a lesson in honesty

I got a call last week from Cooper. In a trembling voice he confessed that he had cheated on a test. He had wanted so badly to get straight A's that he looked in the book for answers during a social studies exam. His consequence was lunch detention, but his parents requested that he have lunch detention, after school detention and offer a verbal apology to his teacher and fellow ASB leaders. Cooper's mean parents told the principal that his punishment could not be harsh enough. It was a sad week. Cooper was solemn , repentant and remorseful. In tears he told me that his teacher stopped calling him by his first name and refers to him as "Mr Lundberg", because she has lost respect for him. By Thursday his teacher couldn't take it anymore and asked for his detention to be lifted. Both Cooper's parents and teachers felt sure that he had learned his lesson. Cooper learned a great lesson in both justice and mercy and that it is never to late to make a good choice.

apple time

Apple season is upon us. We narrowed it down to 5 bins this year, or just under 5000lbs. I spent two lovely days with two of my favorite people, Stacey Stone and Betina making apple pie filling. Inevitably the weather turned FREEZING cold so our cider production was down. It doesn't make it any less fun for us and the cider is delicious. Yesterday we had a mock Thanksgiving with all the Rippys--sort of a trial run. It was utter cousin chaos. Maren, Kolby and Evalie disappear to the dress-ups. Eliza and Addy do make-up and hair. Charlie and Millie wrestle like WWF stars. Max, Kimball and Corbin played apple baseball, apple golf and apple hockey with their leader Cooper. Marcos and Lane played cars and all the rest of us sat around being entertained by the Riplets. Wilson escaped to a Stake Dance. I think we might have overwhelmed Mom and Dad a bit, but they were very good sports. Everyone was happy to meet cousin Reggie (except Emelia--she is not a fan of small white dogs.)