All Done Year One

Still catching up ... May 15 marked the day of Rob's last exam for Year One. Time really does go rather quickly (except when it's exam time), but when we look forward and think "four more years" it seems like forever ... more then half-way through his schooling, but only half-way through our time here.

I don't think Rob got all that excited about being done school ... at least not in outward appearance, I'm sure he really was, guess the effects of stress take a bit of time to wear off ... but the kids sure were thrilled. They woke up that morning saying "Daddy's done school today". They have very much been looking forward to having their daddy back, knowing that now when he is home they will be allowed to "bug" him and do things with him. Plus they had a present for daddy they had been working on for some time which they were very excited to give him. But I'm guessing the real reason they were so excited was because at night we would be having a barbeque and some of their friends would be there ... and Marietta was doubly excited because one of them would be sleeping over that night.

After the guys finished their last exam the wives, children and faculty had a potluck lunch. I can't imagine how it must feel for those who just finished their very last exam ... I know it sure felt good to know we made it through one year ... even if we didn't have the marks yet to confirm whether he'd be allowed to carry on to year two.

It's nice that the college is small, it makes it more relaxing as I don't have to worry about Matthew all that much. He just wanders around and enjoys himself. On top of that he's made a few buddies over the past year who like to take him for a walk, play a game with him, or just watch out for him ... so cute!

Here he is practicing for his future calling ... Professor! :)

After school we had a quick snack before we headed off for our barbeque in Guelph. At that time we gave Rob his gift. Each year after he completes his last exam we try to have a little celebration, usually a special dinner, or we go out for dinner and each year the kids give him a little something ... like a big huge bag of droopies ... nothing extravagant, just something to celebrate.

Like Rob's perplexed look on this picture as he tries to process what his gift is?

Here is what it looks like:

Why is he perplexed? Well since when did the Proof Texts come on a cd? Where did we get this? Just to clarify the Proof Texts are pages of texts that the guys have to memorize. Each is related to a specific topic (e.g. the Trinity) and divided into subcatorgies and they have to memorize these so they know where to find them when the topic/issue arises. This cd held the proof texts from one year, about 17 pages of texts, a total of 70 minutes once it was completed. It was not until we put the cd in the cd player that Rob understood where this cd came from. The girls and I had been working on it for the past couple weeks ... and lets just say this was not as easy as we thought. We had hoped to get all three years done, plus I wanted to go back and do the Heidelberg Catechism for him (which he memorized this past year)... but we only got one year done.

Rob, has made a list of items he'd like to tackle during his year off and on that list is to work on memorizing the Proof Texts ... something he can do ahead of time that will ease up some time and stress later on. He had gone to the library and photocopied all the texts in preparation for this. The idea came up about three weeks before Rob would be finished school that it would be a great gift to put them on cd for him to listen to while he drives back and forth to work (he has often asked me to do that for the catechism) ... seemed like we had plenty of time. Well we ran into the problem that there could not be any other noise when recording and since my computer is in the dining room ... well it's not that often that there is no other noise. The girls only had a couple hours after school to do their recordings, this was further complicated by the fact that Matthew made too much noise. So one girl would entertain Matthew downstairs or outside while the other recorded. Next came the issue that during those weeks we had a lot of other stuff going on and we weren't home all that often after school. To make matter worse, Rob who almost always studies all day at school, decided this time around he was going to do his studying at home ... so ya ... we only got one cd done on time. Hopefully we will get the others done soon and we hope that these will be effective in helping him.

Next it was off to the barbeque where we all had a great time eating, socializing and just kicking back and relaxing. We hardly seen the kids the whole time, they were having so much fun. We left shortly after 10pm and Matthew was still have a great time, wandering around and playing so nicely.

Matthew was thrilled by these bunnies. Unlike our bunny they did not run away, snarl, bite or scratch when he started showing his love to them. Not to make our bunny, Thumper out to be a real meany ... it just isn't all that much of a people person and prefers to be left to do it's own thing, something Matthew doesn't understand. So Thumper just sees Matthew coming and she has her defense guard up and turns on her nasty nature ... it is slowly getting a bit better. These bunnies however let Matthew give his pats and hugs and chatters without so much as flinching.

Left: To bad this lawnmower did 't actually work ... I think Matthew would have easily covered the front half of the lawn (many times over) during the evening.

Right: The kids spent a good part of the time on the play structure, we pretty much didn't see them the whole evening. Evenings like this are so much more relaxing now that the kids are getting older.

And finally it's time to head off home ... but the fun is not over, since Marietta is having Jessica over for a sleep-over. They tried there best to stay up till midnight, but they were asleep a couple minutes after the light we turned out ... they almost made it, it was about 11:50 when they finally settled under the covers

The report card has since arrived ... the marks are satifsfactory for Rob to carry on to Second Year ... congratulations on surviving another year dear hubby.