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Happy Birthday, Janine

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Patrick

Patrick and 29 other boys qualified to compete in the Gwinnett County Dive Meet. The boy who won first place will probably be in the next Olympics. He is that good. He's a junior and began diving as a freshman. Patrick regrets he only discovered the sport last year. Patrick came in tenth place last year at this same meet. He improved to second place this year with a score of 362.80 for 11 dives. We are very proud of him! His picture made the paper today with a slight mention behind the 1st place winner's name. He will compete at the State Tournament on February 12th. Wish him luck!

It began snowing on Sunday night. Brianne tried to get home around 30 minutes after it began at 10:00 and she said that people were already stuck and not able to get up hills on the main road to our house. Her friend, Kyle, drove her and her boyfriend, Patrick, to our home in his four wheel drive truck. He weaved in and out of parked cars on the road. Brianne said he loved it!

School was canceled Monday, then Tuesday, then Wednesday, then Thursday and NOW Friday. Unbelievable! I dread thinking of making it up, but I have loved having an additional week off. Brianne's boyfriend stayed here from Sunday to this morning when his business opened up. Patrick's girlfriend walked over here Tuesday afternoon from her neighborhood which is about 1-1/2 miles away. She spent two nights here. Her mother is a nurse and picked her up this morning on her way home from work.

Brianne had to go to work for a teacher workday 11AM - 4PM today. She's got the same schedule tomorrow. We have had a great time eating meals together and playing games at night. It's been a fun time, but we are all ready for some warm weather!

Snow in Georgia

On Wednesday, Brianne graduated from Georgia State University with a Master's Degree in Reading, Language and Literacy. The ceremony was at 2PM at the Georgia Dome. We estimated there were 1500 graduates in attendance. We read in the paper the next day that 3350 had graduated. The graduates did not walk across the stage to receive their diplomas. They stood up as their college major was called and were declared "graduated." The ceremony lasted one hour. It took us that long to get out of the Dome, into our car and out of downtown.

We went to a favorite neighborhood pizza restaurant in Atlanta afterward because we were all hungry and did not want to wait until dinnertime. We got gourmet pizzas and they were delicious. After that we went to Red and Geraldine's house so they could see Brianne in her cap and gown. They were going to attend the graduation, but since Red was having a procedure done at the hospital the next day, they decided not to go because it was raining and cold.

After visiting with them for a while, we decided to head home at 7PM. The roads had become icy and we had to take many detours to get home because ramps and roads were closed due to the dangerous road conditions. It took us two and a half hours to get home. It usually takes around 35 minutes to get home from their house. The news reported that there were over 1000 car crashes that night.

Brianne is happy to be finished with school . . . for a while. She has gone straight through without a break since kindergarten. She is looking forward to not having to go downtown to class each week, AND the raise she will get in her next paycheck, too!

Brianne

Brianne

(This was an assignment given to all of the teachers at my school back in August. There was a template to use. The teachers are often given topics and write things. Then a bulletin board of the writings are displayed in the front of the school. Right now we have one with "I am thankful" entries.) I have held onto this one to put on the blog in honor of Mama's birthday. Happy Birthday, Mama!

I am from parents who did an outstanding job of raising a large family - often with a shortage of money, but never with a shortage of love

Happy Birthday, Mom

Love,
Rob&Patsy

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Happy Halloween

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Barrett was the ring bearer in Stephen's friend's wedding on Saturday. Allen is Barrett's godfather. Barrett was very excited about his role in the wedding. He practiced and practiced at home. He was elated when the black, shiny shoes arrived in the mail from Joey. He wanted to sleep with them in his bed the first night! The big day came. He was promised a piece of candy (Starburst) after walking up the aisle. He was supposed to join Kellie in the 2nd pew after getting to the altar. After he got his candy, he took off running to the back of the church where we were sitting with Wyatt. The congregation erupted in laughter. He was a happy boy with his big wad of candy in his mouth!

The Collins Hill Homecoming Dance was also Saturday night. I didn't get to go to the girl's house and take pictures. She sent these to Patrick yesterday. His date was a friend from his English class. I have been chaperoning this dance since 2000, and regretably, I had to miss it this last year because of the wedding. Patrick bought his jacket at Goodwill for $12 and he was thrilled with the find. Stephen was too and asked to wear it to work the day after he got it. I altered it to fit Patrick and it looked great. Stephen had a bowtie that matched perfectly. Patrick said he received a lot of compliments on his outfit.

Last month, Patrick joined the University of Georgia competitive diving club. He goes there on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for 2 hour practices. The pool is incredible! There are jets that shoot up from the bottom to soften divers' entry. Patrick hasn't tried them yet, but he has seen others use them. He participated in a dive clinic this weekend and Scott and I went to watch the last hour yesterday. Scott videoed a couple of the dives. The dive from the highest platform was done on a dare from one of his friends. He smacked his arms pretty good! He hasn't been training on that platform, and I think he said it was only his 2nd time on it.

His first competition with this team is on October 16th in Birmingham. He will also be on the Collins Hill Dive Team. That season begins the middle of November. He enjoys diving and has made a lot of improvement in the year that he's been doing it. He has recently decided he would like to dive in college. The problem is that there are only 3 schools in Georgia that have men's diving. They are Emory (cost prohibitive), UGA and Georgia Tech and you have to have placed in the National Championship to be considered for their teams. Patrick hasn't been to Nationals. There's also not a lot of scholarship money given for diving, we have been told. And we depend on the HOPE scholarship given to Georgia Students who qualify!

Celebrating 25 years smoke-free today. I've told the story of how I did it before. Cold turkey. I didn't tell anyone so there was no one encouraging me or asking me about it and there was no pressure on me that I might fail. After a while, I just stopped thinking about it. It was surprisingly easy for me. What I don't remember is how I handled all of the people who used to bum cigarettes off of me. There were a lot of them. I'm guessing they had to quit, too. :)

Happy Birthday, Elizabeth

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