I was cleaning out the freezer yesterday and noticed a little bag of snow labeled RIP and Grace had saved a little snowman she made. Haha
We went to a retirement community on Sunday so the kids could play piano/cello for the elderly people that live there. It was especially nice and the activities lady at the facility invited us back to do a Christmas concert. She said the residents absolutely loved it, offered to send us flowers or a gift card and she couldn’t thank us enough. At the risk of sounded exactly like my mom (my kids already assure me that I act like a Grandma), I really enjoyed having our children serving with their talents. To make it even more fun, they played a few pieces from The Piano Guys. I called my mom and told her about their little performance. She happened to have a temple recommend interview with John Schmidt who is in her stake presidency. She told him about her grandchildren playing his music. When I told the kids about her interaction, their eyes lit up with the prospect that he actually knew about them. It was quite sweet. Grace told me she had asked Ryan who he’d like to meet more than anyone and he responded with MLB baseball players. She asked who, excluding baseball players, and he had said John Schmidt to this was pretty neat for him. Hopefully, this will make getting him to practice a little less painful on my part. Wink, wink
Jonathan's subtle sense of humor was on point Sunday evening when Mike was having a talk with him about how he needs to make a game plan (ie. apply for scholarships) for college since he won't qualify for pell grant. Being a straight, white male won't do him a lot of favors when it comes to financial assistance. Jonathan expressed his frustrations that colleges and Mike have very different ideas of "estimated parent contribution" saying, "They're wrongly assuming this is a kid that grew up with A/C." Jonathan is always feeling too hot (often sleep deprived from being too hot) and Mike is a stickler about not running the A/C if possible or keeping it at warmer temperatures since A/C can get pricy. Thus, the subtle humor. Just enough truth about an on-going topic at our house to make it quite funny.
James helped pay for an electric assist bike that he got for his birthday and has been riding it to seminary, school, water polo and back. It's been so helpful for me and he's had such a great attitude about biking to and from school. He's also taking a weightlifting class in hopes of eventually becoming a body builder to impress girls. Between treading water and weightlifting he is super tired every night. I texted James the other day asking him if he wanted to get AP Test help. Instead of saying he didn't want to take the class he replied with, "I've got Joshfin". Nice that he has a built and tutor and sweet that he referred to Jonathan as Joshfin since that's how he used to pronounce his name when they were little boys. James pointed to a speedo on the the hooks where we keep backpacks and jackets and asked if it was his. I assured him that any speedo in the house was his because no one else would be confident enough to be running around in a loincloth. He said he was actually asking about a sweatshirt but we both had a good laugh.
Along the same lines, Ryan wants to be a professional baseball player. If this is really the case, he ought to get better at keeping track of his cup because I swear he loses it every single day.
Jonathan came home soaking wet with sweat from playing tennis last night. It's funny that he decided to take up tennis. He has the perfect build for a baseball player. He's tall and strong which is a winning combo for baseball. Mike mentioned to me that at times it's painful to see his build and know he's not playing baseball. Several months ago, Mike and I had a talk with Jonathan about how he's not too old to try new sports or pick up old ones (hint, hint) even though he's 17. We never actually said baseball since there's no more sure way to get him to not do something than by actually suggesting it but we said everything short of baseball to encourage him to give it another try. Apparently the talk made a difference but not in the way as intended because now he's into tennis.
