Nathan

Verity has had a lot of attention lately; let's talk about Nathan now!

A week before Verity was born, Bianca, a friend of the McC's, took some pictures of Nathan at a local park!  This was one of those last-minute brilliant ideas I had, ever since I saw some of her pictures on Christine's newsfeed.  Nathan was not very excited about the prospect, but he dutifully went as a gift to his poor, pregnant mom.

But it was actually fun!  Bianca is an absolutely amazing person, beautiful inside and out.  She taught herself English as well as photography, and she has buckets of courage and interesting stories!  She was very easy to talk to, and even Nathan admitted it was better than he thought it would be.

And I was thrilled to have some pictures of Nathan!  My hope is to have family pictures taken in the spring, when Verity is old enough to smile and pose, but before Nathan leaves for college.  However, I am terrible about getting things like that done, especially since I never can figure out what to dress everyone in that looks nice and reasonably coordinated.  So now at least we have some great pictures of Nathan!

Bianca even took some pictures of me, even though I kept telling her I did not particularly want my heavily pregnant stage memorialized!  But I'm glad she did--I've never had pictures taken when I was pregnant before, so it will be good to look back on!

And she took a picture of Nathan and me too.  I love it!

So what has Nathan been up to lately?

• He took his "candidate fitness assessment" on Sunday, Sept. 21.  We finally found a middle school that had all the facilities needed--a basketball court, pull-up bars, and a track, all in close proximity.  Thankfully Nathan is not even an inch taller though, or the pull-bars would have been too small for him to dead-hang without his feet touching the ground.  The CFA consists of 6 events, done in order, with specified start, stop, and rest times.  It is designed so that you have finished the first 5 events and started on the run within 30 minutes.  First is the basketball throw, which is weird (you kneel and hurl a basketball with one hand as far as possible), but Nathan read some good posts about how to improve this event by using physics and your core.  Second is pull-ups, then the shuttle run, and then sit-ups.  Next is push-ups, and last is the mile run.  Nathan had taken a practice CFA at the USAFA Summer Seminar, and he did pretty much the same here as he had done there, except that one was not run as an official one, so there was more rest time in between events.   He did well, and yay--that was the last big thing to finish for his USAFA application!
• He got word that he is "qualified" from the DoDMERB board, which means he passed all his medical stuff.  They ask a ton of questions on all the paperwork you have to fill out before the actual appointments, so you have to dredge up stuff from long ago.  In Nathan's case, it was a contact allergy to metal he had when he was really little.  I had to sew material over the snaps on his onesies so he wouldn't break out in a little rash, but we never saw a doctor for it or anything.  And more recently, he had a rash when wearing a cheap watch from Walmart.  So DoDMERB wanted clarification on that.  Fortunately, he didn't have to see a doctor or anything, just write about that in the follow-up paperwork they sent.  We were glad that they didn't have any further questions, and that he is medically cleared now!  That qualification is good for 2 years, and it is good for all the service academies, as well as ROTC.
• He interviewed with our congressman's nomination panel Wednesday night.  He thought it went well.  He felt prepared for the questions, and he felt he was able to get across the points he was trying to make.  I think he is becoming more comfortable interviewing, what with all this practice he's getting!  He has an interview with a senator coming up as well.  I thought they had to interview everyone who put in an application, but that doesn't seem to be the case for the senators, only the House of Representatives member.  So it seems like this interview is definitely one of those "It's an honor to have made it this far" deals, since there were over 700 applicants, and possibly as few as 45 interviewees.  We haven't heard from the other senator, but actually, it doesn't sound like the VA senators give nominations to people who already have Presidential nominations, so it is probably a moot point anyway.  But more good interview practice, for sure!
• He's taking his very last SAT on Saturday, missing a cross-country meet to do so, which does not make him happy.  But then he's done with high school standardized tests, except for APs in May!  Yay!