Fabulous Army Life

It was time for the teenager to learn to ski. The obvious instructor in our house is Dad, and father and son had a wonderful day trip to Round Top.  He's now zipping down the slopes and having a great time.

My theater-loving teen is thrilled with our relative proximity to New York City and, more specifically, the Theater District on Broadway. In his fifteen years, he has seen four Broadway shows already ... "Wicked" for his thirteenth birthday, "Cinderella" and "Aladdin" as part of a Fairfax County school field trip to Broadway for his 8th grade theater class (including an acting class with one of the actors in Cinderella!), and now "Phantom of the Opera" for his fifteenth birthday. For his fourteenth birthday, we saw "Peter and the Star Catchers" at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. Quite a resume of experiences for someone who can't yet even drive. I am grateful that we live close enough to make the drive and back in one day. We want to take advantage of our location while we're here and our kids have definitely reaped the benefits of that. This trip was a lot of fun, starting with a delicious Italian dinner at Orso, then ...

My teen went to his first homecoming dance tonight, but not at the school he currently attends.  It a crazy turn of events, we ended up back in the Washington DC area on the very weekend that the high school he would have attended hosted their Homecoming.    With the power of modern media, he was able to learn about the weekend through friends and accepted an invitation from a great friend to attend the dance.  I was very proud of his resourcefulness as he had to locate, download, and print a permission form, obtain the signature of his current school principal, and arrange with his friend to meet up for the dance.  These may sound like mundane tasks, but for my teen, this was somewhere near monumental.    He had a great time and I'm glad he got the opportunity to go to the dance ... especially since he missed his current school homecoming, happening the same night.  Funny coincidences but a superfun night.

My teenager began an adolescent rite of passage today in getting braces on his teeth. We were both so pleased with his orthodontist, Dr. Garai, and his entire staff. All were friendly, professional, and efficient. Each person who dealt with Trey took the time to explain what they were doing and ask if he had any questions. It was a fairly quick process and now he's ready for the next 18+ months of life with braces. His biggest disappointment is not being able to chew gum, but his beautiful straight smile will be worth it in the end.  :) Before Teeth cleaning Preparing for the braces Adding the bands After!

My teenager lives by the mantra, "If you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute."  This creates some stressful moments in our lives ("oh -- I have a project that was due today but I'll do it now and turn it in tomorrow") ... but it all works out in the end. Fortunately, my teenager is also brilliant and talented so he turns last-minute work into beautifully completed projects.  For this project, he read The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells (a book he had chosen on his own before the assignment was given) and created a storyboard from it.  He artfully illustrated six cards, skillfully chose quotes for each to explain the action, and quickly wrote a paragraph about his choices for the storyboard. His completed work is fantastic and I'm so proud of his many amazing abilities and talents.  Now, I'm off to create an assignment calendar to help us track deadlines ...