Summer is Here!

Well again it has been too long since we have posted here. But hey we have 4 small children and it sometimes makes it a little difficult. Things continue to go well for us here in Houston. The weather has been getting hot but that also means we get to do one of favorite activities of the summer, which is of course swimming. We have already gone several times over the last few weeks and we normally plan for it at least once a week. Nice thing is that our subdivision has two pools and splash pad that we can use. The kids are also getting much more comfortable in the water and we are hoping to have Peter and Sam completely able to swim by the end of the summer.

Jen has been very busy with her calling as Provident Living leader in our ward and also making things from scratch. That is our in addition to her homeschooling activities which have also been going well. Jen recently was looking at some lists of milestones for grades and we learned that Peter is ahead in a lot of areas. He still struggles with his fine motor stuff but he is improving. Reading is going very well and he reads more and more each day. We are amazed at how much he progressed once we came home from my parents. She is teaching two bread making classes this week for our ward and she has been able to get a lot of practice and learn a lot over the last few weeks.

The kids also were able to get a pet turtle although we think it might have already escaped. We aren't too worried though because in one of the "greenbelts" near our home they find a lot of turtles. This time we want to set things up right because this one was just brought over to us from one of the neighbors down the street (she knew we almost got the boys one for Christmas). So once we get things set up right we will probably go turtle hunting again. Sam is cute with the turtle and always wants to check up on it. He really likes animals and bugs! Anytime he sees anything with a baby he says, "oh cute!" Will is now a good walker and he just took off once he decided to do it. Joe is the best of the kids at playing with him and sometimes they will both just laugh at each other. They are buddies just like Peter and Sam.

My work continues to go well and luckily our company hasn't been too badly hit. Hopefully it keeps up. Houston so far hasn't been hit as bad as a lot of the country. On the side I am trying to do programming for XNA Game Studio to make some games for the kids. That is basically an environment for creating games for Windows or XBOX 360 (although I don't own the latter). We'll see what happens since I don't have tons of time for it.

Well hopefully we can improve on blogging.

Chris and the Duffey Clan