another email letter

Hi L*! I have been wondering how you have been. Your grandbabies sure are pretty! My kids all went back to school yesterday, even FirstBorn. FirstBorn stayed in ****** and took summer school most of the summer, but we just had her home for about 3 weeks which was fun. Middleson is a senior and still in band, so he really started back to school at the end of July for daily marching practice. Youngest is a sophomore at the brand new high school here (Middleson is still at the old one with all the other seniors). She came home way less than thrilled yesterday after her first day, but I think she will settle in and find friends. For example, she is upset that she is the only sophomore in her chemistry class full of juniors, but I have a feeling that will work out to her advantage in the long run. Her world history class is full of friends, but the teacher is really “mean and strict” (probably took one look at those chatty girls and had no choice). She is still playing soccer, both in and out of school. Hubby is finally NOT coaching a girls’ soccer team in this county for the first time in the 13 years that we have lived here, but he is still very involved with the team so it is hard to tell the difference so far. His work is very busy, but every year Texas Children’s formulates a new way to calculate the doctors’ compensation, so every year for the past 3 he has taken a pay cut for all his hard work. This kind of pisses us off, but not terribly, as he still likes what he does and who he gets to work with. I have been trying to think of something I could do for part time work as I really am bored. I plan to apply at a temporary agency tomorrow and see what happens. A friend got me to apply online to the community college in case they needed any instructors for their many computer classes, the kind that teach the basics of how to use windows and excel and stuff like that. I am terrified that the college might actually call me back, so that is why I have to hurry up and apply at the temp agency!

Believe it or not, Columbus is still with us. He is now more than 15.5! We also have another dog and two cats, one of whom in her ageing state has developed an overactive thyroid growth? I don’t know but we are going to take her to the vet school at Texas A&M and have a very expensive treatment done to her in a few months to take care of it, which sounds crazy, but the alternative is giving her pills twice a day for the rest of her life and she is a TERRIBLE patient so that would be impossible. We really are running an old-folks-home for animals around here!

Middleson and I are going to visit the University of Tulsa next month. We visited Cal-Tech in Pasadena, CA last month. These are his top 2 favorites. It is very interesting. His high school GPA and class standing is not impressive, but he is blowing the doors off of standardized tests like the SAT, so we are hopeful.

Let us know if you think of a way that we could get together! How are you and B* doing? I know you are saving your travel to see the grandbabies but you know we would love to see you if that ever works out for you.

Take care and thanks for the pictures!
Love,
13D