Wisdom Teeth

On Friday Scott had his wisdom teeth removed. What a fun last day of Spring Break for him! He needed them out, though. His two bottom teeth were horizontal in his mouth! I'm pretty sure that's not a good thing!

His surgery was quick. We got there at 7:00, he was called to the back at 7:15, and we were on our way home by 8:15. And Scott was pretty awake and aware by the time we left. Not bad.

Once the bleeding stopped and Scott could take the gauze out (a few hours after we got home), he did really well. I made him take Motrin twice, but I don't think he even needed it the second time.

I took this picture on Sunday evening to document the swelling. I waited a little bit too long - the swelling had already started to go down.

I'm glad his wisdom teeth experience has been pretty uneventful. And it's nice to have gone through that for the last time.

It's Official!

We have another Aggie in the house! Scott found out that he was accepted to Texas A&M! Whoop!

We weren't surprised. He's in the top 2% of his class, and anyone in the top 10% is guaranteed acceptance. But it's nice to have it in writing!

His plan is to go to A&M for one semester. He will submit his mission papers in August or September and hopes the timing works so he can begin serving in late December or early January.

It's hard to believe that by this time next year, Scott will have graduated from high school, completed a semester of college and started his two-year mission for our church.

Where does the time go?

Two Important Dates

I wanted to make note of a couple of important dates:

October 28th.

Jeffrey hit the 18 month mark on his mission. How did that happen? His mission is 3/4 over. He will be home in 6 months.

Time has gone by very quickly. Yet it also feels like he has been gone forever.

I'm so proud of him for choosing to dedicate two years to serving the Lord. I love this picture. I think it shows how happy he is to have made that choice.

October 29th.

Scott turned 18. And I don't have a picture. What a bad mom I am.

I'm finding it hard to believe that MY BABY IS 18! I'm getting old.

Scott's a great kid. I actually enjoy having him around. I'm grateful for his strong desire to do what's right and for his love of the gospel. In a little over a year, he'll be serving a mission. Following in his older brothers' footsteps.

It's exciting to recognize these important dates in Jeffrey and Scott's lives. I'm proud to be their mom.

The Driving Test

Scott is a licensed driver! Woo hoo!

But it wasn't easy.

The whole ordeal started a couple of weeks ago when Scott and I went to the DPS near us and discovered he would have to wait six weeks to take his driving test. We weren't happy about that, but weren't sure what we could do about it.

I had heard that the DPS an hour from us had shorter wait times, but the only way to find out would be to drive there. The DPS is too busy to answer their phones any more (as the message on their phone so nicely states). I wasn't thrilled with the idea of the drive, but one morning I got up and did it. I made the drive.

The only good thing? There's a very nice Buc-ee's along the way. I love Buc-ee's! (And if you don't know what Buc-ee's is, that's your loss)!

After waiting a few minutes, it was my turn. I asked the nice woman behind the counter how long the wait for the driving test was. She told me they were making appointments for a week from that day. I asked her if there was any way we could change Scott's appointment to their location. She asked if he was with me, I said no, but I had his permit. She took it, looked him up online, and asked when the following Friday we would like to come in. I left their office with an appointment for Scott the next Friday! Hallelujah!

The day finally arrived. We made the long drive to the DPS. After waiting a little bit, Scott and the DPS tester went out to the car. About 15 minutes later they walked back in.

Scott was not happy.

Apparently he had hit the curb while parallel parking (which is the first thing on the test). This was enough for the tester to flunk him. He didn't even let him do any driving. Because he hit the curb while parallel parking. (I'm still not sure what they were doing out there for 15 minutes).

We were very annoyed, to put it mildly. We rescheduled for the following Monday - 10 long days away.

It was not a fun hour drive home.

I blame myself for his parallel parking problems. With Robert working in Salt Lake City, it fell to me to teach Scott to parallel park. I'm a pretty good driver, but I'm not a good parallel parker. I understand how to do it, but the execution isn't always good. Also, the night before his test, we had driven to the DPS closer to us to practice in their parallel parking area. He was doing great there. The problem is that their parallel parking spot is about 2 feet deeper than the parallel parking spot where Scott took his test. So he got used to going further into the spot.

But even if he had hit the curb, that seems to be a stupid reason to not let him continue the test.

Fortunately Robert came home the weekend before the retest. So on Saturday we made the hour long drive to the DPS so Scott could practice parallel parking there. And receive coaching from Robert - who is a very good parallel parker. By the time we left, Scott had parallel parking down.

Monday morning we made the long drive back to the DPS. Unfortunately he had to retest with the same guy.

Fortunately we had a much better outcome this time. He passed!

As we waited at the desk for the tester to complete the paperwork, he told Scott that he needed to work on relaxing while he was driving. Really?!? This man had already failed Scott once, and he expected him to be relaxed while driving with him? I really had to bite my tongue to keep from saying something!

Needless to say, it was a much pleasanter ride home!

And now my baby is a licensed driver. Here he is in front of his sweet ride:

(Okay, it's not a sweet ride. But it's ride. And that's all that Scott cares about.)

It's nice to have him driving. But now he's really independent. And that's a little bit sad.

Braggin' on Scott

Today was Scott's last day of school at the American School of Milan! Yes, I know he got out really late, but he didn't start school until September 1st. And he had more random days off then I would have thought possible. So it all worked out. In recognition of his completing a year of school in a foreign country, I'm doing a bragging post about him. Do not feel obligated to read it!

The first picture is church not school related. Scott and I successfully completed a year of seminary together! Woo hoo! Two Sundays ago he received his completion certificate. I imagine he'll be the only one in our ward with a seminary certificate in Italian!

I have to say how much I appreciate Scott's willingness to get up and have seminary with me every morning. I'm sure it wasn't always exciting to have a one on one class with his Mom, but he never complained. And we both survived the experience!

Last Tuesday, we went to the 9th, 10th, and 11th grade Awards Ceremony at the school. Here's Scott with the three awards he received. (He didn't wear the fedora to the ceremony, but he did insist on putting it on at home for the picture.)
The first award was for Academic Excellence. This was given to all students with a GPA of over 3.6 (on a 4.0 scale).
Before I talk about his next two awards, bear in mind that the junior class is small. There are only 43 kids in his whole class! But it's still pretty cool that he won these awards.

He received the award for Outstanding 11th Grade Student in Chemistry. We weren't really surprised he got this award. His teacher had told me that Scott seemed to understand the class much better than the other kids and he was always helping kids out.
The third award he received did surprise us all - Outstanding 11th Grade Student in English. He's always done well in English, but we were surprised he was picked for the award. Before his teacher announced who won, she said that the student always liked to debate and challenge ideas. Robert and I knew she was talking about Scott! And we were right!
To top off his pretty successful year in Milan, Scott found out yesterday that he got a 2280 (out of 2400) on the SAT! He got a perfect 800 in Math and a perfect 800 in Reading! We were all pretty excited about that.

Scott has done great this past year. He was probably our best kid to bring to Italy. He easily adapted to life and school here and made some good friends along the way.

Oh, and his true personality has come out over here too. In the yearbook, Scott was picked as "Most Argumentative"! Some things never change!

Scott's Adventure on the Train

We took the train to and from Venice last weekend. I enjoy the train. Scott hated the train before this trip, and after what happened to him, he now detests the train!

The seats on the train are set up so there are four seats on each side of the aisle. Two seats will face the other two seats, with a little table in between. When you buy tickets, Trenitalia assigns your seats, so you hope you're sitting near the people you're riding with.

On the way up, we had the nice seating. Robert and I were on one side of the table and Scott was on the other. The other seat was taken by some random Italian man who was with two women across the aisle. That trip was fine.

On the trip back, Robert and I were on one side of the aisle and Scott was across the aisle from us. The other three seats in his foursome were taken by 3 middle aged Italian women traveling together. Scott said he moved over in his seat as far as he could, to give the lady next to him her space. Then he fell asleep (as only a teenager can do).

When he awoke, he discovered that the woman across from him had put her foot on the seat between him and the lady next to him! And not her shoed foot - her bare foot! Scott was disgusted, to say the least! He said if he had been awake when she did it, he would have said something, but it was too late by the time he woke up.

I can not believe that someone would be so rude. Or maybe I can...

We still have to ride the train to Rome and back sometime. We may have to drag Scott onto the train!

So Different

Saturday evening Scott took the subway into Milan and met the three other American 11th grade guys at his American school for dinner. It still makes me a little nervous to have him go off on the subway alone, especially at night, but that's how you get around in this town. And he made it there and back, so it's all good.

They all met at a Mexican restaurant (which I didn't even know existed). Scott said the fajitas were good, and the chips and salsa were never ending, so Robert and I are going to have to figure out where the restaurant is and give it a try.

Scott got home at about 10:30. He said the other three guys were going to a club. They didn't ask Scott, since they know he's Mormon. They didn't ask him, because they were going to the club to drink. Apparently, the legal drinking age in Italy is 16!

Maybe it's just me, but even if we weren't Mormon, I wouldn't want my 17--year-old going to a club to drink.

What do you think?

11th Grade Student of the Month!

Scott came home last week and told me he had been picked as the American School of Milan's 11th grade Student of the Month. They only started doing this in February, so he was the 2nd student picked. Granted, there are only about 40 kids in the whole 11th grade, but it's still pretty neat!

I told him if he didn't bring my camera to school and take pictures, I would. Knowing I meant it, he took my camera and came home with some pictures! Here's one of the poster:

And here's one I didn't even ask for - him standing next to the poster:
Scott was quite surprised to be named Student of the Month, and still maintains that he didn't deserve the honor. I'm pretty proud of him.

Scott

I'm so impressed with Scott's willingness to try things while we are here in Milan.

On Sunday, he blessed the Sacrament in Italian. He worked very hard with the Young Men President to learn how to pronounce all of the words correctly. He has really wanted to participate in blessing the Sacrament, and he persevered until he could.

Today he left to go on a three day stake youth temple trip to the Bern Switzerland Temple. He may very well be the only English speaker on the trip. The two girls from our ward who speak English are out of town (these three days are a holiday). There is another English speaking family who lives in our stake, but we're not sure if they were going. We told him he didn't have to go, but he wanted to. He really wants to be involved, even if it's difficult.

And yesterday I found out that while I was gone, he bore his testimony in Fast and Testimony Meeting - in Italian! Basic Italian, but I'm so impressed that he wanted to share his testimony and had the courage to do so.

He is much more willing to try new experiences than I would have been at his age. I'm proud of him.

A Boy and His Boots

I have already posted about this on FaceBook, but I decided to post about it on my blog also, since it's my online journal.

Last March, after we knew for sure we were moving overseas, Scott decided he needed a pair of cowboy boots to take with him. Robert was home visiting then and thought that was a great idea. So he and Scott went to Cavender's Boot City and Scott picked out a pair of boots.

Fast forward to last Wednesday when our shipment of stuff came from home. Scott was happy to see his cowboy boots, and proudly wore them to school on Thursday. When he got home from school I asked if anyone had said anything about them and received a resounding yes! Besides getting comments from people, he had to get up in front of two of his classes and model them! The kids and even the teachers really enjoyed seeing his boots, and it really cemented in their minds that he was the kid from Texas!

Here he is in his boots. Note that he also wore his state of Texas t-shirt!

Here's a close up of the "detailing" on his boots.
As they say, "You can take the boy out of Texas, but you can't take Texas out of the boy".

11th Grade "Bonding" Trip

Today Scott went on a field trip. Excuse me - I mean he went on a "bonding" trip. The whole 11th grade was invited. Bear in mind, the whole 11th grade consists of about 40 kids. That's right - 40. About 25 of them chose to go. And where did they go?

White water rafting.

That's right. Scott went white water rafting for a field trip. I guess they figured that trying to keep your raft from capsizing would be a good way to bond with your fellow classmates.

Scott loved it! They made them all jump in the water, and he did say that it was freezing. The cold that takes your breath away when you jump in. But he had a great time. They rafted through some rapids, which he thought was great.

I'm not sure any field trip in an American school can compare with this one.

Eagle!!

Scott passed his Eagle Board of Review last night! Woo hoo! All three of our boys are now Eagle Scouts!

If you had told me a few weeks ago that Scott would be an Eagle Scout before we left for Italy, I would have said "no way". By that time, I was confident he could have his project done, but I didn't think we could get the paperwork done in time for an Eagle Board of Review. I thought he'd have to have his Board next summer when we came to visit.

But Stacy, our fearless Eagle mentor, had other plans. She pushed for Scott's recommendation letters - getting them back quicker than I think anyone has ever gotten them back! Then she set up the Board. I'm really grateful to her for everything she did.

Because of her I got to take this picture of Scott after his Board:

And this picture of Scott with the District Advancement Chair:
Congratulations, Scott! I'm proud of you!

Am I Feeling Benevolent?

I'm still trying to decide if I should be a nice mom, or if I should play a doozy of a trick on Scott. Here's the back story:

Three years ago our family was supposed to move to Singapore for a year. It just so happened that while Jeffrey and Scott were at Scout Camp, things changed and we ended up not moving. When the boys got back from Scout Camp we told them we weren't moving. Jeffrey was elated, but Scott was disappointed. He was ready and anxious to spend his 8th grade year in Singapore.

Fast forward to now. In August Scott and I will be joining Robert in Milan, Italy. We will be living there the next two years. Scott has spent the last two weeks at Philmont Scout Ranch. Before he left he told me, "I'd better not come back from Philmont and find out we're not moving".

Scott gets back tonight. Robert is coming for a week beginning on Friday.

Do I:

A. Tell Scott Dad is coming to visit for a week.

or

B. Tell Scott Dad is coming home on Friday, and nothing more.

What to do, what to do.

What would you do?

Scott Must Have a Double

Scott was absent from school today. All day. I just got a message from the school informing me that Scott was absent from 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th periods today. I guess his doppelganger was there for 1st and 7th periods!

Happy 16th Birthday, Scott!

Today is Scott's 16th birthday. My BABY is 16! That makes me feel old. Here he is, oh so many years ago:

And here he is today, with his birthday presents:

Scott is a great kid, and I'm glad I get to watch him grow up.

Happy birthday, Scotty!!

Gratitude? In High School?!?

Scott's English teacher had the students draw posters about a word of their choice.  Scott's word was "satiric", which isn't really important to the story but gives an example of a word.  The teacher hung the ones that were visually appealing out in the hall.    

One of the posters was for the word "condescending" and showed a mother reading a book to a child.  I don't like the sentiment of that poster, but apparently it was very well done, which was why it was one of the ones hung in the hallway.

Today Scott heard some of his friends talking very loudly in the hallway.  They called him over and showed him something on the poster.  Apparently if you looked very closely, you could read part of the cover of the book.  It was "The Book of Mor___".  Scott's friends know he's Mormon, and they were appalled on his behalf.  Their loudness brought the teacher out of the room.  When they pointed the words out to the teacher, she removed the book from the hallway.

I'm grateful that Scott has been open with his friends about his beliefs.  I'm grateful they realize how important what he believes is to him, and they respect him for those beliefs. I'm grateful his teacher listened to them and took appropriate action.

When I got home tonight, Scott was making thank you cards for his friends and writing a thank you note to his teacher.  

Sometimes good things even happen in high school! 

Scott is Happy!

Today was the long awaited day.  After 2-1/2 years, Scott got his braces off!  Woo hoo!  One more visit next week to get his retainer, and we are done with the orthodontist! Sorry, Dr. Stevenson and staff - you are very nice people, but we won't miss you!  

I would post a picture, but he wants to get the pearly whites professionally cleaned before he shows them off too much. Goofy guy.

CSI

We definitely watch too much CSI at our house.  As I've said before, our little cat, Ming, likes to bring lizards in the house.  Sometimes we catch them when they are still alive. Sometimes we don't find them until they are, well, not so alive.  Sometimes we only find parts of them (usually tails).  

Today I asked Scott to come get the lizard tail that was under the desk.  (And he didn't even look askance when I asked him to do it.)  He picked it up (with a tissue) and said, "Whoa."  I said, "What?"  He replied, (and this is how I know we watch too much CSI):

"Rigor has already set in."

Haircuts

Jeffrey and Scott NEED haircuts.  Desperately.  Jeffrey and Scott WANT haircuts.  Desperately.  But they can't get haircuts until Saturday.  Why, you ask?  Because of Winter Drumline.  Their last competition is Friday night, and they have to be able to do this to their hair:

Their hair has to be long enough that they can gel it up and make it crazy.  (Jeffrey's looks a little tame in that picture - it was actually wilder looking.)  I don't know why the whole Winter Drumline decided that wild hair should be part of their costume, but they did.  So, we are stuck with their long, moppish looking hair until Saturday.

The things we do for ART!!

Cha Ching!!

High school = expensive.

Last payment for Jeffrey and Scott to go to Disney World with the band.  Cha ching!!  

Payment for Jeffrey to take 8 (yes, 8) AP exams.  Cha ching!!

I'm okay with these expenses.  This is probably the only way the boys will get to Disney World.  And if Jeffrey does well on all 8 AP exams he will save us money in college.  He has already passed 4 tests, so he would have credit for 12 college classes if he passes these 8.  (Study, Jeffrey, study.)  

It just would have been nice if both rather large payments had not been due the same day!  Cha ching!!  Cha ching!!