Michael's S.A.T.

Michael, age 16, just got his SAT results back. He got a 1490. The highest possible score is 1600. He was in the top 97% of math and 98th percentile for english. He works hard at excelling in school. We are very proud of him.

Sadness

And they fall like leaves in Autumn, blown about by the winds of change, not aware that this is their death.

Failure!!!!

Well I told a funny story at dinner about something that happened at school the other day, and Dad asked me to write it in our blog. I figured it couldn't hurt, as long as Eric doesn't have our blog site, which isn't likely. Anyway, our First Priority club in school is doing this thing where we get sponsors, then skip 5 meals. The money we collect is gonna be used to buy food to send to people in Haiti who lost all their food in the hurricanes this fall. I got a few sponsors, but one of my friends in me Science class didn't have very many. I decided to help her out by bugging people into sponsoring her. My first victim was her Science partner, an outrageously smart kid named Eric Klinedinst. Actually he's not really outrageously smart, but he does do well in school, and I compete with him occasionally at grades and stuff. So anyway, I'm dragging this all out.... I asked Eric to sponsor Carolyn, but he didn't want to, so I proposed a deal; if he would sponsor Carolyn, I would fail the Science quiz we were about to take. Of course Eric met this with laughter, cuz he knew I would never do something like that, and he agreed to it. Poor Eric, I was already cooking up a plan to trick him and get him to sponsor Carolyn at the same time.... When I took my paper up I secretly asked Mr. Thompson (science teacher!) to put a false failing grade on my paper, but put my real grade in the gradebook. I wasn't actually sure if he would do that, so I was extremely excited and all-around happy when I got my quiz back the next day and it had a 44% on it. When I gave it to Eric he was shocked. I think his words were something around, "Nuh-uh! No you didn't. I can't believe you did that!" Because of his nice little outburst people knew something was up, and word got around that Ariel failed a quiz so Eric would sponsor Carolyn. It was pretty hilarious to watch everyone buzzing about it, and to see my paper being passed around without anyone noticing that the answers marked wrong on my paper were the same ones marked right on theirs. Yeah, it was pretty funny. The best part was the next day Eric brought in $10 to sponsr Carolyn with instead of the original $5, cuz he "felt so bad for making me fail." I know that sounds inda nice of him, and it was kinda nice, and kinda shocking to, cuz Eric's not exactly the type of person to do nice things. So that was pretty much it. Oh, and Mom's making me tell him the truth next week, but all the food will have been bought and sent by then, so I guess it's ok. And there's my funny little story!! Be sure to comment back with your own stories. Heh.
~Ariel~

Falling Leaves

Fall is in full swing, ssoccer is winding down, wind is blowing, leaves falling, etc. Here's a picture Josiah (7) took today of our backyard.

Welcome to the Austin Family's Blog

We hope you will enjoy the various postings, true life stories and fun stuff about our family.
We want to share these things with our family and friends as a unique way to keep in touch during these busy times, and to convey a little of what it is like to live in a family of 10.
Seems every day has a funny moment in it. (Though they don't always seem funny at the time!)
Speaking of kids, all our children will be encouraged to post their own messages, pictures and art. Please feel free to leave comments, it'd be great to hear from you.
PS I'm new at this, so bear with me.
Love,

The Austin family

Soccer Scores 10/30/04

Josiah's team tied 1/1
Charity's team lost 1/7
Harmony's team lost 2/4
Tierra & Shiloh Won 3/2
Ariel Won 7/2 - Ariel scored once, assisted once.
1 more...David's inddor soccer opening bame was Monday, 11/2/2004. We lost 4 - 0
:-(

Pet fun

We don't have any pets, aside from the occasional snakes we find. However our neighbors are in Colorado for a week and asked us to Watch their lab and kitten. Our adventure begins. The kitten is a house cat, so I was reluctant to let the kids play with it outside, but they assured me they would watch it carefully. A few minutes later I saw the small black kitten running away through the yard, so I took chase. He ran all around our large yard until he finally escaped into the woods, gone from sight. I was half upset with the kids for letting him get loose and half wondering how I could explain it to the neighbors upon their return. I asked the kids how they could've let the kitten get away, then they pointed to Tierra who was holding the kitten. Seems I was chasing around a stray who looked just like our keep! Next day I was in their house feeding and watering when I stepped in a stray turd and tracked it throughout their house before realizing it. This morning before work (6:30am) I let the dog out to do her duty and went inside for a moment and she took off. I wandered around waking up the neighborhood but could not find her. I did hear our other neighbor's ducks and chickens making excited noises and waited to hear the gunshot. (We live in the country). Daisy had already killed a chicken of theirs in the past and was most unwelcome. I had to leave for work and fretted until Eliza called and said the dog had returned safely, thankully. Sure hope my neighbors don't read this blog!
Pet update: Daisy chewed through her leash and ran away again. Caught her on the way off to JD's soccer game. Neighbors come home today...Must hold on.

Christmas 2003 Serious Pic