Christmas 2006

The first grade has been a tough transition for Laney. Each day is soooooooo much longer than it was in Kindergarten. She is learning at a very tender age to savor those short Fridays and holidays. We told her she only has to attend school until she is 37 or can spell Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis... and cure it. She has been without her two front teeth for some time now and proudly sports her "kitty mouth." As with most kids her age, she is Professor of the Annoying Arts and practices her skill at the appropriate times. Chief among these skills is the inane repetition of some supposedly ominous phrase meant to evoke peals of laughter from her peers. But, the humor of this performance is lost on anyone over the age of six. After 15 minutes of enduring nonstop "kid alert! kid alert! kid alert!" (or some such klaxsonesque noise) we are willing to submit to waterboarding just to get her to stop. This is one of the interrogation methods used against some of our more hardened Al Qaeda terrorists.

Jensen is doing great at school. She is carrying a 3.75 GPA and really seems to enjoy herself. But, she often stays up way too late doing her homework. It is not uncommon for her to fall asleep on the floor or beside her bed. She's not supposed to start doing that until college. Jensen attempts to do everything and ends up making it look like Ailsa is only trying to get by with the bare minimum (only 15 pieces of flair.) Jensen has become my most consistent riding partner on the tandem bike and usually thanks me for making her go for a ride. She has finally gotten her driver's license. This is after Lenore has carefully logged and made sure that Jensen has fulfilled the requisite 1800 hours of parent supervised, daytime, nighttime, evening, dusk, dawn and blindfolded driving. She has done very well during this training despite the three other drivers in the family bickering in the car over who gets to yell at her for every little mistake.

Ailsa finished up at Salt Lake Community College and will be attending the University of Utah this coming semester as a Junior. Despite having a 3.68 GPA while carrying 20 credit hours at SLCC a year ago, she did not get accepted by the "Y." She is rather a homebody, and we love having her around. So, her die hard BYU fan father isn't too broken up about it. She earned her AA degree at the end of the summer and we allowed her this fall semester "off." So, it has been one giant lollapalooza. She's been lying around eating bon bons and listening to Davey Havok at earsplitting decibel levels. She purchased the car that her departing missionary friend left behind (no stalker here), a 1993 $500 Sentra with 200k miles. But, it is a "sweet ride." She is still working through re-writes with her publisher on her first book. And, she has a new project, a set of four novelettes, that we think we might self publish or shop to a different publisher. The first two parts are ready for print. She is in the middle of writing the third book and expects to be finished with the whole project this Spring.

I'm afraid I have spent a large part of my parenting energy filling my kids' heads with obscure cultural references and they have turned out just as strange as me. We spent a couple of weeks watching the three seasons of "Arrested Development" on DVD. The bigger kids loved it and now occasionally engage in contests to see who can say "Bob LaBlah's Law Blog" when they are not trying to teleport like Hiro Nakamura.

My personal highlights this year are a 60 mile time trial finishing under 3 hours and seeing some old good friends when we were visiting California in the Summer. A lowlight was overhearing a kid refer to me as an "old man" while we were at the Beach. But, generally I just go around muttering "keep it together" under my breath while speedailing my Mindhead mentor and wondering when is the last time I looked young in a photograph.

Lenore had lots of fun this Christmas making sure she got the absolute best deal on all of the most educational presents for the kids. They are upstairs now playing "Tuba Hero" on the X-box. She got to help out with the first and second grade production of the Nutcracker for Christmas. At first she had high expectations for the "flower" dance number. After a couple of rehearsals she was just glad none of the dancers broke down crying or ran off stage during the performances. During Ailsa's semester at home they have often walked Laney to and from school and enjoyed that time together.