Schools Out for Summer!!!

Hey everyone, I have been really bad about keeping up with the blog, so I'll try to catch up now. School is out effective last month - yeah! I've got so much free time now I don't know what to do with myself - down to one job for now. I do miss the kids though, and the extra money. Oh well, good for self preservation.

Alex competed in track this spring with the discus. He qualified for districts, and placed 12th overall for our group. Not bad when he was seeded next to last based on his throws during the season out of 30+ athletes. He was frustrated as he did so well in junior high, where he received several medals, but now he is competing against everyone up through 12th grade. He is hoping to do better next year. He also started working at Dickerson Park Zoo the day after school let out. He is working for guest services and has put several hours in there. He works anywhere from the Cafe to the Giraffe Deck where people can buy crackers and feed the giraffes to the food trailer in our Asia area. He'd like to be able to work more with the animals eventually, but this is a great way to start. He's trying to save some towards a car since he'll get his license in December (can't believe he's old enough - where has the time gone?).

Renan has left us and gone back to Brazil. We didn't see too much of his his last 6 weeks he was here. Once he graduated he was off traveling, visiting St. Louis, Chicago and New York City. He had a blast. We are going to miss him. It was a good experience overall for all of us and hopefully a good one for him. If he sends me the pictures he promised I'll get them posted to the blog.

Ski is doing good - still working hard. He has quite a bit of leave time accrued so he'll be taking off almost every Friday through September. We haven't made too many plans this summer so no long breaks.

I'm doing good too. Like I said, down to one job for the summer. I have been volunteering more at the zoo since I'm usually the one that takes Alex to work for now. With working three 12 hour days each week, I have a little more free time.

Well, hope everyone has a good summer. I'll post more pictures when I can and try to do better and keeping in touch. Our computer has crashed several times these past couple of months so that has kept us out of the loop too. Take care everyone!