I was up at 4:30 this morning, heading south on I-5. I stopped off in Seattle to pick up Grammy J
(Janet Johnson) to take her down to see her youngest grandson’s first home
football game. He got recruited by
College of the Siskiyou’s in Reed, California just at the base of Mount
Shasta. She’s soon 75 and has some
vision problems and can’t drive that far, and I just love that woman so much
I’ll do anything for her – including a ten hour drive south one day, and ten
hours back the next.
We were both surprised by how quickly the day zipped by –
and with only a few pit stops we made it in nine hours. It was good weather, light traffic and
nothing but God’s creation in front of us.
At one point I spotted a very large branch (think small tree) that had
obviously fallen off the back of someone’s truck. It was smack in the middle of the fast lane
where I was driving, so I just gently steered onto the shoulder of the road to
avoid hitting it. As soon as I started
veering, Janet freaked out and wondered where in the world I was heading. I told her I was avoiding the tree in the
road. Her response: “What tree?” That’s why I drove.
Julian, Janet’s grandson, has been complaining about what a
dead town Weed is, and I’ve been giving him little encouragements on Facebook
to hopefully lighten his load, but after arriving here this afternoon, I have
to say, it’s as dead as I’ve seen a town be dead. The whole downtown area is a ghost town and
only a few fast food joints next to the freeway keep any lights on. But, he loves football and he’s on the
starting line-up so that’s why he’s here.
He has two very nice boys for roommates that are both from Western
Washington. Janet took them all out for
dinner tonight and we were both more than impressed with them all.
Kaleb only had a half day of school today because his pal,
Brayden, wanted to spend time with him.
When the cats away, the mice do play.
Kory has a hard time keeping Kaleb on track and Kaleb knows how to play
him. Oh well.
Yesterday Kaleb attended his English and Physics classes for
the first time. He’s already been
labeled “That Genius Kid” by the high schoolers. He just shrugs his shoulders and has a smirk
look on his face when he hears it. The
kids in that class are respectful of his intelligence so I don’t worry about
any kind of bullying going on. He’s so
excited to be in there and he came home just pumped up after doing their first
lab. I’m preparing for the tears when he
has to write up his lab report, however.
But maybe he’ll surprise me.
One of his English homework assignments is to write a
five-paragraph essay on how God’s essence is reflected in nature. Kaleb thought writing about the traits of
dogs would be a good idea – that they are faithful, loyal and show
unconditional love, or something like that.
I can’t wait to read it. He was
even excited about that assignment! But he
has about eight hours of homework for each class each week so he’s going to
have to figure out how to manage his time, very soon.
Kaleb was half way through the Honors Algebra class from
Johns Hopkins University before we went to Norway. I thought he could finish it up when we were
there, but our internet connection didn’t work well enough for him to watch the
lectures. He was ready to take the
midterm exam when we left in April, so this week he’s been having to watch
every single lecture again to try and refresh his brain on all he learned six
months ago. He’s gotta take that midterm
exam by Monday if he’s going to finish the class on time, so he’s got a heavy
work load right now. I’ve been having to
give him lots of pep talks because he’s in the whole “Why do I need to know
algebra?” mode.
Our friends, John and Dee Foreman, stopped by for lunch on
Thursday on their way home from having a few days in the San Juan Islands. We love spending time with them and they just
adore Kaleb. Kory grilled up some of the
salmon Kaleb caught so he was pretty proud to share it with them. I also roasted up some veggies I got from the
organic farm we bought a “share” from.
Talk about delicious! There’s a
ministry here in town that has a five-acre plot of land they grow organic
veggies on, and we paid a fixed price and every week we go on Wednesdays to
pick up our share. I’ve never seen such
good-looking produce in all my life, and it tasted incredible. We’ve already eaten up about half of it
because it was so good! What a great
perk to living in farm country.
Every day I’m in awe of the life we’ve been given. I know it won’t always be this good, nor has
it been this good in the past, but man, it’s sure good right now. Thank you, Jesus!
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