I am putting these here as not everyone messes around with Facebook in the family... I-Man and Ryles classes did books this year where they wrote a page and it was printed into a book with the rest of their classmates. Their two classes did different topics.

I-Mans's was a paragraph or two about what they have done so far, I guess. ( I suggest you click on the picture to blow it up larger to read it). Other than they typical 10 year old grammar in writing (because he certainly doesn't talk this way) i found it a bit interesting to actually look into his mind and how he thinks.. a glimpse perhaps. Like I was telling someone else who saw this, it fascinates me that it isnt the iPads or the Call of Duty games or being decent in soccer or wildly successful in school that he thinks of... its visiting the Cherokee reservation over a year ago.. or spending a couple of nights with Nana and Papa in their camper.. or simply being the last man standing in his class at the end of the year.. that he thinks about. Sometimes we forget just how much the simple things are important. I suspect that when you ask Papa about how much money he spent on his camper weighs on him, I bet he doesnt give a crap at the end of the day. But what he thinks about is spending time with his grandchildren, which makes every penny worth it to him. I know that I-Man constantly talks about going to the water park with Grandma upcoming this summer... and I know the costs of the trip wont mean much at all to Grandma... but the memory and time spent will be well worth it....

then you have Ryles... While it has been chronicled that she is perhaps the sharper, more calculating or the twins i at times see a longer range vision with her. She has mentioned a couple of times about being a teacher, which I kinda flippantly disregarded for some reason or another.. but then her class did the dealio where they were writing a letter to themselves in the future. And yes the writing and sentence flow seem to indicate a little more advanced place for her, what struck me more was the actual content and how ironic this all is... she already plans to be in the band... she already plans to be a teacher... i doubt she really knows this, but her parents were in band and aunts and uncles... and grandparents did the music gig... Virtually EVERY female on my side of the family, from my mother, grandmother, great grandmother, numerous aunts, cousins and even uncles were/are ALL school teachers. That she is heading down virtually the same path that so many people ahead of her went is tre interesting... especially since Ryles mother played clarinet, played in band and became teachers... next thing we know is that she will be wearing a long skirt, tall boots and being Drum Major for Easley High...

...funny that tthis mental image of Ryles also makes me visualize I-Man in the same band, up at the top of the stands in the back of the band... with his Contra... dropping peanuts on people at the football games from the top of the stands, constantly dodging trouble (like he does now) yet somehow inexplicably making even better grades than Ryles...