Goings and Doings

After Holy Week, it was fortunate that we had Spring Break!  I needed a week to recover and get caught up on life.

Only Bantam14 went anywhere--he was invited to go with his friend, friend's mom and brother, brother's friend and his mom (clear as mud?) to spend two nights/three days at a waterpark in Wisconsin Dells.  The rest of us (sans Papa Rooster, who was away on business nearly the whole week!) stayed close to home and enjoyed the down time. (Exception:  Blondechick17, who had to study for the ACT...and who managed to get in lots of friend time anyway!)

We did have one day of planned fun:  We went to Kenosha's newly-completed Civil War Museum with a couple other families from church, and then to McDonald's for lunch.  Our younger kids went home with one of the families, while I took the two oldest to a job fair.  Not a whole lot came of it, it seems, but it did light the fires and we've been slowly getting a few more applications in.  Blondechick has been called back to take a profile test at one place (Maurice's, a clothing store), so we are hoping she'll get hired there.

Not that she could drive herself to work yet if she did get hired!  To our surprise and dismay, when we went online (a month early) to get time slots for her and Bantam19 to take their tests to get their driver's licenses, the earlist times available--at any of the DMV's in an hour radius--were 11 weeks away, on June 14!  We are hoping and praying that both pass the first time, though I am having fears that B19 (our high-functioning autistic son) won't ever be able to pass.  He's not comfortable or good with unpredictability, and other drivers are anything but predictable.  Still, I know God can help him get that license...and I think he'd be fine driving the same route every day to work or classes.

Both Blondechick17 and Bantam19 took the ACT on Saturday of their spring break...and in the next few weeks, we will be visiting colleges.  BC17's schedule is tight, since she doesn't want to miss any soccer games.  She just was elected one of the team captains of the JV team, and the coach was appalled at the thought of her missing a game:  She's the only player on JV that the coach never takes out.  (We all, including her, are mystified and delighted at her unrealized athletic ability!)

On Thursday and Friday, Blondechick and I are visiting Papa Rooster's and my alma mater, Wheaton College.  On Sunday afternoon we drive to Indiana to visit Taylor University, another Christian college.  After that, we'll pick a day to visit the Kenosha branch of the University of Wisconsin, called Parkside, with Bantam19; it's a good place to take general education requirements, saving some money before transferring to a private school. I'll also take B19 to visit Gateway Tech, our local community college which would be a good option for him to get certification in specific skills.  Blondechick and I want to visit a few more local Christian schools as well:  Trinity College in Deerfield, IL), and Moody and North Park in Chicago.  Hopefully we can get those in before everybody goes home for the summer!

At the other end of the family spectrum...Bantam5 has a loose tooth and got a spring haircut.  He and Chicklet7 are going to stay two days and one night with old friends (their own ages--can that friendship be "old"?) while Blondechick and I visit Wheaton (and I'm slipping away to visit a friend or two as well).  Bantam11 is practicing diligently for a piano judging next month; he'll play ten songs and receive feedback.  He also auditioned for a small role--one scene--in a short film that a professor friend is making.  If gets the role, he has to get a perm!  (Otherwise, he'd have had a spring haircut too.)

Finally, a couple of recent kid funnies:

Bantam5 opened the refrigerator door and exclaimed, "GIVE ME SOME HAM AND MAKE ME A KING!"

Blondechick's junior class had a field trip scheduled to view the Dead Sea Scrolls in Milwaukee.  She confessed to her family that when she initially heard about the trip, she thought it was to see the Dead Sea Squirrels!  "How long did you think that?" I asked.  "Oh, a couple of days..."