Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Isaac



So, we are moving on to Isaac, but not without first mentioning that it snowed here yesterday....on June 10!!!




Isaac just completed 5th grade and will be moving to the middle school next year. He will be 11 years old next month. Several years ago we had a wonderful older gentleman working in our meat department at the store. His name was Isaac, but he went by Ike. Since that time our Isaac has taken to calling himself Ike, and most of his friends and family have followed suit. So do not be surprised if you find that I call him both names in this blog.




Ike is ALL BOY!!! Short for his age (I wonder where he got that) he is solid and muscular with black hair that he wears in a buzz cut, although for the past several years he has taken to shaving his head completely bald three or four times a year. People tell me he looks just like Mike...I don't see it, but he definately favors the Walters side of the family...I think he looks like Mike's brother, Pat. He is a good student, scoring extremely high on all of his standardized tests. He enjoys geography, math, and science. He does not particularly like to read, although he is a good reader. I think his biggest problem is finding something to read that he is interested in. His big accomplishment in school this year was his perfect attendance record for the entire year.




Ike is all about anything that has to do with sports. He can usually spout off all the names of the Seattle Mariners players, their jersey numbers, and where they bat in the line up. The same can be said about the Gonzaga men's basketball team and several NFL teams.




At 5 years old Ike started to wrestle for the St. Maries club team. This team has members from 4 years old through about 8th grade. Within a year he (and our family) was hooked! He absolutely LOVES to wrestle. He has continued to wrestle for the club team and in the past two years has wrestled freestyle as well. Last year he placed third in his age and weight division at the state freestyle tournament, which earned him a place on Team Idaho, the national freestyle team for the State of Idaho. This enabled him to compete at the Western Regional tournament in Oregon...I have a funny feeling that many family vacations for the next several years will focus around wrestling. :)




Ike also plays Little League baseball in the spring. For the past two years he has also earned a spot on the All Star team that competes in July. Although he does not seem as fascinated with baseball as he does with wrestling, he does well, enjoys it very much, and continues to improve each year. In previous years he has played both 1st and 3rd base. Last year he spent time behind the plate as catcher and this year they have used him sporadically as pitcher also.




Isaac is the funniest kid! He is constantly hamming it up, saying or doing something crazy that makes us all laugh. More often than not, our dinner table ends up erupting in uncontrollable laughter over something that Ike has said! Very often he will pipe up with something that no one would ever have thought he would know. When you ask him where he heard that or how he knew that obscure fact, the answer is usually "The Weekly Reader", "The Guinness Book of World Records", or "Ripley's Believe It or Not".




His likable personality makes him very popular amongst his friends. Almost all of the kids in his circle really like him and want to sit with him, play with him, have him spend the night at their house. I have always worried that this type of attention might make him cocky or prone to being mean to other kids. However, he continues to be a very sensitive, empathetic kid, many times attaching himself to the outsider, the younger kids, or the kids who are being picked on.




His plans for the summer include spending time at the pool, All Star baseball, and church camp. He is very good at keeping himself busy. It is not unusual for him to leave the house when he gets up in the morning and stay busy all day in our neighborhood...but he always comes home when he is hungry, and that is OFTEN!!!




We enjoy Isaac very much, even his sisters enjoy him MOST of the time. He is a happy, funny kid who is fun to be around. I cannot, however, figure out how he managed to get old enough to go to middle school so fast. Time flies!








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