Bye Boys

We stayed up late last night, enjoying our "last" night with everyone at home together. 

We were saying the first of our goodbyes before Joseph and Ethan headed out this morning.

They were up and ready at 8am to head out with Joseph's friend Talmage. The three of them are headed to Lancaster, California, for a few months of selling pest control. Joseph tried to wake up Daniel to say goodbye.

But we had kept Daniel up past midnight and he would not be awoken from his slumber. Joseph saying bye to Wes, and telling him to get good grades.

Ethan loading his air mattress into the car.

Talmage and Joseph checking if everything fits...

Goodbye Brothers! Joseph and Ethan off for another adventure with just the two of them. Well, Talmage and their other roommates who they will meet soon, but just the two of them from our family.

Peter, do you realize that your Ethan is leaving you?

One last kiss from his favorite brother.

After they left, it was a day of school and stuff. I won't mind when all the zoom calls and obligations are over. I like seeing the kids read on their own.

We do pretty good educating ourselves, atleast if we were to be judged according to my low standards of just reading, practicing music, and being creative. We fall short if we're measured against all the worksheets and packets and websites and resources that the teachers work so hard to make available to us. The teachers are sure nice. The elementary teachers have each come by with home deliveries for the girls.

I'm not too worried about Abi, since her grades don't count toward her college application yet. Hyrum's grades are all As and Bs, so he's our model student. We have been on Wesley's case and Ethan's a little bit, hoping that they'll be able turn their several "F - failing" grades into "P - passing" before the month is over. I think they have like 3 weeks? Wes usually gets distracted by Peter who loved Wes to hold and play with him. One of Wesley's most often repeated questions is "Can you take Peter?" And I'm like "Just put him down! He's fine!" Wesley needs to find a place to hide, cause Peter finds him. And Wes is such a soft hearted kid that he will hold him and then ends up at the end of another day NOT having his homework done again. Sometimes Peter distracts him, and sometimes Wes distracts himself... like when he drew on Peter today.

Peter's not bald, so he doesn't pull off the Last Airbender look as well as Owen did.

And Wesley didn't use a washable marker, so I had to scrub this a bit to finally get it off tonight. Cute Peter. Come on Wes, focus! Get those grades up! Wesley's and Ethan's grades usually are the same, and then when the term ends, we find Ethan magically turned everything into As and Bs, and Wesley's grades didn't go up at all! Two weeks ago we started recording their currently daily grades for each class on the fridge. So, now I check their grades every day and I put a little grid on the fridge where I can write each class grade.

We trust that, even though he is going to be busy selling pest control, Ethan should still have a lot of time free from younger siblings and other distractions, so he should be able to get all his grades up to passing. One teacher gave him some extra credit for his House video, so that was funny. Speaking of that "homework" assignment, Ethan just told me: "I could have gotten away with not doing it... Let's just say that of all my homework, this was the least important one..." But it will probably be a family treasure for years to come. And perhaps it will also be an important historical document of these unprecedented times.