@OrangeBlossomMom Congratulations on your D getting off the Pomona WL. We just came back from Pomona graduation last Sunday for my older D. PM me if you have any Pomona questions.
@Corinthian, thank you, and will do! She is SO beyond thrilled!
Glad your DS is ok.
@liska21 thatâs so scary! How will you send him off to school? Bubble wrapped!!
D19 off at senior prom. The pre-prom party at our place ended up being about 15 or 16 kids and maybe 25 adults. A little bigger than we had expected initially! A couple of the kids are not close friends but she invited them because they hadnât been asked anywhere else. Everyone looked great and many proud parents.
@SJ2727 kudos to your daughter for welcoming the kids who didnât get invited anywhere! We are hosting post prom at the end of June, and our list also grew a bit because D19 wanted to ask a few girls who were left out of other gatherings.
@SJ2727 I love that your daughter invited kids to make them feel included! This is a stressful time in these kids lives and not everyone has a core group. The happiest times in the lives of some can be the loneliest in others. You should be so proud.
Graduation was yesterday and was lovely. No real awards other than recognition of Val/Sal and top 10%. A couple of sweet and funny speeches. A wonderful acknowledgement of the accomplishments of the entire class, which was really nice opposed to individual awards (we have an awards night earlier in May).
It was perfect and they got 440 kids graduated in 1 hour, 45 minutes.
We had a wonderful day with family and a fun friend party earlier in the week. S19 is leaving tomorrow for a trip with friends, and D20 and I are leaving for a college tour. Not sure my emotions can handle doing this all over again!
Hope everyone has wonderful gradation days!
Graduation went well. It took an hour for just less than 100 graduates.
Grad speaker was horrible. Spoke about himself 90% of the time. He didnât tie much of what he said about himself to anything inspirational or useful for the graduates. He even used the platform to surprise his mom (who was in the audience) about something.
Grad reception went really well. I think about 500 people showed up. We went in on the reception with DDâs best friend. We planned food for 200 people but, fortunately, the restaurant was able to keep up with additional food. The buffet was never empty. Seemed like everyone had a blast. Was so happy many coaches, teachers, etc took time out of their busy schedule to show up.
Now, itâs S23âs 8th grade graduation this Tuesday. We will get a break some day soon. ?
My D started packing up her stuff a little today. Mostly getting rid of lots of things at this stage. On one hand when she asked me if I wanted to keep her company in her room, I thought it seemed too early for this. Then I realized that sheâll be gone six of her last twelve weeks at home, so maybe sheâs really smart to be so proactive. Should lead to a less stressful summer. Itâs definitely weird to see her room start to go blank. Iâm sure it would be different if we were permanently in place, but she knows weâll move two times while we are in college and she doesnât want to leave it all to me later.
Wow - looks like everybody had a busy few days with last days, graduations, prom. D19, D21 and I took a very last minute trip up to MA this weekend. My brother called Friday and told me one of our cousins was throwing a huge family and friends party Saturday. He had done it for the first time last year and everybody said it was so much fun so when I heard he was doing it again I said I wished I had known because maybe I would have come up. My brother then convinced me to go check flights and to get up there so we did! S23 and DH stayed home and we had a girls weekend.
Party was great, itâs more like a giant wedding with DJ, dance floor, dunk tank and bounce house for the kids, food trucks, etc. I had texted my cousin to make sure it was OK that we showed up at the last minute but didnât realize he didnât tell the rest of the family so they were pretty surprised when we got there which was fun. D19 was happy because she was so sick and in the hospital when we were up there over Christmas that she didnât get to spend much time with her little cousins.
Sunday we headed into Boston and spent the afternoon walking through the Public Garden and shopping from one end of Newbury Street to the other - something we donât get to do when S23 is with us. Had a great dinner in the North End Sunday night and lunch at my favorite pizza place Monday before we flew back home. I was a little bummed we werenât staying for the Bruins game but it saved me a ton of money to just come home and not buy those crazy tickets!
@ninakatarina Congrats on graduation!!
@carolinamom2boys That is so cool about the 8th grade letter!
@bjscheel Congrats on the job - sounds fun to play Lesley Knope for the summer! 
@MWolf Congrats on the last day of school! My D19 is pretty forgetful too. IN fact when we got to the rental car on Saturday she realized she forgot her sisterâs favorite sweatshirt (that she constantly steals) on the plane and we had to drive back to the terminal for them to go find it!
@ChicagoSportsFn Congrats on Co-Val and that is so sweet that she is donating the money!!
@OrangeBlossom Congrats on Pomona - that is so great! When I was young I saw a brochure for Pomona in the GC office. I told my mom that is where I wanted to go, based only on pictures of course. I lated told my GC that I wanted to put it on my list and he basically laughed at me - I had no idea what a great school it was, just that it was pretty and in CA!
@liska21 So sorry about the bike accident - hope he is doing better!
@SJ2727 That is so sweet about the prom party!
@brentwoodmom Congrats on graduation!
@milgymfam Ugh - I canât believe your D is packing already - it is going too fast!
Congrats to all the graduates! Weâre just heading into the insanity â final concerts, award ceremonies, etc. Last day of classes / final exams is Friday. Graduation the next Friday. Something nearly every day between now and then, just as you are all also experiencing. S19 is my âbabyâ so these are âlast lastsâ but Iâm not too sad to be saying goodbye to the HS â some great teachers, yet, but the school as a whole, not so much :-/
Good luck to everyone getting through these crazy final weeks!
D19 had her last IB exam on Friday, then went to an end-of-exams party where she quite overdid it. She was woefully ill into Saturday afternoon. Hopefully a lesson for her ahead of the graduation party June 22. She had senior prank day on Monday (said it was lame), and thatâs it until graduation June 21.
We move back to the States exactly a month from today. Kind of weird how much weâll be getting done between now and then, and how much will be ending.
We are Done! S19 graduated! The weather was nice and beautiful. We had a small party with family and friends.
I am still exhausted.
⊠Dental and eye exams, probably a physical later in summer, State ID (no driving), âŠ
mothering never stops.
Itâs pretty quiet in here! DD is working on Thank You cards now. This afternoon she starts her job and this evening is the first soccer playoff game.
Graduation was Sunday afternoon and we braved the 95 degree heat after the ceremony to do do photos with friends and the water polo team. We had a party for S19 and his close friend on Monday and I was completely exhausted afterward. Iâm still recovering and feeling a little down but looking forward to a girls weekend with college friends. Iâm also making some plans for traveling and move in day but need a little break first. Good luck to all those still in the middle of things.
Congrats to all those whoâve reached the end! We had senior awards night last night, then we have a baccalaureate celebration on Sunday, next week is finals, and they graduate next Friday. Gulp.
Just a few more days for S19. D16 is home for summer so that is a treat. She was gone last summer. Things are crazy busy for me. Work is busy, graduation stuff, and tons of stuff with my volunteer job. Itâs all good but feels like a blur at the moment. I have also started tackling the list of things to do for S19âs college. Well, ok, he needs to do it but I need to be aware and make sure things happen in a timely manner. He sometimes announces the day that something is due that âoh I need this medical form today.â UmâŠnope. Though he is getting much better about this.
Really being done is close for D19 now. A bit jealous of you who have wrapped it all up already. At this point I just kind of feel like, letâs do this! Was at the same Senior Awards as SJ2727 last night and it was SO NICE to hear such wonderful stories for 2 hours. The event moved at a really nice pace and and was just so, so positive and inspiring. I left feeling very uplifted. D19 was pleasantly surprised and got a one of the department awards. A nice way to end 4 years of very hard work.
That nice night also tempered news this morning that a large group of Seniors trashed the school 2 nights ago. I donât know how doing what they did could remotely feel like a âprank.â Just super rude. Senior breakfast was cancelled due to it. I hope there are more ramifications for the specific kids caught on camera and via wifi connection that kicks in when they walk onto campus.
We made it through all of the graduation stuff and S19 is now a high school graduate. The senior awards night went really well, though it took a while because this was such a great class. I also had award ceremonies for my 5th grader and my 8th grader that week. We had graduate recognition day at church on a Sunday morning and then a reception after church that night. Each graduate had a table to decorate and that was quite a challenge for me, thankfully my mother and my daughter helped. My son was class president so he had to give a speech at graduation, he did a good job and everyone says it was the best speech of the night. Afterwards, we hosted a party at church with 3 other boys which turned out nicely. The first batch of thank you cards have been sent out if I can get him to hurry up and finish the rest I will be happy. He has orientation June 3-4 and has FFA state convention that week where he is supposed to receive his state degree. The others from our school will already be there(including my daughter) so he will have to drive or be driven the 4 hours to be there for the ceremony.
He had decided to attend University of North Alabama, which is about an hour away since he didnât want to go too far and they gave him several scholarships. Local scholarships were awarded at senior night and he received two, one for $500 which is a one-time thing and another one for $2,000 per year which is renewable(but you have to reapply each year). The scholarships along with his Pell grant are enough to cover tuition, fees, room, board, and he should be refunded enough to cover books, supplies, and probably a laptop and dorm essentials. There is another scholarship which he interviewed for but the school wonât award those until July. He also had to go do a few hours of work at the school two days before graduation as punishment for their senior prank.