Happy Leap Day!

Happy Leap Day! Given the rarity of this occasion I felt it necessary to save this edition until now if, for no better reason, the sheer novelty of using the date, February 29. One of Nate's good friends at school, Austin, is having his Eagle Scout Court of Honor this afternoon. Austin's mother is also a teacher at DA and today happens to be her birthday. She is, of course, getting grief for having a son who has celebrated more birthdays than she has.

February has been a fairly quiet month for us. We did get a couple of days off from school, but for the flu, not snow. What snow we have seen here has barely covered the ground. We have seen a lot of rain which messed with our septic system for a couple of days.

Jenna has settled into a routine in nursing school. This being an accelerated program of study she is already nearing the end of her first set of courses and will have a new schedule after her spring break. She has also gone back to work at Historic Perk. I think she's been a little surprised how much she spends on gas now that she's commuting to Hendersonville three days a week.

Ben seems to be having a good semester at Tech. He's been home a couple of times this month. I think he's ready to get the general education classes behind him which I completely understand. It seemed like graduation all over again when I got all those classes behind me and college quit feeling like an unwanted extension of high school.

Nate is having a good semester this spring. I've enjoyed having him in class with me this year which is the last opportunity for this to happen. He and Vicki went to a college planning workshop Monday evening and I think it hit him hard then that now it the time to start seriously looking at colleges he would want to apply to.

Vicki flew to Richmond, Virginia, last weekend. Our nephew, Cameron, graduated from Police Academy so she went to celebrate his accomplishment and spend a little time with her brother and family. She said the graduation and reception were all very nice and highlighted all the hard work Cameron and his fellow cadets put in during their training. He's the first of Jessie and Pauline's grandchildren to hit the work force and I know they would be proud of him as he serves and protects his community now that he is out on patrol. Cameron, we are all proud of you as well.

As for me, I've had the chance to get back behind the sound board at church after a ten year hiatus. Our old analog board has been upgraded to a new digital board which presented something of a learning curve, however, I am proud to say that I've mixed sound for two services with no feedback or missed cues. It has also been nice to pick up some projects that I've been putting off for years because I never had the time. One of these has been digitizing some old journals I used to keep before I started the newsletter. It's been quite interesting to read some of the things Jenna used to say when she was a year old.

So that's the news from our house. Pretty routine, maybe even boring, but for that I am grateful.

Joe