This & That

The Professor is In

With AP Boy's family here for the last part of this month, The Girl has been very fortunate to have her own personal math tutor. AP Boy has a real affinity for the subject and claims that he uses obscure mathmatical formulas all the time....for recreational purposes.

I'm not sure about that, but I do know that we're grateful that he loves it so much and is willing to try to pass that knowledge along. His comment? "I can hardly wait until the girls (and he's talking about the grandgirls here) need help with their math homework!" I know The Girl thinks she's the luckiest person in the world....I just know it. Actually her comment about end of the year schoolwork has been pretty consistent. "Everything is stupid!!"

Take Your Parents to Work Day

The morning of the next day, my eldest son had to run into work for just a bit and invited us to come along with him. I may have mentioned that the reason he and his family are living in Tornado Alley right now is that they are in the last leg of some extended schooling. So we piled in the car and headed down to where he's working.

 I noticed these on the lamp posts in the area.

My son left his dad and I in an area where he and his collegues can study. There's a long line of study cubbies down both sides of the room and each desk has a name plate on it. I have to tell you I was just a little taken aback when I saw his, for a couple of reasons. You know how your kid is always your kid, and sometimes it's just a little strange to realize that they may be something other than the kid you tucked in, cleaned up  and fed, and had to nag and remind about everything....that they have really grown up and accomplished something. It was just a bit of a startling realization, and then a Mommy Moment. And really the thing I loved the most was seeing the decorated bow tie one of the boys had made him dangling from the name plate. 

And I found this basket of "goodies" (?) in there as well. Slightly odd medical humor.

He showed us around the clinic and then, because all of us have northern European eyes that tend to get inflamed oil glands, we all took a turn having that looked at.

And that was a bit of a Mommy Moment, too, as I watched the whole "like father, like son" thing happen. Holy cow.

It was fun to see where he spends his days, and he drove us by the capitol building which is just down the street. I thought that dandy green sign was very helpful in identifying things. 

All the Little Sweethearts

Last weekend was the Sweetheart Dance at the high school. It's a girls choice deal and The Girl did ask somebody. She also asked me if I would take the dance photos and make her group dinner. She told me she wanted me to make the dinner because then the food wouldn't be "sketchy." I guess that's a compliment of sorts. She uses "sketchy" almost as much as she uses "stupid." Oh, and could I make the table cute?

Was this cute enough?

I was worried about the timing of the photos, because I knew I wanted to take them outside if at all possible. They were supposed to be at my house at 5:30 sharp, but of course, no one was here then, including my own daughter.....and it was cloudy, which was good for color saturation, but not so much for available light. I'm fairly pleased with how they turned out. At least there was one good couples shot of everyone...whew.

The Girl and her date. The dress was gorgeous on her, but please don't ask about the shoe war we had....and it's not the shoe war you'd expect. Oh all right.....she wore a pair of slate grey Toms with this fancy dress, claiming it was just "her style". I lobbied for dressier shoes, but in the end decided it just wasn't a battle I was going to pick. It wasn't like she was going for 6 inch streetwalker heels. I let it go. You should have seen a couple of her friends in those kinds of heels walking over my lawn to get their pictures taken, though. I may not have to aereate it this year, lol.

The friends.

The whole group. 

The Peeve This Week

So Monday night, The Girl and I attended a meeting at her high school about graduation requirements, college entrance testing and, oh yes, the Senior Project. She will be a senior next year and is the first graduating class at her high school required to do a senior project. My question is....WHO THE HECK CAME UP WITH THIS MONUMENTAL WASTE OF TIME???

I have put 5 children through the school system already and they have managed to get into college, and into post graduate work without doing a high school senior project. Now, the Baby who gets stuck with this albatross, is already taking dual credit and AP classes. She has already done a church achievement project that has required 8 separate 10 hour minimum projects to earn. This is a colossal waste of time that could be better spent on her regular school studies. Seriously, we are debating whether to cut an AP class to provide room in her schedule to accomplish this. It makes no sense to me. She has to present an idea before a committee, make a "commitment poster" about what she's going to do, do the project with a community mentor, write a research paper in her English class (how this will fit into the AP Lit class next year is beyond me) about it and then present the finished project and a tri-fold display board before a committee and a community open house. Seriously? 

Maybe some teacher out there can tell me why this is beneficial instead of one huge busy work time black hole.

Now really, I apologize about this rant. I promise that I won't do a weekly vent, but apoplectic is not too strong a word for how I'm feeling about this.

First Day

It was The Girl's first day of school yesterday. It was truly bittersweet, as this was the first time I've ever had just one child in residence on the first day of school. In all honesty, I woke up thinking, "Do I really have to make happy face pancakes?"

But her breakfast was happy to see her and you should have seen her smile...made it worth the effort.

She didn't have to go until later in the morning, so I figured plenty of time for pictures, but can you tell she's actually gritting her teeth and saying, "Hurry up, Mom! I have to go!"

For those of you who are interested, after the reaction to breakfast, the Lunch Lady did make an appearance and served the traditional Pigs in a Blanket, fresh Peaches, Peas and Pink Lemonade.

Headed Back

LS Boy's school starts back up today. He headed back a few days ago to get things sorted out and organized.

His car was pretty loaded up. In fact his comment was, "I didn't know I had so much stuff..."

It also necessitated a trip to Costco, to stock up on college convenience food.

Sad. Sad. Sad.

This completes my younger sister's "misery loves company so post your ugly photos" challenge. She thinks she's the only one that had an awkward stage. Puh.....leeeeeeze!

Here we are in 6th grade, the beginning of my nearly 4 years in braces. Yes, I'll take credit for passing on the buck teeth to my kids.

Now, here's 8th or 9th grade....yeah, I'm rocking the pigtails with seam binding bows.

And saddest of all...here is 10th grade. You have to understand that I was a teenager in the mid-70's, when EVERY girl wanted to-the-waist straight surfer girl hair. My hair is very wavy, so that wasn't happening. The only other option was the shag cut. Sad....so sad.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. By the time I was a Junior, I'd gotten the hair a little bit under control and the braces were off.

So there you go. My adolescence documented in school photos. Glad that's over with.

Childhood Photo Challenge, part 2

Keeping up with my sister's photo challenge, here's the next installment. For some reason, my mom didn't have every single yearly school photo for me. You've seen first grade already. Here's third and fourth grades.

 


Mom kept our hair really short for a lot of our childhood. That will soon change for me, however, as 6th grade marks my slide into ugly-ducklingness. Oh yes, scary times ahead.

Blog-able Fodder

I'm not quite sure how The Girl will feel about being labeled Blog-able Fodder, but that's what she is for this post. Last week was "Spirit Week" at the high school. Amazingly, she actually let me take some pictures of her in her garbs for the various days. I'll take what I can get....willingly.

Nerd Day:

Cowboys and Indian Day:

She dug around in the costume box and came up with this. It was a costume I made for A/P Boy when he was something like 9 or 10. Yes, she got it around her, but the legs and sleeves were too short.

And Blue and White Day (she made the tutu herself):

Just a little blog-able fodder.

 

September

Wow. It's September 1st. And you know what that means, don't you? In my world, it means that the first day of fall is on its way and we can kiss another summer good-bye! I can almost hear all the plants sighing in relief.

Fortunately or unfortunately for me, it also means the start of school. And I'm OK with that usually. But that meant I had to take SD Boy back down to Utah to resume his education, and it just hasn't seemed like I've had him home here long enough. Regardless, we loaded up the car and headed back to Provo, where he will be living in the same apartment as his slightly older brother. 

I've given them Mother Lectures on behaving, and getting along, and using time wisely. Do any kids ever listen to that stuff and actually do it? Miss them both.