The boys left for a week of Boy Scout summer camp yesterday. Were they excited? Yes…and no. The sixteen-year-old was literally bouncing with happiness at the thought of leaving for camp—for many reasons but mainly because the Troop was headed back to his favorite camp, which he hasn’t seen in three years. As I sat at the computer on Saturday evening, he was sitting on my exercise ball, bouncing away as he told me of his plans to set up his hammock and sleep there rather than in his tent. When he was younger, many of the older boys did this and they were quite the envy of the rest…

“I want to learn someday how to drive a car.”From the Thankful Journal, 1999 and almost seven years old Well folks, that day is here. Actually, he has been learning to drive a car for almost a year now, thanks to the State of Illinois’ requirements for new drivers: he needed 50 hours on his permit before obtaining an actual license. The thirteen-year-old will need 100 hours, due to the requirements recently increasing again. I’m fine with it. There have been many teen-aged deaths due to car accidents over the past many years and Illinois is doing something about it (probably–hopefully–along with many other states. Each hour behind the wheel…

When the older boy was approaching seven years old, I started to notice that he was taking certain things for granted. It was really ticking me off, so I discovered (either in a magazine or on tv, can’t remember exactly) what I thought at the time was a really great idea…and now I can say it was Pure Genius. I made him start a “Thankful Journal”. Each day, I had him write about two or three things that he was thankful for in a blank book that I had purchased especially for this purpose. It made him think, it gave him much-needed writing practice, and gave us great conversation starters.…