Last Day for the Bigs!

Julia felt like this day was never coming!  I have been out for over two weeks and Philip and Nicholas have been out for just a couple days less than that.  It was only 6 school days (and they missed one due to Grandma's interment) but it still felt long to her.

First/Last Sophomore year

 

First/Last Junior year

 

First/Last 7th grade

Thomas has a summer job almost lined up with a guy Jeremy knows who has a landscaping business.  The guy says he has plenty of jobs to keep Thomas busy all summer but whether or not he can get the products he needs will dictate how much Thomas works.  Stupid Covid caused shortages. (Or just Covid-blamed?  I'm not sure.)

Samuel still needs to figure out what his summer job will be.  His back up choice is Subway.  They're hiring pretty much on the spot right now we hear.

Julia has two summer jobs lined up.  She will continue to clean at the salon once a week and she will babysit for a friend of mine once a week so my friend can get some chores done around the house.  

I, on the other hand, am pretending I don't have a job!  I like to pretend for a solid month and I had to go to a Sped meeting last week so sadly, the month had to start over.  ;)

Happy Summer!

Summer, Summer, Summer!

Nicholas and I played triominoes.  It's not easy to find a game we both are interested in playing.

Now Nicholas is already enjoying his week at Grandma Susan and Grandpa Mike's and the Bigs are still in school so Philip and I got some special time.

The floor was not too comfortable so he invented this instead.

We watched Clara yesterday.  Boy I forgot how many things a 2 year old can do in two hours and Philip pooped out on me half an hour in.  Stinker.

Clara and I had fun even after Philip abandoned us.

Philip and I also rode into town from the lake on our bikes, went to the library, stopped at Dairy Queen and pedaled back.  I always forget that we really should work up to that trip.  Philip was fine but I needed a long it-would-be-bad-if-I-passed-out-break halfway to the library.  In my defense, it is a slight uphill incline all the way into town.  I was fine on the more downhill way back!  No pictures of the adventure.  

The next day we had lots of errands to run so we parked in the middle of town and walked to most of them, had lunch together and spent a lot of money (mostly because the plates for the new van and truck both come due in May but we also paid for Nicholas's and Philip's swim lessons and picked up a few other things.)  The walking helped me not be very sore from the bike ride the day before!

The big kids are done tomorrow!

More Running Around, This Time at District Track

Samuel threw shot put at district track. He didn't make the finals.  I believe all the finalists threw 40 feet and his PR is 39'5" or something close to that.

Thomas ran in the 100.  He has not run it at a meet all year but his coach wanted to get him an event   at districts and that is where they had a slot. (Which was nice, I'm not sure if every boy had an event or not.  I'm sure not every girl did.)  He came in 4th from the end, which I thought was not bad considering how much bigger and less-runnery Thomas looks compared to all the other runners who have been specifically practicing the 100 all season.

Samuel also ran the 100 and the 200.  He made the finals for the 200, which made him happy.  We were all surprised because there were 4 heats and by our not-so-careful time watching, we didn't think he made it.  He came in 7th in the finals, just outside the medal winners but was still happy.

Samuel is an alternate for the 4x1 relay at State.  He hopes he doesn't have to run because he will make the relay a second slower.  At first he was slightly annoyed to have to keep practicing, he thought one guy should be the alternate for all three relays that made it to state and that that guy should not be him. In the end, I think he's enjoyed practicing with just the kids who made state and definitely enjoyed their special spaghetti feed/capture the flag evening last night.

Good luck at State runners!

Fine Arts Not-Banquet

We attended another not-banquet-just-speeches evening, this time for Fine Arts.  The only fine arts Samuel and Thomas participate in is band so we listened a lot about other kids in drama, speech and choir but that's okay, it was fun to hear about their accomplishments.  

Thomas got his 2nd year participation certificate and earned his Band letter.

Samuel got his 3rd year participation certificate and earned his Band pin.

When I uploaded this picture I thought it was the clarinet choir getting their District music superior rating award but not all those kids are clarinets, or juniors or connected in a way I remember.  I'll have to ask Samuel later.  Oh!  I just remembered these are the band underclassmen of the year!  Each grade has two students chosen.  Samuel and his friend Thomas were the Juniors of the year.

 Congratulations Samuel and Thomas for being not only athletes but musicians as well!

Music to Our Ears

The four older kids all played in the end of the year band concert and it was lovely.  It sure helps my interest level when I have kids in 3 of the 4 bands!  It's a far cry from the year Samuel was in 5th grade and we sat through a 2 hour concert (with littles in tow) to listen to him play for 5 minutes.  The DHMs have changed where we live and you no longer have to quarantine if you are exposed to Covid plus our transmission rates are low.  Since the school has also had almost no cases since February we were able to be maskless at the concert!

The 5th grade band sounded nice and have progressed to playing some harmony so that was fun.  You can't see his trumpet in either of this pictures but that's what he plays.  Philip's favorite song was Eagle's Summit March.

The junior high band sounded good too.  I seem to have forgotten to take a picture zoomed in on Julia but can you see her in the front row on the right?  Her favorite song had a part where the flutes had a pretty melody that was easy to hear.

The high school played a couple good marches and the Star Wars theme which both boys enjoyed.

The trombones had a special part in this piece and they got to stand up to play it, which was fun.

The clarinet choir also played the piece they got a superior on at District Music Contest.  I was glad to hear it because, although I went to District Music to pick Sam up and take him to a track meet, due to bad planning I missed hearing him play by 5 minutes.

Beautiful concert kids!

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was in the middle of Greta's graduation and Grandma's interment weekend.  There was a special breakfast at church for the graduates and First Communicants which was nice.  Then we stayed home for the rest of the day and enjoyed being together.

Got this picture with the kids despite the excitement of an "orange cat" being in our yard just before the photo.  Turns out it was a fox!

Along with some junk food, Jeremy got me this Chrism scented candle for Mother's day.  It's fun to burn it and make the house smell holy!

Family Weekend

We had a fun weekend with my extended family.  Greta graduated from college so we had a party.  All my uncles and aunts came so since we were together we also put Grandma Helen in the columbarium.  (We looked it up, the monument ashes are interred in is called a columbarium.)  If you are wondering, yes, Grandma did pass away two and a half years ago but she donated her body to science and then right about the time we got her ashes Covid hit so we weren't able to get together to inter them.   But now her ashes are with Grandpa and Arnold the Scottie Dog all in the same compartment of the columbarium.  I'm sure she would be happy.

 

Meh Project

Nicholas saw that you can make homemade bouncy balls on Pinterest one day.  No, he doesn't peruse Pinterest, I was probably on my way to find the recipe for dinner and he saw it on the home page.  Anyway, we had all the ingredients because long ago Aunt Beth gave them to us for that exact purpose but we never did the project.  

It wasn't amazing.  I didn't expect it to be but it was even less than I hoped for.  The ball was spongy before it dried but then it dried with a flat spot since it was on the table.  And once it dried it really didn't bounce much.  Oh well.  It was kind of fun to mix together.  Also I now have an entire box of Borax minus one teaspoon.  Guess I'll have to look up how to use it in the laundry.

Crepe Paper Tradition

You know, now that I'm back down to only having to make two crepe paper trails this tradition doesn't feel so bad anymore.  When I was making 4 or 5 trails I was sorry I'd ever started it.  Plus I was forward thinking enough this year to get the end-of-the-trail trinkets ahead of time which always helps.

Julia is rather miffed that the grade school got out so much earlier than the junior/high school so we included her in a little of the fun.

Summer is here...for some of us....and the weather isn't summery....but here we come anyway!!

Last Day of School!

 First Day/Last Day splits from 2nd and 5th grade.

They got out earlier than usual because their school is finally building the addition they've been talking about for 10 years.  They had plenty of days so they let out a week early so construction could begin.  

Athletic Banquet

Or rather Athletic not-banquet just speeches evening (thanks Covid).

Both boys are well on their way to being 4 year, three sport participants!
 

Running Around

The three older kids are all doing track.  Julia and Thomas only throw (and occasionally do the weight man relays).  Samuel throws and runs mostly the 200 and 400.

Julia wasn't planning on doing track but then they threw in PE one day and she came home and said, "Mom, I'm going to do track.  I really enjoyed throwing in PE today."  I'm glad she found a sport she's interested in but a little more planning would have been helpful. She'd just taken a once a week job cleaning at a friend's salon and so then we had to rework that because throwing practice interfered.  It worked out fine though!

After missing out on a freshman season, Thomas is working on his technique and steadily improving.  He has done really well in the relays he's participated in too.  He's even metaled twice in the 200 meter when they needed someone to run it but says he isn't interested in running next year, just throwing.

Sam is way in the back of this picture, he was the 3rd man in the 4 by 1 relay that day.  It's hard to get a picture in a 200 race, which was what else I saw him run that day.

I made it to one of each kid's meets and have realized track has an even worse watching your kid to time in the bleachers ratio than wrestling does!  I'm proud of them all for working hard and improving all season though!

A Little Project

We made, then hatched dinosaurs from eggs.

First we made a baking soda/water paste.  Then we put some of the paste in an Easter egg, put in a plastic dinosaur and then filled the rest of the egg with paste.  The tighter we packed it the better they turned out.

After they had dried we carefully took them out of the Easter eggs.

The ones that weren't packed as tight fell apart some.

But they were all fun to hatch with a dropper of vinegar!

Even Thomas was interested!

Here's to some summer projects soon!

FFA

 Both Samuel and Thomas have enjoyed FFA this year.  Thomas became a Greenhand, which is the 1st level.  I forget what the level Sam is at is called, oops.  This year he was Treasurer of the chapter and next year he will be president!  There was an end of year banquet and new officer installation that we were able to go to.

Samuel competed in some of the virtual competitions.  He broke the top 10 in Farm Business management and his Parliamentary Procedure team did very well also.

Although Sam does not sit behind the ear of corn and send correspondence "everywhere the corn grows" (which is the secretary and my favorite line in their officer speeches) I'm sure he will excel behind the rising sun as president.  Congratulations Samuel!

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