Camp,letters, grad school, new friends, summer

Chase has been gone for 11 days (but who's counting, right??) and comes home tomorrow! He has been at camp in Wisconsin with his good friend Brennan. I have been surprised how quiet and still the house seems without him bouncing around. I have spent a fair number of those days locked in the house doing schoolwork, which is a good thing! We have written him several letters and until yesterday, we had not gotten a letter back from him. We were beginning to pile his things up on the curb...

But, yesterday when I got the mail, there was a letter with familiar handwriting on it...could it be? YES! It was a letter from my boy!! I'm not gonna lie...my eyes filled up with tears when I saw that sweet chicken scratch the child calls handwriting. He said he's having a great time and told us about some of his activities. It was wonderful to hear from him because it's the first time he's been gone with NO contact at all. I guess the camp would call if he'd been mauled by a bear or drowned by an alligator, but it's good to know that at least at the time he wrote the letter, he was alive, well, and having fun. I miss that kid, and can't wait to see him tomorrow!!

Grad school is going well; three classes, three A's so far and I'm headed for A's in the two classes I'm taking now, so I'm feeling good about that. And the big news - I got a JOB for the fall! I'll be teaching middle school English Resource! I am just excited enough about that to keep from feeling totally terrified, overwhelmed and underqualified! It's been fun - there are 40 of us in our class and slowly but surely we are all getting jobs. Grad school itself has been interesting - and spending that much time with the same group of people has resulted in some new friendships which has been fun.

So far, the summer has been hot hot hot (115+ for the past week) and action-packed. I have managed to keep my head above water in school while still doing some fun things with Chase. We have not used the neighborhood pool nearly as much this year as in past years, but I think we may head there this weekend when Chase is home. Divine hubby and I checked out Cedar City, Utah last weekend and really liked what we saw. We are enjoying life in Vegas, but we don't plan to live here forever. We really like a cooler climate where we can have GRASS in our front yard instead of rocks. :) Just a place where it rains occasionally and things grow. Ya know what I mean? So, we are considering retirement in Utah or Northern Nevada up around Lake Tahoe. It's been fun exploring different towns, driving through neighborhoods and dreaming of living in a home with a mountain view (oh, and did I mention grass? My retirement home is gonna have grass, baby!).

You are now caught up on my life - it doesn't take long when life revolves around the 6 hours I spend in class three days a week and all of the work it takes to be prepared for those 18 weekly hours every day! But, I have two days off and Chase is gone until Friday evening, so I'm going to go get caught up on the work that's due next week. :)