’t want her to do something that makes her miserable. With band out of the picture she will now rotate through health, physical education, study skills, and computer skills over the course of the year. She has joined Jr. Beta now too.

NEW EMAIL. Now that Jenna is in middle school we’ve allowed her to have her own email account. She’s excited about this since one of her best friends has email as well. This is just another sign that my daughter is growing up. Of course the rule is, if she wants access to the computer then she can’t change her email password without my knowing about it. If you’d like to write to Jenna send me an email and I'll put you in touch with her.

SICK. We lasted through two weeks of school before anyone came down with some sort of bug. Ben started complaining of feeling bad last Saturday night. Vicki took him to the doctor last Sunday. Diagnosis: strep throat. No school for him on Monday.

Monday Nate wasn’t acing his normal self. We sent him on to school, but Vicki started having second thoughts and made an appointment with the doctor for him that morning. Strep throat. Both boys missed Tuesday as well.

Wednesday morning the boys felt fine, but Jenna was complaining of an upset stomach. We kept her home which was a good thing. If we hadn’t she would have probably thrown up in my truck.

Thursday Jenna was better, but Vicki said she had a sore throat. Her problem seems to be a cold or sinus infection. She’s feeling some better now. I’ve been healthy so far.

AWANA UPDATE. We had a sneak peek for our AWANA club at church Wednesday night. Given this is our first year to do this and we have some space constraints at church Vicki opted not to do any promotion for AWANA right now. Even with the lack of this we had 38 kids present which is a great start. She hoping to at least double this by Christmas.

A DAY OF REST. This afternoon was the first day in a couple of weeks where we have simply relaxed and enjoyed family time. We didn’t tackle the laundry or any other chores, we just spent time together. Okay, we did go to the store because we were about out of bread.

When we were discussing going to the store at lunch all the sudden Nate spoke up and asked, “How much is 11, 9, and 6?”

“It’s 26. Why?”

“That should be enough. Why don’t you go on the the store without us!”

It took us a moment to figure out that Nate felt he, Ben, and Jenna were old enough with their combined ages to stay home alone.

Well, we didn’t buy into that, but we all went for a 2.5 mile walk on the Greenway in White House, squeezed in a quick trip to the store, and then met Mom and Aunt Mar for supper at Pepé’s Grill, the new Mexican restaurant at the Day’s Inn Inn White House.

Joe

School Is In Session -- Whew!

Well, we’ve got the first week of school behind us now. The kids had a really good week. As for me, I think this was the most exhausting start of school I’ve ever had. That means this week will be a better week!

THE MIDDLE SCHOOL EXPERIENCE. Jenna is loving middle school! She has been excited about everything she’s done. We met her teachers at open house Monday night. She has Sheila Leach for Language Arts, Lisa Melton for Science, Randy Adams for Band, and Dale Metler for Math and Social Studies.

I think the one thing Jenna has struggled with this week is band. At first she decided she wanted to do percussion, but now I think she is leaning toward playing a clarinet. Whatever she decides to do I think she’s in for a great year.

ANOTHER YEAR OLDER. I celebrated my birthday this week. Well, it came and went and I was too tired to do much about it. We had dinner over at Pauline’s Thursday night. Yesterday afternoon we took in G-Force (in 3-D!) and then ate at Demos’ in Hendersonville.

AWANA STARTS SOON. Vicki has had a busy summer. Through it all she’s had a goal of starting an AWANA club at our church this fall. She’s had to scramble to get this moving since Vacation Bible School ended. I am proud to say for her that she is on track for getting this to happen. Many prayers have been answered and a lot of people have volunteered to help out. The leadership training happens tomorrow night, and the first club meeting with the kids is September 2. Please pray for her because I know the next two weeks will be really busy.

Joe

Goodbye Summer Break

Steve Freeland made the comment the other day that this has been the year without a summer. I believe he has been correct through July, but August is shaping up to make up for lost time. Both the temps and the humidity are cranking up around here. Its been foggy the last couple of mornings which reminds me of what Aunt Ruth used to say, “The number of fogs on August mornings will be the number of snows you’ll have in the winter.” I’m not saving up for a snow blower no matter how foggy it is this month.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEN! Ben celebrated his 9th birthday Monday. Actually, we celebrated as a family Monday and will have a swimming party for his friends this coming Tuesday.

Monday I met everyone in town after work at the bowling alley. We bowled a couple of games while Mom, Aunt Mar, and Pauline looked on. I bowled pretty well considering my expectations were to score better than my age (I think I tripled that). Nate was the first one to get a strike and you should have seen him celebrate. Actually, everyone did well considering we haven’t been bowling in a couple of years.

When we were getting ready to leave the bowling alley I asked if it would be possible to go back and see the pin setters in action. I’ve always wondered what goes on behind the scenes to stand all the pins back up after you knock them down and I thought the kids would like to see it as well. Its actually an impressive piece of machinery when you consider the models we were looking at are older than I am. Ben even got to take home his own bowling pin as a birthday souvenir. From there we went to Arby’s for supper and ended up at Pauline’s for cake. Between the food stops we hit Wal-Mart where Ben spent some of his birthday money on a G-force game for the Wii and a few other things.

STOLEN PANTS. The other day I came into the living room where the kids were playing the Wii. I looked at Ben and all he was wearing was a t-shirt and underwear. I knew I had seen pants on the boy earlier so I asked, “Ben, where are your pants?”

He stood up, looked down, and was literally in shock. Trying to pull his shirt down to cover himself he said, “I don’t know. Someone must have took them while I was playing the Wii!”

“Surely not son. I think you would have known about that.”

He was at a loss for words and a bit embarrassed at his predicament.

We finally got to the heart of the matter when I asked him to think about the last time he saw his pants. He thought a moment and took off to the bathroom. Earlier he had paused his game to use the bathroom. He had taken his pants (but not his underwear) off in the process. Don’t ask me why. He must have been so anxious not to waste a moment getting back to his game that he ran off and left his pants behind. Good thing this wasn’t the halftime break at a basketball game!

DEHYDRATED. Pauline gave us a little scare Wednesday. I was parking my truck at work when Vicki called telling me to come back home. Pauline had called Vicki to say she was sick, and when Vicki went over to check on her she decided to call the ambulance. They spent most of the day at the hospital. At first we thought this was related to her diabetes because all her vital signs were good except her sugar, but with further investigation she was diagnosed as dehydrated. Talk about a best case scenario! Anyway, Pauline is drinking more water and is feeling better. She went back to the doctor yesterday for a checkup.

MISPLACED. Vicki has misplaced some of her keys...down an elevator shaft.

Yes, you read that right. As She and Pauline were leaving the doctor she was absentmindedly playing with her keys while waiting on the elevator. Her key rings are connected with a plastic key ring clip and she was flicking this open and closed with her fingers. When the elevator door opened one part of her keys came off the clip. She watched in horror as they tumbled right through the crack in the elevator doorway and then heard them hit the bottom of the elevator shaft three floors below.

This story ranks up there as one of the strangest things I’ve heard over a cell phone. She went on to say, “These kind of things aren't supposed to happen to me. They happen to Kenny or Lori, but not me!”

SCHOOL STARTS SOON. This is the last week of our summer break. The kids have a half day of school on Monday and classes officially start Wednesday. I am never mentally prepared for this. We went to open house at East Robertson Elementary last night, and I must say the school looks very nice. With all the changes to the building it is easy to get lost in there, which is a bit disconcerting because I attended school there for ten years and have been in and out of the building as an employee for the last twelve years. Our community should be very proud of the facility.

We have familiar faces as far as teachers go. Ben is starting third grade with Mrs. Robbie Kiernan who was Jenna’s third grade teacher, and Nate will be in Vicki Rippy’s first grade class. Vicki had both Jenna and Ben when they were in first grade. As I said last week, Jenna is starting the sixth grade at East Robertson High School. Their open house is Monday night.

THE WORLD CAN END NOW, I’M ON FACEBOOK. I have resisted this for months...years even. The last thing I need is another computer addition when I should be spending time with the people I love most. Wednesday I gave in to temptation and signed up on Facebook. (I’ll blame it on Pauline since I was home keeping the kids instead of being at work where Facebook is blocked.) I think Kenny was shocked when he found out so that, at least, was a good thing. I have been amazed at the number of people I know on Facebook. Several people have asked why Vicki isn’t there yet. She wants me to give her a tour, but we’ve been so busy each evening neither of us wants to sit down in front of a computer after the kids are in bed. As soon as I show her what to do she’ll be there (though I keep telling her to sign up without me as she’ll learn more discovering things for herself.) If I’ve done it correctly I should have our newsletter/blog linked in to my Facebook page.

Joe