Y.M.E. (Part One)

When I read a book (if possible) I like to read the whole thing straight through. I didn't read the Harry Potter series until after the last book came out because that would require waiting to get to the end. (Not that I ever jump to the end to make sure the book has a happy ending... I just like to read the whole thing from start to finish.)

I guess my blog posts work the same way. I have 3 unfinished posts between this one and the last published one, so apparently if I don't finish them in one attempt I won't finish them at all!

So anyway... Here's a quick review of the nearly completed school year. I don't have a whole lot to put on here about Todd, except that he's shown some interest in joining archery and tennis next year....and maybe bowling as well...which is great news as I've really been struggling to get him involved with the athletics part of school.

The bad thing is, he's really good at sports and gets an "A" every quarter in gym (I only remember getting A's for archery and swimming) - but for some reason that I've yet to discover, he's reluctant to join.

Not that he could join anyway, as he brings home the attention grabbing upper-case "F" every quarter for band, but at least he's showing an interest. (He never turns in his practice time and occasionally skips his lessons.)

I'm really hoping that David also joins archery and bowling. The bowling part because he recently outscored one of his friends who's won trophies and been bowling for years - and the archery part because I honestly think that Todd would kick his ass... and David could really use a lesson in humility all served up nice and tidy by his younger brother. :)

Alllllllrighty, then. About David...

This year, as I think I may have mentioned in an earlier post, David dropped out of basketball to be on the Math Team and be in the Knowledge Bowl. He was oddly reluctant to ask permission to do so, but was given an enthusiastic "Hell yeah!!!".

I can't tell you right off hand how they did... and he's currently in Washington D.C. with the Regiment 212 Marching Band (the combined marching bands from Yellow Medicine East of Granite Falls and the Montevideo High School - which are both towns on Highway 212) ...and it's now midnight:35ish where he's at and probably not the best time to call him.

He was also in tennis again this year. I'm not sure if it has anything to do with the combination of his mom having played racquetball and me growing up with a ping-pong table in the basement, or if if the credit should go to the Wii game system, but the boy really seems to have a knack for the game. In fact, (I say this proudly as I just plain straight-up suck at most sports involving a ball - thus, no A's except for archery and swimming) he's Second Singles... which means he's the second best player on the team, and it's only his second year.

Of course, the down side to this is that he plays the second best player on whatever team they compete against - which often means he's paired with some really strong players. And even though he was handed more losses than wins this year, he made the other guy work for it.
(I was only able to make it to one game this year as they were mostly out of town, but at that game the back-and-forth hitting during one of their volleys...or whatever the tennis term is...went on for so long that the matches on both sides of theirs stopped to watch, and the spectators for both the visiting and home teams broke into applause when the volley...thing... ended!


OK. Gotta think now...

Oh yeah. David was also on the Honor Roll every quarter this year. (Todd? Ummm... No.)

Aside from Marching Band which I'd mentioned earlier, David also played in the Pep Band, and there's probably something else band related that I'm forgetting.

Unfortunately, the school (again - Y.M.E.) is set up with fewer time slots available for classes than we had where I went to high school, and David had to drop out of choir in order to take Spanish. (I liked choir.)


Without taking the effort to go through any of the earlier posts to see if I'm repeating myself, I'll take the chance of saying that David and Todd are often in the once-a-week, small town local newspaper. In the past, Todd is usually standing where he's mostly blocked by someone or he's just outside the frame of the picture - but this year he had some really nice close-ups of him. (One for helping with the Christmas Cookie Music Dept. Fundraiser, and the other for a Science/Invention Show.)

And back to Todd...

The kid has an incredible talent for stretching out his homework in order to get out of housework.

His class had to read "The Giver" and do a book report on it. It took him so long that I finally said, "Todd, I could have read the whole book AND done the report by now!!! Quit screwing around! I wanted to go fishing sometime this weekend!"

He said, "Fishing?"

Done. 15 minutes.


So once again I am without kids - with David being in D.C. and Todd at his mom's.
Time for laundry and for some male bonding with Dangit. (the cat)

And as I spellcheck this, I see the only part of "midnight:35ish" that's wrong is the "ish".
Guess that should have been "midnight:35 or so". My bad. :)