How life has changed

It is amazing how life can change in just a few months, but it happens.  This summer was a little crazy and I have to admit that I am still recovering from it, but a few things in our life have stabilized enough that I can finally embrace them, or try to anyways.

We bought a new house.  It is one story, which rocks, and it has a pool.  Plus it is on a really spread out, quiet street with a cul-de-sac so the kids can ride their bikes all over without me worrying about cars or crazy people.
With a new house comes new schools and a new ward.  So far my kids love their schools.  Eli has found a good friend and every day at recess they play in their "secret hideout" (I think it is a tunnel on the playground).  The other day he came home and asked me if he still had an uncle in the army (Uncle Brian), because there were some girls trying to take their hideout and he wanted to bomb them.  I didn't know whether to laugh or be slightly worried about this.
Donald just started 7th grade and I was really worried about that new endeavor, but so far it has been a good experience.  Originally we had him in all core honors except for math because we didn't want to overwhelm him.  But then last week he came home and said that he was the only one in his math class that turned in his homework and the teacher was getting mad at the behavior in that class, so we changed him to honors in that as well.  The only thing is that regular math for 7th grade is pre-algebra and honors is algebra.  There are adults that I know still trying to figure out algebra and my 11 year old is taking it!  He is doing great so far though and seems to like it, plus he loves that there are only 25 honors kids in the class instead of the 37 crazy kids in the other class, so this could work out well.
Something else fun that he gets to experience is the Catalina Island Marine Institute.

It is a 3 day trip to Catalina to do fun science stuff and snorkel and canoe.  All the kids in school were invited to apply, but they had to write a short essay on why they should be able to go and then their past grades and behavior were taken into account and 60 kids were chosen (30 boys and 30 girls), and Donald was accepted.  He is so excited to go in October.

Another new thing for him is swim team.  He has been in it since July, but recently he got bumped up to a higher group.  He now has practice 5 days a week for an hour and a half.  So this is where I am most afternoons....

He is actually getting really good at the breast stroke and his coaches are always telling us that he has a good body for it and he can get really good if he sticks with it.  This is one of the first sports that he has found that he can do this much and still want to do it more with no complaining.  Eli is excited because he gets to start on Tuesday.
Our new ward is great, even though I haven't really found any friends yet.  I guess it will take a couple activities to get to know people.  Don has already found some wakeboarding buds though (They must socialize more in priesthood than we do in relief society).
I guess change can be a good thing, even if it takes you a while to recover, we will get there...eventually!