Family news

I just have to share how proud I am of my family. I'll start with Lloyd - he's such an incredible husband. He does so much related to house maintenance, etc. (stuff that not only do I have no desire to do, but also have no skill to do). Right now the new project is going to be replacing our fuel tank. The insurance company that we have been with for several years has gone belly up, so now we have to deal with a new insurance agent. Apparently the company we've been dealing with for house insurance doesn't allow you to just transfer agents - you have to reapply. And... because our oil tank is over 10 years old (likely over 20 years old), it'll have to be replaced in order to get insurance. Sigh. It's likely going to be close to $2,000. Not on our planned expenditures, but we'll manage. I think we have to pay someone to install and hook it up, but we can do all the foundation stuff ourselves (put down crushed rock and a cement pad).

Now, to share about Rose. She's informed us that she has an A average so far this term. This is totally awesome! She's never had an A average before, and she's not exactly taking a light load with both Chemistry and Physics (no, they're not A's, but they're good solid B's) as well as Math and three other subjects. So I can say that the move to Western has been really good for her. She is off to Minot for a Youth Rally this weekend I think. (I think is because it depends on whether her passport got to her on time or not. We express mailed it to her Tuesday morning.)

Finally, Bram. He has been working extremely hard at his home schooling. A lot of the time he's not supervised, because I go back and forth to work (I teach from 11 to 12 and from 3-4); but he's been very diligent. He's also doing very well. He was telling me this afternoon, on the way out the door to piano lessons, that he really hadn't practiced as much as he should have this past week. (I never thought I'd ever hear such an admission!) Anyway, I can really see the maturity that he's developing as he shows such responsibility.

As a total aside, both kids are still shorter than me (but not for long). I'm 5'2" (because I round up), and they're both about 5'1". There's about 1/2 an inch between my height and theirs.

This next week Lloyd and I are taking a First Responders course through St. Johns Ambulance. It's a 40 hour course, and we're taking it from 6 to 10 pm Tuesday and Thursday, and from 8 to 5 for Saturday and Sunday on next weekend and the weekend after. It should be fairly brutal, but it means we don't have to take time off work to take the course I think we'll learn a lot.

It's snowing outside right now. Bram should be very happy. All the snow we had did melt, and we've had lovely fall weather, but Bram's been moping around wanting snow.

Last night Bram and I cooked a supper "A la francaise". We had l'escargot avec le beurre ail, les champignon etouffes and la soupe d'oignon francais for les apperitifs. Bram said it was a lot more fun cooking it than eating it. He wasn't very impressed with any of the appetizers. Then we had les cotelettes de porc dijonnais avec les patates, les legumes Alfredo and la salade d'hote for the main course. Instead of dessert we had bread (baguettes of course) with cheese for a final course. I enjoyed it all. The escargot and French Onion soup brought back a lot of memories. Back when I was a penniless university student, those were usually the cheapest things you could order off a menu, so I got so I quite liked them both.