A lot family from out of town was in this weekend. My daughter was sick, so she wasn't over, but otherwise we had the full compliment of nieces.

My oldest niece starts college in a week. She has decided to become an elementary school teacher, and she really seems to have her head on straight. She volunteered at an afterschool program earlier this year, and decided that this was the career she wanted. She had originally thought she would be a physical therapist, but she did a bit of volunteer work in that field too and decided it wasn't for her. This summer she worked at a nursing home and made a nice chunk of change. Another positive note from my perspective is that her father is mad at her for spending too much of her time partying. I always thought she was too serious to know how to have a good time. I think the partying is probably a good thing. It obviously didn't cost her her job. She doesn't have any boyfriend issues at the moment either. She had a steady boyfriend, but she broke up him with a couple months ago, and has been out with a couple different guys since then. To me, she appears to be level headed and on track.

Her younger sister is fifteen and working part time at a restaurant. I think she will continue working throughout the school year. I haven't followed it that closely, but I guess she does get in some trouble at school sometimes. She has a bit stronger personality than her older sister, so it's not surprising. I think she had at least one boyfriend this year.

That was my oldest sister's girls. My oldest brother has a twelve year old and an eight year old. He and first his wife divorced a couple of years. The girls seem to have adapted well. The oldest girl seems to like my brother's new wife better than her mother. I'm not certain whether that is a feeling the younger one shares. Both of them seem to love their father very much.

My brother's oldest daughter was a bit upset this weekend. The family dog unexpectedly passed away. He was the same age as she was. He was a big boxer, the son of another dog that my brother and his first wife had that died when his daughter was very young. He was a very friendly dog who liked to catch frisbees, and had a tendancy to slobber all over people. My niece was away at camp when he got ill, and they decided not to tell her until she back so it wouldn't ruin her trip. I think she was a little resentful about that, but she also understand that it made a certain amount of sense.

My youngest niece, the eight year old, was wearing the item I vote most likely to get banned from school this year. She has sneakers that work normally unless you are on a flat surface, you press weight down on your heel and slide forward. Then a roller takes your weight and you can skate with them. It was pretty cool. They really do work like normally sneakers unless you bear down and slide, which happens far less randomly than you might think. I can just see my niece in the school hallways this fall. These will be very popular and very quickly banned.

So my brother was in from Portland, and my sister the nun came up from the coast, and another sister from Boston came with her husband. That plus the local assortment of misfits and there were 8 of 11 of my siblings around. We visited my oldest brother's new home for the first time. Someone should send me photos in the next couple of days. I also got my hair cut very short, and I'm wearing contacts, and I'm curious to see how different I look in a photo.