Weekend Wrap Up

June 8, 2009

The kids' school year is definitely winding down. It seems like every day is a celebration of some kind or another, and as a matter of fact, the kids already know their 4th quarter grades a week and a half before school is out.

Here at the high school, it's another story. Brianna, my oldest, is still buckling down for her finals. I give my last final to the last class of freshmen on Thursday, and grades are due on Friday, so we are still in academic mode.

Thursday, Danielle and her class got to walk to the neighborhood park to meet up with a class from another school. They were pen pals all year, and they finally got to meet face-to-face for a picnic lunch and some fun and games. The kids all loved it. Also on Thursday, Nicholas got to go to Boomers for most of the day for the band/choir end-of-the-year celebration. He spent most of the day playing laser tag with his buddies. (And to think, my students were stuck in class, finishing up Act V of Romeo and Juliet!)

On Friday, the entire school complex had a minimum day (high school, junior high, and elementary), because our school hosted the state track meet. This was a huge deal for our school and community--they expected 10,000 spectators and participants to attend the two-day event, and frankly, they needed the parking space! So off we went. Bree, as usual, took advantage of the social opportunity staring her in the face, and she organized a lunch-movie group for several of her friends. They went to see Night at the Museum II, and as always, had a great deal of fun. Fun just seems to follow that girl. I'm pretty sure she's got a future in party planning if her Public Relations goals don't pan out.

That left me and the littles. I decided we would have a special lunch out together, even though we were going out for Family Dinner Night later on. We splurged a little. It's the end of the year, right? And why should all of the fun follow Bree? We decided to make a little fun of our own and treated ourselves to Me 'n Ed's Slices. (That's livin' the high life for Nicholas!)

Later in the evening, all members of the family converged once again and we set out for Family Dinner Night. Friday was Doug's choice, so we headed to Chick-Fil-A. Since we were in Riverpark, we roamed around all the shops (including Borders, one of our favorite places). The weather was beautiful, there was a live band playing outside, and most importantly, everyone was in a good mood. We capped off the evening with a frozen yogurt and called it a night.

Saturday, Miss Social Calendar had a masquerade ball to attend. Seriously. When I was fifteen-only-a-week-and-a-half-away-from-sixteen, no one I knew was cool enough to have masquerade ball. But that's how she rolls. She spent the afternoon with her close friend getting all beautiful, so the littles and I decided we needed to check out "Up" in the theater. Danielle has been beside herself waiting to see this one, and Nicholas was excited, too. Wow. It was not really at all what I expected. There's some pretty heavy content at the beginning--poignant and sad. But it is ultimately happy, celebratory, uplifting. It has an important message, but it doesn't bang you over the head with a hammer to drive the point home. It's beautifully done. The kids loved it; I cried. (This is not a particularly difficult feat, to make me cry in a movie, but still.) I highly recommend it.

Finally, after the kids were settled in at their dad's for the rest of the weekend on Saturday night, Doug and I decided we were going to have a relaxing, mellow weekend. We just enjoyed each other's company, slept in on Sunday, put nothing on the agenda. Except we did decide we'd surprise the girls before they came home by FINALLY replacing the fan in their room, which shorted out WAY too long ago. We got a little industrious in there (while he worked to install the fan with the ocassional assist from me, I did some ruthless guerilla cleaning in the room) and are looking forward to them coming home to a clean and breezy cool room.

I'm also including a few pictures of some of our other recent year-end celebrations that have been keeping us hopping: Bree's choir concert, Nicholas' end of the year band concert (probably his last, since he did not chose band as an elective in junior high next year), and Danielle's end of season softball party.