Birthdays and curriculum trips

Today is Alex's 16th birthday! Happy Birthday Alex!

Who knows what exciting things we will do today - but all of it will be family involvement. Some gifts, some cake (or maybe pudding oh or an ice cream cake ), possibly going out to see a movie - or maybe renting a few good ones and staying home with the comfy fire, and, I think, going out to Bandido's for dinner (unless he'd rather us make homemade tortilla's?). We shall see. But he is going to wait until after his week long curriculum trip to have a party with his friends. Which, will be on Halloween night. I wonder if they've made a list of possible scary movies to rent after collecting some candy that night?? (I know I can give them a few good suggestions if they want!)

Before I go on with what the boys will be doing this coming week I realized that I did not touch on one interesting and great thing that both Alex and Jared have decided to take on at their school! They are training to become "Social Inclusion Helpers". So, from what I understand, they will be going down to the lower school play ground (I don't know how often), to be aware of and help work through, any bullying or teasing with the younger students. This training is a 3 year process and is something new. If you want to read more about it you can go to http://www.thechildtoday.com/SocialInclusion/ to learn more. Their first step is to start listening and noting how many put-downs they hear amongst themselves in the high school - so honing their listening skills. Overall I think this will not only look good on a college application, but will be an important skill for themselves out in the real world! I'll keep you posted on what exciting things they are doing.

Yesterday (Saturday) Alex was back at school from 8am until almost 12noon taking the PSATs. He says it was boring but he thinks he did okay. He made a great comment about how silly it was to put judgement on someone's memory retention as to how smart they are - but he was willing to play along. I have no idea when they find out their scores but I'm sure they'll be another post later on that. :)

So, even though it's Alex's birthday today and we'll be doing some stuff together both Alex and Jared have to completely pack up for the week long curriculum trips - which is the other thing I was going to write about this morning.

Jared's class will be traveling to a place called Sustenance Farm in Bear Creek, NC. The 9th grade trip is an agriculutural intensive for the 9th grade and students will engage in farm work and chores, gardening, and working in nature. This is the same location they take the 9th grade every year - so Alex's class went last year and they seemed to have a blast! (For those of you who I sent the youtube videos of them singing together - that was a piece of it!)

Alex's class will be traveling to the Paradise Campground in Danville, VA. The trip is craft intensive for the 10th grade and students will engage in hands-on experiences with fiber and craft.

So we will be child-free for 5 whole days. 'Nuff said!