Recent doings

This morning, it snowed about 6-7 inches here. It wasn't terribly cold - in the upper 20s - but it sure was snowing. Not so much hard as it was constant. My car looked almost completely white at one point, except for the tires. I doubt that will ever happen to that car again. I had to use the snow shovel to clear it off. Craziness.

I'm still here in Chicago with my aunt/uncle/7 cousins. I'll be here another week, then we're heading down to St. Louis for the wedding of another cousin, where I'll see my family for the first time since Jan 2. That isn't a terribly long time - 2 months - but we've been through a lot since then. Other than my own doings, of which you should be fully aware, my brother got engaged and was recently accepted into grad school; my parents are soon to be in-laws.

It's good here at the other Jumper's house. They feed me all I can eat (which is quite a lot since going to OCS), and the kids have mostly attached to me. The older ones in different ways than the younger ones, of course. It's like I've become another family member for the 2 weeks I'm here. I'll get to see my uncle preach tomorrow morning. I've seen him preach once or twice before, but it was like 10 or 15 years ago, so I don't remember it at all. Should be fun. Apparently, the choir is killer. I took most of the kids to see Paul Blart: Mall Cop this afternoon. It was pretty good, a great kids' movie. They enjoyed it as well. We had to shovel the driveway after dinner tonight so we'd be able to get to church in the morning. The two youngest girls mostly just climbed and played on the big piles of snow recently removed from the drive as everyone else shoveled. But it went pretty quickly. And of course, the occasional shovel was tossed onto a person instead of the pile. Good times.

The kids are all homeschooled. My aunt and uncle have sort of set it up so they slowly grow into an autonomous unit of kids educating kids. The older ones learn from books and such, then help the younger ones with their assignments. The ones in the middle do some bookwork on their own, get occasional help from the olders, and occasionally help the youngers. It's a neat system, actually. While I've been here, I've mostly been just making sure that everyone gets everything done that they're supposed to. Naturally, I help out where needed, but it mostly runs itself. In fact, the whole house is like that. I asked if I could help cook, but the girls were taking care of that. I didn't need to help do the dishes, because there were 2-3 kids to do that. Clearing the table was taken care of by another, and sweeping was taken care of by another. Each child has a job. With seven kids, there's plenty of hands. :-)

OK, wow. That was long. It sort of just all came out. And yes, I've been relaxing and recovering. I'll be here another week like I said, then to St. Louis for a wedding, then home (finally). As nice as they're treating me here, and as nice as it is to see family I never see, I can't wait to get back to the familiar.