September

WOW!! Where have the last few weeks gone?

Life at our house has been very busy. George and I have just finished another cruise season with Holland America/Princess Alaska. The last ship was the Diamond Princess in port at Whittier on Sept 18th. So for now we are both only working 1 job each! We are going to be Winter drivers for HAP Alaska, but rumor is there will not be that much driving....but it keeps us in the random drug testing pool, and we don't have to mess with taking back our uniform parts.

Mark has started his part time job at WalMart. He is working about 16 hours a week. He is doing a great job of balancing school, work, girlfriend, and family. Not such an easy thing to do, but he seems to have it under control at this point! Mark is taking an Astronomy class this semester, and really likes it.

Jeff is loving High School. Hopefully he will get his class work and homework in line. He is really liking JROTC. This weekend he participated in the "Raiders Cup". It is a friendly competition between all of the JROTC's in the Anchorage area on base at Elmendorff AFB. They started on Friday evening with tug-of-war, and other team related competitions. Then spent the night in tents and sleeping bags. It was about 33 degrees yesterday morning!! BBRRRRRR. Jeff is also taking Seminary. He has discovered that his Mom does know something.....Seminary is fun. He was very concerned that it would be boring, kinda like having Sunday School everyday.....But he is excited about going. It also probably helps that 2 of his best friends are also in the class.

Emily is getting very busy with 6th grade. She is doing choir again this year, helping in the library a couple lunch periods a week, and is learning to play the clarinet in band. She is really starting to become a teenager, even tho she is about 1 1/2 years away from official teenage age.
I'm not sure I like that too much....but on the other hand, she is getting to be more and more fun to talk with.