We were glad that Grandma Jan was able to take Emily to work some days so I didn’t have to go to town 2x. Sometimes Em would catch a ride home with one of the other gals from the office since both of them live out here. That’s convenient! Here they are on the way to work. Coffee in hand! From what I understand from both of the girls, you DEFINITELY need a large cup of two shot coffee to get through a busy day at the ortho office.

This summer Emily worked for the same orthodontist that Amanda works for. She started out doing the same things Amanda started out doing 4 years ago – cleaning, sterilizing, setting up trays, taking patients back to the chairs, etc. She was also cleaning the office on the weekends, but now that the orthodontist’s schedule has changed the regular employees have time to do that on the days the dr isn’t in. It is kind of nice to not have her doing the office cleaning anymore because we always had to plan 2-3 hours of time each weekend for her to fit that in.

They have already asked if she’ll come back to work for them next summer – possibly even for 2 weeks in May if she can fit it in with whatever school work she has to finish up at that time of the year – because one of the gals will be out for maternity leave.

Our pastor has been doing a series on generations and one thing he pointed out in regard to Amanda’s generation (and Em is only 2 years behind that generation so, imo, it’s close enough to mention here) is that those young people by and large don’t know how to work. They are typically not responsible, etc., and employers complain about being able to find dedicated hard workers from this age group.

I can’t even tell you how many times I have heard the orthodontist tell me thanks for raising such responsible, hard working, caring, and capable young people. Before they hired Amanda they had been hiring some kids from public school and they didn’t even really know anything about homeschoolers. After a couple of years not finding any public school kids who take thier jobs seriously, the dr and his wife saw an article in the paper about homeschooling and the orthodontist asked if any of the gals in the office knew any homeschoolers because he had decided he was going to try looking for a homeschooled kid to work for him. Anyway. Long story short, the husband of one of the gals in the office knew my husband, they called, and the next thing we knew Amanda had a very good job. The orthodontist repeatedly tells me that they are very impressed with the maturity of our girls and how they are problem solvers, can think for themselves, make good decisions, are pleasant and relate well to all ages of patients, and on and on…etc.

I know there are a lot of people who have public schooled kids who read my blog. You know *I* am not saying that all public school kids are not good workers. He, unfortunately, just hadn’t come across any public school kids to work for him who were responsible. I’m sure there are some responsible kids from publis school out there just like there ARE some kids from our daughter’s generation who do know how to work even though by and large her generation is being painted as lazy, self absorbed, and yada yada yada. I was surprised that our pastor didn’t mention anything about the exceptions to the stereotypes from that generation. Or, maybe he did and I missed it. But, there ARE already kids who are definitely counter cultural and hopefully they will rise up and be the leaders of their generation. I don’t think anyone could look at our kids and say they fit the stereotype of their generation. Hmmm.. maybe homeschooling isn’t so bad afterall (LOL). Ok.. so just a little mommy bragging there…

And….. on to other things. Like I said. Em did do some fun things I just don’t remember what they were right now (LOL). Here is one sideways picture of some game they were playing at church one night. Sorry. I’m too lazy to go back and fix it to the right direction. This is yet another reason why I need another photo manage program ASAP! It’s too time consuming to fix these types of simple things with the system I have now.