Josephine sat for the ninth grade finals through Easton High School and passed with all As. So, she enrolled back in school as a sophomore, but, was still online as was the whole county, and the whole country.
As the pandemic lessened, the high school offered that a small number of students could return to campus. To my surprise, Josephine wanted to go. Her thinking, she said, was that the social distance would make everyone eat lunch alone. So this photo is her first official day of school in the tenth grade. This patch would only last less than a week - COVID shut us back up in the house. But - what I learned here from my beautiful little wonder is that if you want something, you have to make it happen.
She didn't like people - she found an online school. She wanted an in person teacher - she went back to the classroom with all its restrictions. Basically, if she sets her mind to it, she gets it.
The outrageously fun part of all this for me is that I remember that house full of toddlers and babies and how James and I would always say to them, You can do this, you solve the problem, you fix it. Turns out that might have been good advice, right?
Also, please note Josephine has ten fingers up - for tenth grade. Also, on her hand, see where she wrote her classroom numbers in order? Plus, she had a map in her pocket. She never did get lost. Why? Because she was prepared. Prepared is her middle name. That black thing hanging from her wrist her is her mask. She wouldn't let me take a picture of it with it on.....
James and I thought it would be great to save this old place by building it out from the inside but leaving the outside as a sad old mess. Maybe there's a company somewhere, like a house moving company, that will make this house a structurally sound shell, and we can use a huge crane to lift it over the new modern house we build to go under it.
Halloween will always be a blast at our house.
Josephine is turning sixteen, so her requests included a trip to IKEA and a hike with her sisters. Being the reasonable creature that she was born to be, she chose a hike on the western shore, near an IKEA she hadn't previously visited.
Later in the week we had cheesecake on the side of the road with her grandmother to celebrate. Of course we did.
James' hair is curly. It's so curly that most people don't know how long it really is because all they see is curls. It's beautiful, but it requires some work. Here's James' before and after photos.
James has been "down" since January of this year with a back injury and the resulting treatments, physical therapies and surgery. It's been a hard year. Last week, though, he had his follow up with the surgeon and got great news - his vertebrae are fused! James can now get off of the couch he has occupied for the last seven months and join us in living life.
SnapChat is an app on our phones. The kids use it all the time, but, James and I only talk to them and use the filters for fun. Are these fun, or what?
