Never Seen this Kind of Bonnet Before...

Jeremy and I had received a bunch of gift cards from the Wahoo Locker.  I went one day and picked out any and everything I wanted...including this bowl bonnet for covering your dough while it rises.  I think it's hilarious and functional!

 

They Did Their Time

When my grandma moved out of her house and into an apartment Jeremy and I acquired her recliners.  Pink for her and blue for Grandpa.  They aren't the only recliners I remember in their house but I'm going to place them as new in the mid 90s.  Fast forward to 2025, a good 30 years later...they have finally been retired.  We bought new ones over Memorial Day because they were a door buster!

I didn't even have to carry them in.  :) 

We bought three because there are six of us in this house.

And until Jeremy makes it to the dump the old ones are in the yard.

Still useful after all these years.  ;)

However I do think yard recliners are the epitome of hick life.

To be fair, Nicholas sits in them outside almost every day too.

Mission Trip

Julia thoroughly enjoyed the Neumann mission trip to New Mexico for the third year.

This year they built an altar down the path and worked on an Native American reservation.

A nap after the week is always in order.

Philip decided to go on the Steubenville retreat this year.  He's planning on joining the mission trip next summer and Julia is already excited.

First/Last Day Splits

I was done May 7th!  Yay!!!

 

Nick was done with 6th grade on May 16th!  On to Neumann! (And after 17 years, no Vranas at St. Wenceslaus anymore!  I appreciate that they have done a good job educating my kids but I can't say that I'll miss having kids there...)

Philip and Julia finished up on the 21st.

Freshman year, check!

Ready for senior year to start!

It's the LAST Crepe Paper Trail!

And I am definitely not nostalgic about it.  I was over making these awhile ago but I made it to the end of Nick's St. Wenceslaus run.  Good job me.  :)

 It was SUPER windy and I couldn't find a roll of crepe paper so this one was actually made of wrapping ribbon.  More sturdy but harder to see in the pictures.

Track

Philip ran short distances in track this year, mostly JV.  He did the 4x1 relay quite a bit too.  He's a speedy guy.  I believe he likes the 200 best but he does the 400 as well.

This picture is from a different race but it works chronologically.  

These are the freshman runners.

The boys won their district!

I think he enjoyed the year!

Fine Arts Banquet

Covid did not kill the food part of the Fine Arts banquet!  We still get to eat...and at my table, drink.  My friend Karen doesn't always follow the rules...well, this was more of a ask forgiveness (if you get caught) not permission situation and we didn't get caught.  :)

Julia lettered in Speech,

Drama,

Choir

and band.

She also got the "super special you're the best in your grade band kid award" for the third year running.  It has a real name but I don't remember it.

Philip also got a certificate of participation in band (it generally takes two years to letter)...where did his picture go?  Not sure. And since google thinks I should upload ALL the pictures on my phone in order to have them in google pics to put on my blog, which then fills my free google drive and tells me I need to buy more storage, which I will not be doing- finding and adding that picture is a process.  Just imagine the picture with Julia and Mr. Kellett above  with Philip's back in it instead. 

Band Concert

Julia and Izzy played their flute duet (you know, the one I didn't have a picture of in an earlier post, well here you go!).  Beautiful job ladies.

Side note, one random afternoon Julia came in the living room with tears in her eyes and said, "Mom!  Isabelle won't be in band next year!"  

"Because she's graduating?"  I asked very confused.

"Yes, but it just hit me!" 

Nicholas played drums with the 6th grade band.  They are very small but still sound great!

The high school band was great too!

I managed to once again sit where I couldn't actually see Julia while they played becasue she's behind the director.  I'll have to remember to sit to the right in the future if I want to see my short girl.

Ooh, she peeked out!

Traditional band family picture.

Happy Mother's Day

Sam didn't make it home but he called!  :)

 

Guess Where I was

When the new pope was announced?  Sitting on the floor of my empty classroom organizing spelling cards.  That tracks for me.

Prayers for Pope Leo the 14th!

Athletics Awards Night

 The athletic department has dropped the banquet part of the night and just hands out awards.  It's fine, it shaves off an hour of time!

Philip didn't really want to go but I thought we should so we went.  He was right.  We could have skipped.  It's mostly fun for seniors because the coaches say nice things.  Well, wrestling is small enough Coach says nice things about all of them.

He lettered in Football, Wrestling and Track.  Great work Philip.  Looks like we have another three sport athlete, we'll see if he does all three all four years.

Since Philip was there under slight protest and I regretted making us come, we seem not to have taken any pictures...

I'll just throw on of him in here...

Vocal Concert

Julia sang with the Madrigals

and show choir...which are the same kids just doing different things.  

She loved being in the choirs this year and loves being a soprano, which is beyond this alto mom.

Here she is with Sofia.  It was a great year of sining.

Percy Jackson

Julia was thrilled to be cast as Annabeth in Percy Jackson for the spring play!  She has loved the Percy Jackson series for a long time.  I also love the series but we both thought the script left something to be desired compared to the books but such is life.

Percy finds out his dad is Poseidon, which makes him a half blood (half Greek god in modern times, half regular human), trouble ensues.

Annabeth is also a half blood who knows way more about the whole situation than Percy.  She's tough so Julia and Michaela had to manage not to laugh at each other, although I did catch Julia sticking out her tongue on closing night.

She convinced the boys to let her go on the "killer" quest.  Good thing or they wouldn't have made it.

It rained on part of the quest...

She sang a nice solo explaining her "grand plan."

More questing.  The traveling was most of what we saw.  The battles during the quest were minimal.  Dumb script writer.

After various obstacles, some arguing and finally stage fighting, they saved the day!  Yay! 

This picture is not that part turns out.  It's Julia's favorite line:  Percy is mad because he figured out Annabeth set him up to either get clobbered by Clarise or be hidden away in an unimportant place during capture the flag.  "Works either way!" smirks Annabeth.

Bravo!  Great job Julia!

Apparently we didn't take very many after the show pictures this year.