Family Overview:
Tori, Josh, Zach and I spent most of July in Texas helping Mom and Dad Bryson move their candy store to the other side of the mall. Mandie, Mom, and Dad did the hard part of moving everything out of the old store in May before coming to see us in Colorado for Tori's graduation, but when the time finally came, we needed to move it all back in. Wow. That was a hard, crazy move. I don't know how they managed to get all that out of the store since it was so hard to get it back in with even more of us. My cap is off to Mandie for sure!
We got to spend a good three and a half weeks with family in Texas. While most of it was work, we did enjoy just being together. I'm glad things worked out that we could go. Thanks Mom and Mandie for all the stress of getting us down there.
Hank:
While I took most of the kids to Texas, Hank and Henry stayed behind to work. Hank got several pieces of work news while we were away. It turns out that we won't be moving this summer or fall after all. We were pretty sure that a move to Florida was in the works, but since Heavenly Father knows more than us, He has decided to keep us in Canon City for one more year. We have faith that this will work out for the best, especially with Henry being a Senior this year and having so much going on with that. But we were a little dissapointed as we felt it was time to go on many fronts.
Hank also learned that he was being moved over to the ADX. This is the maximum security prison that houses the worst of the worst. Hank was able to join us in Texas for two weeks, and then started working at the ADX as soon as we got back. He's already being nick named "The Inmate Whisperer" and "Dead Shot" thanks to some crazy incidents that happened out there in his first week. Hopefully this move will be good for him, as the entire brass seems to think he'll be able to go anywhere he wants after being there for a year. We'll see.
Hank is currently serving in the Elders Quorum presidency, although we don't expect that to last more than a week or two. His president was called into the Bishopric, so we expect a realignment of his calling. We'll see what happens there.
Kim:
This has been a pretty rough summer for me. I feel like I've failed a bit with the store and in being a mom, so my esteem has taken a bit of a knock. Then with other "life problems" that came along this summer, I came pretty close to a breaking point. I'm so grateful to family that was there to pull me out of it and bend over backwards to help me.
I've been trying to find my place now that I'm back to being a stay home mom. I'm still trying to keep pretty busy with my Kandy Kreations store and blog. I shut a lot of the store down to help me catch my breath, so it's been slow, but I've been trying to transition over to making money on the blog while doing the things that I enjoy. It's been slow, but I have hope. I also started a second blog that I had originally planned to be a moving guide for prison families. It hasn't gone the way I hoped, so I'm trying to realign my vision with reality and enjoy what I am doing. This second blog has been a place where I can showcase the hidden gems of Canon City and take the kids to do some fun things. It's been fun.
I am currently serving in the Young Women presidency. It's the one area that I always felt I would least enjoy. I'm working with the Beehives, which has been both fun and challenging. They still have the excitement of being in Young Womens, but they are easily distracted in just about everything. It's been an interesting calling and I'm trying to bring my Recreation degree and love of parties to interest and entertain the girls. Sometimes I wonder if they think I'm just nuts, but they go along with my crazy ideas usually.
Tori was a big help to us down in Texas both in setting up the store and working it. She enjoyed her time down there while starting the Smallville series. She also made a new "friend" that she met while working the store one night towards the end of our trip. They went out on a "date" and had a good time, after I stalked his facebook page and made her promise to send status updates along the way.
While down in Texas, we came up with a "life plan" for her, at least one to get her going until she figures out where she's heading. Her plan is to head back down to Texas about Thanksgiving time so she can help out at the candy store during the long holiday hours. After the new year starts, we hope to enroll her in cosmetology school so she can get her licence and start doing hair. This will give her time to figure out where Heavenly Father wants her to go and the skills to be able to afford to get there.
Tori is still technically in Young Womens. They said she could stay until she leaves in the fall as long as she's finishing up her Personal Progress. She is working on a clay replication of the Salt Lake temple as her last value project. It's been a little more challenging than she thought, but we're hoping it won't take as long as the real temple did to build. The Primary have pulled her into the nursery to be a helper for the summer while the regular teachers are away. Once school starts, we aren't sure if she'll stay down there or not. She loves working with the little ones, so we'll see if she gets any say in the matter.
Henry has been one busy little bee this summer. We have rarely seen him with work and football practice. As a lifeguard at the pool, he's there almost from 9am to 9pm every day. He's gained a little bit of a fan base with some of the little girls and his swimming lesson groups. In the few spare moments that he's had, he started practices for the high school football team with a few friends. He's enjoying being back on the field and hoping that Canon City has a better passing team than his last team did. He's really needing his uncles to come visit and practice with him, since Hank has no free time and I can't throw a ball to save anyone's life. (Anyone up for a road trip?)
He'll start his senior year in two weeks and will keep being busy then too. He's taking a few honors classes while playing football, singing in Encore, and being a Peer Counselor. I'm not sure how he's going to do it all, but he's a hard worker when he puts his mind to it. I just imagine we won't see him much except at football games and encore shows when we're cheering him on.
Josh is one of a kind. I can see moments of his maturity and growth and moments when he still enjoys the funny, shocking, stupid things of being a kid. I guess thirteen does that still. I am totally amazed at how he's slowly starting to be more help at home with the little things that he volunteers to do. I have hope that some day we won't see him in jail or the hospital for following his Daredevil ways. Although he did decide to fill up the little pool we have and go swimming when it was 40 degrees out last week in the rain. I'm surprised he and Zach didn't get hypothermia.
Josh will start 8th grade this year. He's determined he's really going to buckle down and get his work done this year, but we'll see if that really happens. I don't know how anyone teaches this grade. Trying to get him to do his work is like pulling teeth, so I have great hope that he'll finally see the light this year. He is talking about doing both soccer and football this year, but I'm not sure it's going to happen. The time and money may just be more than we can handle, so we're trying to figure out how to work that out.
Zachary:Zach has loved Henry working at the pool this summer and has become an unofficial lifeguard. He's down at the pool almost every day with Henry and has become a little fish. He had a small birthday party at the pool when we got back from Texas since that's where all his friends are these days and it was fun to see him show off his pool skills.
He'll start fourth grade this year and will continue in the GATE program. His math skills are pretty exceptional so we're glad he goes to a Math and Science school that has the resources to guide him. He's really looking forward to going back to school. (Gotta love when they are that young still.) He had decided he wanted to play soccer for the city in the fall, but after hanging out with Henry, he's wanting to be like him and play football too. We'll see where that leads.
We'll that's it for our family's summer activities. With school starting in the next few weeks, we should be getting into a schedule and down on the crazy summer hours the kids are living by. I hope to keep you all more updated on our life updates, so keep us in your thoughts and prayers always please!
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