Friday, April 2, 1999

A friend gave us pictures of Steven's Eagle Court of Honor cakes this week.

Dear Mother, Daddy, Charlie, and Bennett,

I never got a letter in the mail last week, but I got my house cleaned. I tried to do my spring-cleaning as far as I could. The new shelves for Michael's room finally arrived on Saturday, so he can now begin to unload the last boxes. David still needs to do a little bit more moving in, as well. I am hoping to complete the job during spring break in April.

Steven got home last Friday night. He looks good and seems very happy. He said that he completed his finals in good shape. He bought all of his books for the next quarter before he left, so he is ready for classes when he returns. He does not have any classes before 9:00 a.m. next quarter and is looking forward to that schedule. He has no classes on Thursdays. Therefore, when we go to see him mid-April, we will leave here on Wednesday so that we can spend all day Thursday with him and part of Friday as well as all day Saturday. We will come home on Sunday. Because it will be the third week of the quarter, Steven does not anticipate that it will be too busy a week. He wants to go to Universal Studios while we are there. Michael (and maybe David) will stay at least one night in the dorm with Steven.

We have been enjoying Steven's visit. He has had time to see a few friends, and he has offered a lot of help to Laurel with the spring musical at his old high school. She has no experienced technical help this year, so Steven designed and set up the lighting this week and is working out all the technical kinks for her. He went to Santa Cruz yesterday to see a friend at UC Santa Cruz. He stayed for dinner with her so that he would not have to travel over Highway 17 during rush hour. He and Steve have worked on the Toyota some every day and are in the process of finishing up now with replacing the clutch. They haven't done the taxes yet, so the fun is not over.

Steve has taken this week off although he has gone in for three meetings. He has enjoyed working on the car with Steven, and he has been able to attend one of Michael's track and field meets and David's baseball games. He has spent a lot of time getting his new computer system working, and I think he has had fun with that. The week is going by too quickly, though, as I think he has several more projects he would like to tackle.

Michael is busy with his usual schedule. He had a make-up track and field meet (because one was rained out the week before), and another regular meet. He is disappointed with his performance and says that he does so much better during practice than at the meets. I think he is still enjoying it except when he is really tired. At least he has not had too much homework this week. Michael was asked to play his trumpet at the Easter service for a Presbyterian Church in Santa Clara, so he decided to do that. He went to a rehearsal last night and will attend that church on Sunday. He is excited because he will get paid (although I don't know how much). Michael had a good time on last weekend's scout campout. He came home tired but happy. Except for Easter, I don't think he has plans for this weekend. It will be good for him to be able to sleep in tomorrow.

David has had a lot of end-of-grading-period projects due this past week as well as several tests. He is about to wrap it all up and should have a relaxing weekend. He turned in his paper, and his group made its presentation on the excretory system on Wednesday. He felt very good about how it went. He is reading Tom Sawyer now in his core class, so I decided to read it, also. It has been a long time since I read it, and I am thoroughly enjoying it. David's baseball games have been fun for him as his team is doing well. They have won 3 and lost 1, and David is playing well. He plays first base almost exclusively.

I have had a good week staying home puttering around and doing household things. I declined all job offers for the week so that I could enjoy Steven's visit and Steve's being home. I haven't done anything memorable--just routine things.

I hope everyone's Easter will be fun. This will be the first year that we haven't dyed eggs and had a real Easter egg hunt. My boys are growing up!

We will talk to you on Sunday.

Love,