End of Year Fun

June's been kinda crazy around here, especially since there were three school graduations going on in the family. Sam graduated high school, Kevin promoted from the 8th grade, and Jacob promoted from 6th grade.

Matt's third grade class celebrated the end of the school year with a giant softball-baseball-mass-of-kids against the parents game one Friday. Picture a parent hitting the ball in the air, and 20 to 30 kids dog piling over each other to get to the ball first (with another 20 or so shyly standing around). Some of those kids were pretty darn good, though - you could tell which ones were in Little League and Bobby Sox. We now officially have only one kid left in that school.

Jacob's promotion came soon enough (or not soon enough, if you ask him), and he is now officially in junior high. Little does he know what that means - kids being mean because they are trying to fit in with the other "cool" kids, acne, and dressing out for P.E. Going from being the big fish in a little sea to a little fish in a bigger sea is also something you can't quite explain - not that my moody, hormone driven 12 year old would listen to me these days. We've already pegged him to be the one that we have to watch, especially since he now has the "freedom" to ride his bike halfway across town to school on his own each day.

Kevin officially promoted to high school as well, but the school district determined there was no money to hold ceremonies for the junior high kids. Don't know how much it really costs to set chairs up in the quad, but obviously it would break the non-existent school budget. So my only picture of him at this time is at Jacob's ceremony - and I had to twist his arm to actually attend that morning.

Matt actually had a "graduation" of his own, that of finishing the Bear rank in Cub Scouts, making him an official Webelos cub scout now. We had a ceremony for all the boys - here is the group of rowdiness I had to contend with this past year. Don't let those little sly grins fool you, they are all up to something at one time or another.

We celebrated the endings and beginnings with a day/evening at the beach. The kids all spent the afternoon (the first sunny one all month) in the water, and then we had dinner and a bonfire. It was incredibly windy, and while it subsided down a couple notches at sundown, it never completely stopped. We were all windburned, sunburned, and smoky by the end of the night.

Kevin (here doing his blind person imitation) invited Thomas and Stephanie along . . .

. . . while Sammy invited his friends Kevin Stark, Ricardo, and Norma out for the day. Lots of food, fun, water, smiles, wind and sand marked the day.

Next promotion/graduation dates =
June 2011; June 2012; June 2013; June 2014; June 2015; June 2018

One Down, 3 to Go

Last week I made the trek out to Harlingen, TX to make my first and last visit to Sam's school. The airline ticket was bought two months ago, but he kept us biting our nails until the last minute on whether he would pass one last class.

The day started out with an early morning awards ceremony parade, on the grounds in front of the Iwo Jima memorial. Each company had a contingency participate, and we were told this was a traditional parade review format. Sam's here in the band (much smaller than he was used to!)

After a uniform change, which necessitated a trip back to the hotel for his belt that he forgot ("I'm done with school, I can turn my brain off now...") - it was time for the graduation ceremony. Since the weather was pushing 92, with like 85% humidity, it was held indoors. It seemed fairly short to me, probably cause we got all the awards out of the way earlier.

After all was said and done, we headed back for one last change of clothes before heading to the airport. Sam misplaced his I.D., and quickly learned that the TSA doesn't like that, especially now that you're an adult. He quickly remembered where he stashed it after I told him I would see him on the other side!

But all is good now, we are back in the land of dry heat and voluntary PT, diploma in hand.

This Thing Wanted To Eat Me...

Yesterday started out great, nice and overcast and perfect weather for tackling all the plants, weeds, devil-grass, vines, iceplant (and look, a kitten!) that has overtaken my yards. Drug out the whole arsenal of tools for the job: gloves, spades, full-size shovel, sunglasses.

I fully expected to run across my share of spiders, bugs, pincher bugs, rolly-pollies and the like. I was vigilant, cause I know there are black widows that inhabit the yard around me - know where they hang out, even. Seen 'em in the past, we eye each other warily, and go our separate ways.


See? Look...how pretty. Still only about 1/4 done, but hey, I can live with this for now.

So, the sun came out and started wiping me out. I came inside to take a break and chug some ice tea, sat down to check my email and play a mind-numbing game of solitaire while my back throbbed and my head felt dizzy.

Out of the corner of my eye, this THING crawled up from the back of my monitor and on to the top - right in my line of sight. This wasn't your ordinary house spider, the kind you blow away and move on with your business. NO! It was BLACK and FURRY and flippin' HUGE!! I swear to you that this was a tarantula. After picking myself up off the floor, I grabbed my camera and took a picture cause I knew NO ONE would believe me.
Had to go get all the boys to take a look and gawk and stare, while staying in the living room with my toes all curled. These guys? Yeah, no help at all...

Question now is: how many more are living in my office waiting to show up somewhere else?

April 25

Aaaah, what a nice refreshing, relaxing weekend. One that only involved cleaning one house. Granted, it was a house that hadn't been cleaned for two weeks, had no food in the cupboards, and had a fresh car-load of stuff dumped into it, but still... Yesterday I spent the day vacumming, cleaning upholstery in the car, folding piles and piles of clothes, moving the crap from the office to the other hiding spaces in the house, and paying bills.

I did go through two boxes of school and scouts stuff - things I pretty much forgot about, cause that's what you do immediately after turning them into the teacher. Things like MY ABC BOOK, a pile of character trait reports, ooodles of term papers and reports (that my kids never do!), art projects, and the like. I'm telling ya, mom saved EVERYTHING. Most stuff was junk, some things were classic, some made me laugh out loud.

Sample character trait report:
"At school this week, I showed Sincerity ... when somebody on the other team struck out and I didn't laugh at them." Wonder if I laughed at anyone on my own team when they struck out?!?


Earlier this week, when the boys were on spring break, Kevin and Thomas made a trek to the Vans SkatePark. They prefer to ride their bikes instead of their skateboards, but it seems a large portion of the time they just seem to hang out looking cool. Right next to the other kids who had to have their moms drive them there, too.

Weather last week was a blazing 100+ degrees for a couple days, then dropped 30+ degrees by Friday. Since that weather pattern causes earthquakes, Thursday night we had a lovely swarm of three to roll around with. Today was a little warmer, lots sunnier. The group of us Cub Scouts went out to the nature center, hiking around with all the mannerisms and the noise level of little boys. We barged right past the Girl Scouts who were quietly listening to the tour guide... yeah, that didn't work for us.... especially since the boys' homemade trail mix consisted of such goodies as cocoa puffs, marshmallows, peanuts, and M&Ms. They loved it, and asked when we were going to go back.

Easter Weekend

After the requisite amount of time was put in on such mundane tasks as house cleaning, email, bill avoidance, watering the yards, and grocery shopping, I threw the two youngest in the car while they whined and moaned about it. God forbid we waste another minute inside staring at electronic devices; we went to take a drive and a hike.

In a couple weeks Matt's cub scout den is going hiking at Oak Canyon Nature Center in Anaheim Hills. We took a reconnisance mission to scope out the place and see what was out there. (Fortunately, there are plenty of trails and things to see, and I think Matt will want to return!) The boys climbed all around, running off the trails to see what they could see, while I was looking out for things like poison oak and rattlesnakes - either of which would not make my day.

I never get to be in the shot - !

Spent Easter afternoon at Cindy's house, where we had beef brisket (aka "Jewish food"), Marcie's potatos, asparagus, deviled eggs, and angel food cake with strawberries. Oh yeah, and lots of candy from the Easter egg hunt.

The boys were goofy even before they had any sugar:

Good thing that Matt is so cute - he committed a major faux pas today regarding the Marcies. We were sitting around watching a movie, everyone feeling "me so fat..." and all, but not stopping picking at food. (You know, you've all done it.) Matt asks me if he can have some more of those "flaky things".

Huh?

Matt, if you are a member of this family, you better learn the name of the potatoes that show up at every holiday meal. And then you better learn the family joke to keep your fiance away from them. We only eat them so we don't hurt anyone's feelings.