Mystery box & Annie’s cell phone.

Mystery box & Annie’s cell phone.
We got two packages today, one was a box Annie sent us so she wouldn’t need to carry such a heavy box on the plane and the other was her cellphone we got her to use while she is here. I don’t know what is in the mystery box but it sure is heavy. Maybe rocks from China, or her DVDs & CDs. Who knows, I just put it in her room for her.
I e-mailed Annie some cellphones to choose from and the one in the photo was the one she picked. Lori and I were going to get her a pay as you go phone at like .10 to .25 cense a minute but the girls here text message like crazy and if you figure .10 per text message at 20 a day sent and received that's 40 a day at .10 cents $4.00 a day $120.00 a month not including the .10 to.25 cents a minute for calls to and from the phone. Brandon has 1500 text, picture, video & instant messaging per month, unlimited media net with mobile web news, mobile e-mail, AT&T mobile videos, games & ring tones, Cingular video, & mobie TV that he has done really good with, it is really cool, you can watch the discovery channel on his phone. So that is the plan we set up for her.
Do kids need all this? No, they don’t, but here is the way I see it, #1.We do not have a home phone they are just about useless for the way we live. I was paying a boat load of money for it and wasn’t using it. So to be safe Brandon & Annie need to be able to call from the house in an emergency. #2. Brandon is a very good kid stays out of trouble, no smoking, drugs, tries to keep his grades up, ect. In our house good behavior is praised & rewarded. Annie gets the benefit of coming in with a clean slate. If Annie & Brandon keep there grades up and stay out of trouble they can keep all the perks that come in our house with that kind of behavior. If not we reevaluate. #3 our pice of mind, I love being able to call and see what Brandon is doing, find him in the gigantic wal-mart when we are going to check out, call him to find out if he needs a ride home from band practice. With Annie I want her to be able to call us from school if she needs to. After we have been here awhile and we go to the football games and she is off in the stands with her friends we can still find her in the massive blur of teens. #4. Cell phones, at least here in our town and I would bet the rest of the U.S. are a big part of kids lives, you go to pick your kids up after school and everywhere you look kids are calling or texting on there cell phones. That is just part of the U.S. & along with doing good in school I want Annie to experience what it is like to be a teen in the U.S., and to treat her as part of the family while she is here. What we do for one kid that stays out of trouble & keeps their grades up we will do for the other.
Glen