Saturday

In half an hour we will leave for the exchange student orientation at the home of the local rep, so this should be interesting. E is excited to meet the other students and I am curious to see what the other families are like. One is a single man, and the other is a couple without children of their own. Their student is only here for a half-year, so there will only be two students remaining after the end of January.

My ear is healing slowly, at least it isn't itching as much, and I am continuing to worry about the spot on my face. I hope to get a good report, as the dermatologist predicted, but I happened to notice a spot of brown in the middle of the excavation site. I checked my invoice, and it reads "shave exc" which I guess means shave excision, so he just scooped it out. I'm not sure if he left some because he wasn't concerned about it being anything, or if he left part of one thing and removed all of the other, because he did say they were a couple of different things in one place. But as usual, I will panic myself until I hear from him.

I suppose it's good that I didn't hear yesterday, but if he wasn't concerned, he may not have put a rush on it. And if I hear good news, ::knock wood:: I can find something else to worry about.

Yesterday Megan and E went to Six Flags with an old friend and classmate of Megan's. They had a good time, but they didn't get to go on a few of the coasters because they were either closed or had ridiculously long lines. Maybe they can go back for FrightFest at some point. I'm sure E will start to make her own friends and schedule some of her own activities once school starts anyway.

Brian is also getting anxious for school to start. He is running out of things to do this summer and hasn't really been being terribly social lately. I just hope that he can focus better on the schoolwork this year; if he doesn't, I intend to get a complete evaluation done, so I can have some professional guidance as to which areas might need special attention. He'll be doing swim team this year, and also playing baseball, and that coach schedules and changes practices as if nobody else has any other obligations. It can be really difficult. I'm a little concerned about overscheduling Brian, but we've tried the other route already, scheduling almost nothing, and that was not successful.

Brian's group at church also enters the first of the two-year progam that turned me off when Megan participated. Add to that that they are restructing the classes and have made a good friend of mine one of the leaders of Brian's group, which admittedly I find a little awkward.
What I didn't like with Megan was the focus on fundraising for the 'pilgrimage' to England, which just comes at such busy times, and I didn't send Megan, so I may also not send Brian. This tends to be an unpopular decision, and his group has been better structured and run throughout the years, so it promises to put me in an uncomfortable position for sure. I have to determine if participating in the group brings a benefit to him of some sort; otherwise I would stop sending him to the classes, and just take him to church and let him keep doing his volunteer jobs. Then next year, he'll have to take part in the grueling confirmation class, which is separate, but together with that same group.

In other news, Kevin has been back to work for one full week now. He is already talking about trips to Orlando, Norway, Finland, and who knows where else. We're trying to figure out how we are going to work the Christmas holidays with visitors from out of town and Megan's presumed training trip, which hasn't been announced yet. In fact, they still haven't even posted the schedule of winter meets, which makes it difficult to plan anything for the rest of the year.