School has started!

Yea, because I have 5 kids gone most of the day. Nay, because now I have to be getting up by 5am (starting next Monday when Seminary starts), but for now it's 6am. I like to sleep in.

**NOTE** I will be sending pictures to my sister over the next week for her to download on here because I have dial-up, and she does not.

All 5 started yesterday. Josh goes only until 12:03pm. One of the advantages of having a senior. Can you believe it? A SENIOR! He starts seminary next Monday in Texarkana as he is the only LDS student in his high school. He has a reputation to hold! Everyone knows he is a Mormon, and everyone, and I mean everyone who finds out that I am "Josh's mom" tells me what a great kid he is, and how they wish every kid was like him. Lauren is at the junior high school (6th grade), and will be starting French Horn on Monday. Josh played that when he was in 6th & 7th grade, and since I had paid for (and saved) that mouth piece, I told Lauren she can play French Horn or French Horn. She is excited to be playing it. Kayley is at the 4th & 5th grade school as she is in 5th grade. Next year she will be at the Junior High with Lauren, and says she is going to play flute. That's only if she gets better with piano. This is her 3rd year, and still sucks. Okay, don't tell her that, but just because she looks like Holly, doesn't mean she has her music ability. Lauren has that. Jacob started 3rd grade, and Kristen started kindergarten again. Both love it, and love riding the bus. Jacob is doing better with his diabetes, and is looking and doing great. Kristen has matured a lot more since starting kindergarten last year. I am glad that I pulled her out after a few months and had her home with me. What a difference.

Past few weeks we have had my niece, Rebekah, here. Her parents went to Jamaica for 10 days, and actually were already leaving on Saturday, when everyone else was leaving because of Hurricane Dean. They had an adventerous time trying to get out of there, but I know Rebekah is glad they are back. She was getting worried there at the end that Dean would arrive sooner. Rebekah, Lauren & Kayley had a super fun time being together for about 15 days. The week before she came here, the middle 5 had been at her house for a week, so for almost a month Rebekah has been in their lives. They loved it. The highlight, of course, was High School Musical 2, which they almost lost a few times because of pouting or fighting, but the night came for it to come on, and a thunderstorm blew over at 7:20pm for almost an hour. Because we have Dish, the storm blocked service. Talk about disappointment!! Good thing it came on the next day. All was well after that.

My dishwasher decided to quit working just before Rebekah came, and so I called a service man to come fix it. $77 dollars later, it worked...for a week then quit again. Shawn figured it was a heating element. Great! So, the whole time Rebekah was here, she, Lauren & Kayley washed dishes. On Sunday night, I got a feeling to check the dishwasher again. To let it run. How weird is that? A prompting by the Holy Ghost to restart my dishwasher? So, I did. Knock on wood, it's running and working for the 4th time since then. I hope it was just s fluke thing.

Joey, or Jory...thinking of that name...taken from JOseph aveRY...has learned to crawl! Almost has learned to sit up from a crawling position, but hasn't mastered it yet. He is a whiner. Big time. Almost makes me think there are no more children up there. LOL!!

Several years ago Shawn discovered eBay. Sometimes he would buy things without telling me first, or consult me first. He would call me from work saying..."oh, hey...I bought a bow (he bowhunts) on eBay for $550." Uh...ok...yeah, right! Well, he has found a new website. One that I reluctantly was telling him about (I was telling him about the exercise equipment that Brett & Cindy found on it), and he wanted to know where. It's Craigslist. He bought him the new tractor. Now he has bought a backhoe for it, and found a wood playset for the kids, and a boat. Yes, a boat. We will have a bass boat, so at Thanksgiving when all the mighty hunters come to hunt, if they want to go fishing at the river, then they can become the mighty fisherman (have to buy license for that too). Josh knows an excellent place to go trout fishing.