Nine Portraits & The Annual Interview

This is Isaac's personal favorite from his birthday shoot. It definitely reflects his quite, happy, rather serious nature. We started out the interview going over some of the things he's done this year: Upwards basketball, two soccer seasons, cub scouts (Wolf year), visiting Seattle, checking out the Discovery Center in Boise for the first time, and attending a week of Sports Camp. Of all things considered, he believes soccer was the most fun. We are prepping for fall soccer (in the higher division finally) right now.

We went to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks right after his birthday. Considering all the cool things we saw and did there, Isaac's favorite was luckily coming upon Fountain Geyser erupting. Fountain erupts 75–220 feet high with internals that vary from 9 to 15 hours and it lasts for about 30 minutes. We caught the last 15 or so minutes (above is a momentary lull between bursts). Isaac kept track (count) of the animals we saw during our trip - he says writing in his notebook is probably his favorite activity and specifically writing about soccer.

Isaac also loves reading, especially new books discovered at the library. His favorite from the past year was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, just like Sam but there have been a lot of good ones. Another honorable mention was Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo.

His favorite scripture account is early in the Book of Mormon, when Nephi is called to go back to Jerusalem and get the brass plates from Laban. Isaac loves the brave example of listening to the Spirit to know what to do and not giving up. But he says that Captain Moroni is his favorite scripture hero because he was a great military leader who "didn't delight in the shedding of blood" but was able to defend his family and extended family of followers of Christ.

In school, animal science & math were Isaac's favorite subjects. History a close third. He loves learning everything, he says! We've got to thank Khan Academy for the extra math love. Sal Khan sure makes the explanations clearer than mom does. And recently we've started using the fun Rocket Math app on my iPad for more arithmetic practice.

Speaking of learning games, the BrainQuest board game we gave him for his birthday is his favorite present this birthday, along with the novel The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg, which he started and finished during our Yellowstone vacation.

But his nose isn't always in a book - remember he's a soccer nut? His favorite thing to do on the computer is still watching soccer highlights on YouTube, and he loves playing his new soccer Wii game as well as Mario Cart, and Despicable Me is his current favorite movie, if not Life or one of our other nature documentaries.

Isaac is 50.5" tall, about 50 lbs. and he gives 100% to every task he undertakes. He impresses and even amazes me on a regular basis. My nine year old is so cool!