All about a 17.75 year old teenage boy. Teen life for a boy and a typical daily schedule and life who was raised on Babywise.
This is a summary for Brayden from 17.5-17.75 years old.
SENIOR YEAR
Senior year is still going really well! There have been a lot of things going on and lots of fun things.
COLLEGE
Brayden has been accepted to a university and given a full scholarship. He has also been accepted into the program he wants to pursue and recently was told he was accepted into their top honors program, which brings more scholarship and many opportunities. He is really excited about it!
PIANO
Piano is great! Brayden has always enjoyed the piano and ideally wants to continue taking lessons while in college. If you do not know piano well, it is common for even top level players to take lessons. All of the top teachers I know in our area still take lessons. They don’t always take solid lessons year round, but they do something to improve.
TRACK
During this time period, Brayden has been doing the track team at the high school. He enjoys track and does it more for the social side and the good exercise.
CRUISE
We went on our final family vacation before he graduates high school. We went on a cruise with Royal Caribbean. He absolutely loved it. It is a top 5 favorite for him.
Once Brayden hit fourth grade, I realized we did not have a lot of years before he would be graduating and moving out of the house. We did simple family vacations before that, but I wanted to do some bigger trips with the whole family before he left.
Bigger trips are definitely not necessary, but I absolutely love to travel and love showing my children different places and cultures. We live in a very small town in a sheltered community. I wanted my kids to be comfortable with the differences of people, communities, and cultures.
So once he hit fourth grade, we started taking one big trip a year.
It should come as no surprise that I mapped out what we would do each year until he graduated.
Then 2020 hit…
That really put a wrinkle in my plans. We had to adjust, adapt, and change.
In the end, the only things we didn’t do as a family were:
1-Hawaii. We had a trip booked and planned for 2020. In the end, we went to Mexico instead in 2021. It was a similar vibe but it was easier to get into at the time.
2-Washington D.C. Oh how I love this place! That was our 2023 plan. Brayden was able to go with a group of students at the school. So he was able to get that experience. This is not off the table. We could go as a family later or go without Brayden if does not want/can’t come.
3-A church history tour. These locations were shut down for so long it was not something we were able to do. This is something I still want to have on our list, also.
We were able to add some things we hadn’t planned on originally. These are things that were more “2020” friendly.
1-Glacier National Park. This place is beautiful! It was great to do with Brayden because he really loves National Parks.
2-A Utah National Park Tour in an RV. This was a really fun trip. I would highly recommend touring in an RV with your family if you can. We made great memories. The Big 5 in Utah is a great way to do this.
3-Disneyland and California Adventure. This was actually the trip we did when Brayden was in fourth grade. We had always thought it would be fun to do again with the kids when they were older, but we couldn’t figure out how to fit it in. This was fun to do since Brayden loves Star Wars so much.
4-And of course, Mexico, which we swapped for Hawaii.
REFFING
Reffing slows down a lot here in the winter, but he was still able to do some reffing. He had some indoor games he reffed. He reffed several ECNL weekends (those are high level league games). He also reffed a tournament. Tournaments are a great source of income in a short period of time.
Reffing is really a great source of income if you have a child that might be interested in it. McKenna will be starting it up this spring. Kaitlyn also refs. She does not love it. It is not easy and takes a certain personality to love it. But you can’t deny the income value.
Kaitlyn is going to pursue reffing more games of young children. A lot of refs prefer to ref high level, older games. While Kaitlyn enjoys watching those as she refs, she does not enjoy the conflict. Reffing younger ages is much easier, especially if it is girls. Parents of young boys can be really intense and worse than 18 year old boy games.
SCHEDULE
7 AM–Wake up. Get ready for school.
7:30 AM-Leave for school.
3:00 PM-Get home from school. Maybe.
5 PM–Dinner time.
Bed at some point.
RELATED POSTS
