Grandpa came for a a visit! You can see how the girls felt about that.
Henry tells Grandpa all about his first-grade woes. And cashes in $$$.

Actually, Henry had his first good day at school yesterday. He got a perfect score on his penmanship test (previously the best he had gotten was 2 out of 7). We've been practicing every day after school. I personally think penmanship isn't that crucial and definitely shouldn't be graded, but whatever. He worked his butt off and it paid off for him, and we're very proud! This morning he told me he doesn't want to be home-schooled, so I think that is a very good sign. We are still going to explore the option seriously, though.

In other Whidbey Island news, we had the world's shortest windstorm and power outage yesterday. As Grandpa and I were walking to meet Henry's bus, we heard a "CRACK" and a tree came down in the road right behind us. Mitch came home early and all the men in our little development came running with their toys chainsaws and gleefull smiles. Within minutes, their fun was over and the tree was cleared away. The power outage lasted less than an hour, which made me happy, although we were prepared with our lanterns and grill. Since moving here, whenever the forecast is for wind, I send the kids to school in layers because we inevitably lose power. Whose bright idea was it to have all those powerlines above-ground?