Chana

A few weeks ago Patrick and Kent found a kitten who had been attacked by some sort of animal in the street near our driveway. Of course we had to take her in and take care of her. Something had bitten off part of her ear and she was in shock. The kids and I named her Chana because Patrick loves Chana Masala (an Indian dish made with garbanzo beans) and we hoped having a name he liked would help us convince him that we needed to keep her. It sort of worked. It’s so nice having a cat in the house again!

Maeve Update:

Maeve is getting really excited to start her new school. I just got an email requesting that she chose a fine arts major and minor for 4th grade. We chose drama as her major and visual arts as her minor. We debated whether to have dance as her minor but ultimately we decided that she would prefer drawing to dance. She is also anxious to start playing soccer on the academy team for Savannah United. I think that this year is going to be a big year for her. In addition to a new school, playing select soccer for the first time, and drama class, Maeve will get to take part in the gifted program for the first time.  She tested in the 98th percentile on the Torrance test for creative thinking! We are so proud of our creative girl! She will get pulled out of her normal classroom everyday by the gifted teacher and get to do special projects. Maeve also wants to do girl scouts and book club at school. I am trying to convince her to try the chess club too! I am happy that there are lots of clubs and activities after school for her because otherwise she has to ride the bus (It's a really long bus ride from the downtown Savannah to where we live) or go to the after school program everyday while she waits for me to get out of work. Maeve loves to read, tell stories, watch music videos (she especially loves videos that are parodies of other videos), draw, talk about: fashion, political stuff, environmental stuff, her hamster, what she wants to be when she grows up, her latest favorite show and pretty much anything and everything. We are trying to work on her being a little more gentle with her words and facial expressions. She is trying hard to control the snark. Sometimes her snarky comments are so right on that I have to fight not to laugh.

A very honest Summer update:

Kent update: so far this summer Kent has played a lot of fortnight. When he is not playing fortnight he is eating sandwiches. Sometimes he has his friend Dorian come over or he goes to Dorian’s house. When they hang out they usually play fortnight together and eat a lot of frozen waffles. Sometimes we go to the pool and he sees his friends. They play ball and wrestle and talk about fortnight. Kent refuses to read the book he is supposed to read before school starts. I have checked it out 3 times. Although he doesn’t want to read over summer break, he was ok with going to math camp. His teacher was really impressed with his math skills and said he was excited to see how far he will go in math this year. He is going to Savannah’s STEM academy for 8th grade and he will be taking almost all 9th grade classes. Kent gives lots of spontaneous hugs and "I love yous". Although he can be brutally honest (especially with Maeve) he is very loving. He is also getting really tall. He is already 5’5". He is hoping to be on the swim, basketball, and baseball teams for STEM this year and he is trying out for the 13u Savannah Chain Baseball team.

We go to the beach every weekend. Kent loves to play in the waves and play catch with Patrick.

Kent got a black eye playing baseball in May. You can still see a bit of a bruise now.

Grandma and Grandpa visited Savannah

March in Savannah

Kent’s band competition

 Savannah St. Patrick’s Day parade 2018

Kent’s 12th birthday!

 He finally got a phone!

Maeve got a hamster and named her "Carrots"

The time the boy cut his own hair....