Highlights of 2011: Family time

It was a big year for the family, full of growth for all of us.

This time last year, Travis was still in kindergarten. He had been put through a few aptitude tests at Kelly and my insistence, as we knew he wasn’t being challenged by the coursework. Then one afternoon last December, we got called in to meet with the school staff to review Travis’s results.

We’d been told again and again that grade promotion was extremely rare and not to get our hopes up, so Kelly and I weren’t fully expecting a change. Instead, we heard from wide-eyed teachers that Travis was not only performing above a first grade level, he was even above-average for second grade! I don’t know who was more astonished, them or us!

After much serious thought and discussion, Kelly and I decided it was best for Travis to advance a grade. Thus, Travis started kindergarten in the fall of 2010 and jumped into the second half of first grade in January 2011. He had a little adjusting to do but he caught on quickly and is now thriving in his new grade!
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Could you pass a citizenship test?

Remember when I suggested that all citizens who wish to maintain their citizenship take a citizenship test? I was being facetious, of course, but now the Christian Science Monitor asks its readers if they could pass the test and provides a handy sample test online.

Give the test a try here.

(For the record, I got a perfect score.)