JULY 2002 Family Update
Well it's been a while since I did one of these family updates and so much has gone on. But before we dig in to what has happened around here I just want to wish all a happy 4th of July. I hope it was as enjoyable for you as it was for our family.
As usual lets start out with the children.
Matthew
We have had a great year in school with Matthew, as I said in my earlier updates he has exceeded our expectations by quite a stretch. Terri was almost in tears when she got to see Matthew get his graduation paper from kindergarten. That means he gets to start in first grade this next school year. This past spring Matthew was involved with a number of school projects and did extremely well in all of them. Below you will find links to pictures and videos of some of Matthews activities. Although School is out for the summer Matthew has continued to do daily school work and we have him taking piano lessons. He is really enjoying the piano and looks forward to seeing his piano teacher every week. We also finally got the chance to launch the rockets I spoke about in the last update and Matthew really had a good time with that. Matthew has been very healthy with no illnesses to speak of, not even a cold.
The Rocket Launch Matthew's Kindergarten Graduation Matthew Dancing The Pledge of Allegiance
These links will work if you have Windows Media Player, however I am not sure if other programs can run these files. Also note that these files although not large might take a bit of time to load on computers that use a dialup modem.
Christopher Chris has kept us pretty busy until his departure in June to live with his dad. It was in February that I reported to you that he got in to a little trouble with his Internet access. Since that time he felt that we were being to hard on him and asked if he could live with his dad. At first I thought of this as his thinking the grass was greener on the other side of the fence, then I began to see the benefits of this request. To start with he has never really spent any growing up with his biological father, so this provided an opportunity for Chris and his dad to get to know each other on a truly father and son relationship. The second reason this became a good idea was the schools that he would attend while living with his father.
Our high school in Columbia has much to be desired and really does not provide for anything but the most basic of education. However the school in Virginia where Chris would be attending, has its own planetarium plus a much wider choice of programs for Chris to choose from. And the final reason that made this a good idea was a difference of child rearing values. In my home no child will get to drive a car or get his license until that person reaches the age of 18. That is my rule and I (Tim) am not willing at this point in life to change it. This however does not reflect the views of many other parents including his father. So it works out well for Chris to live with his father as he will get the opportunity to get his license and drive a car prior to his 18th birthday.
So on June 7th 2002 we packed up a U-haul van and with the help of my in-laws moved him out to Woodbridge Virginia to live with his dad. I should mention that his father was looking very forward to this, and that is good. Both he and Christopher deserve the opportunity to spend together in a father/son relationship.
Now I may not be able to give much information in the future as to how he is doing, since it will be up to Chris to tell us and of course he may not wish to do so. But when information becomes available we will post it.
Terri
Since our last update Terri has been doing pretty much the same things. She has been involved with all of Matthew's spring time programs and events at school, as well as continuing with the substitute teaching. Just before the end of the year while teaching at the high school, her van was struck by one of the students cars while sitting in the parking lot. This or course made her very upset as we could not prove who did it (although we had a pretty good idea) and it cost us her two weeks salary to get the damage repaired. At that point I put my foot down and said that we are done substituting at the high school as it cost us more to have her there than she got paid to be there. I also considered it a safety issue as Terri is not a big person and there are many student's there that could and would be quite intimidating.
Now that it is summer and school is out for most people, Terri has been staying around the house doing those house type things like watching soap opera's. This has quickly become very boring to her and with my traveling and other family medical expenses, we have been really running through the money tree. This combination has caused Terri to really want to go back to work so she has been out doing some job hunting. It looks to be a good chance that Terri will go back to the school system again. She hopeful that this year she will be an educational assistant instead of substitute teaching. This will give her steady work and would be at one location as opposed to going from classroom to classroom.
Tim
I always say not much has changed for me which is about true. I have been working on my family history a great deal and found it to be very addicting. I have been looking up information on the James Harvey Hinds side of the family for the most part, but most recently have taken a break from that to work on my family from my grandfather on down.
Most recently I went to Phoenix to visit mom and dad, and go to a wedding for my friend Jeff who just got married. While I was in Phoenix I was able to take a day and rummage through as many photo's as I could of our family while at my parents. Unfortunately this was not nearly enough time to get everything but it was a start. I also did not have the time I wanted to have my father tell me some stories of our family history that I could record on tape. This was a project I was hopeful of doing while there so that I may be able to put those stories as told on a CD.
Also while I was in Phoenix I took the time to go up to Cottonwood and visit my sister Debbie and her kids. For the past 10 years Debbie has been storing my Yamaha ME10 organ and FB01 sound generator. I asked if I could bring those items back with me to Tennessee as I have yet to get a real piano for Matthew and wanted something that was at least close in the key size for now. Along with that there was one other trip I made out to Coolidge Arizona to visit my Aunt Luella's grave site. It was gratifying to find out that my Uncle John whom passed away last summer was buried next to her. After his passing, we did not know where he was buried but the groundskeeper at the cemetery informed us he was there. There is no headstone as of yet and I am not sure if one was ordered.
John Irvin was in the military so he would automatically qualify for a free headstone. We have been told however that this can take some time to get so it may be on its way still.
That will about cover it for now so we will sign off on this months update until the next time I get this urge to type some more about what's happening around here
Tim