Absent

I'm really not doing well at this, am I? You'd think I could write a paragraph every week, but apparently not. Well, even now I don't have a lot of time to make up for my long absence, but will try to give you a brief summary of what's happened in my family since...well, my last post.

   First and foremost, I now have two future sisters. Many of you probably know that my brother Isaac is engaged to Michelle Huggins, and the wedding is set for the end of June. What most of you don't know yet is that my brother Ezra had been courting Kyleigh Fox, and for Christmas Ezra visited her family and proposed. She of course said yes. Let me give the story in fuller detail. (At least as best as I can remember)
   "That day, the Fox family took Ezra out to the sand dunes, and they hiked up several. The sand was so hot that they would run several yards, sit down to give their feet a break from the scorching sand, and jumped up and ran several more yards. Well, after missing what he thought was the perfect opportunity, the group hiked down the ridge of a sand dune with Kyleigh in the lead. Ezra quickly motioned Nate, Kyleigh's brother, to usher the rest of the family back, leaving Kyleigh and Ezra to head on alone. By this time they were walking on the other side of the dune where the sand was not so hot because the sun was not hitting it. Finally they sat down, and this is when Ezra proposed. He said that he recited a poem, which he had written himself, in between breaths and him trying to remember it. And of course she said yes."
   And that's how I now have two future sisters. (If you would like to read the engagement poem, please click here.)

   A little more news would be that I went to my first official tournament. It was January 3-5, and I had a great experience. I learned quite a lot during this tournament, and I do hope I improved. My partner and I got a 3-3 score. 3 wins and 3 losses. Two of our wins were when we were going Negative, so we think that if we can improve our Affirmative case, we may be able to win 4 rounds next tournament, which would qualify us for Regionals. We're pretty sure that we can (and have) improved our case, as we hadn't had much time to research it before the tournament.
   I guess that I have time enough to give one more piece of news. Rosie and Susannah both will be coming to the tournament in Olympia to compete in speech events. Very exciting, and surprising!