Congrats @ninakatarina ! And everyone else I’m missing since I was too busy to post
It’s been both a great few days and very terrible few days. Friday night we were at S19’s school for the World Languages Honor Society cord ceremony, not knowing that a few minutes up the road the tragic shooting was taking place at the Municipal Center. One of S19’s teachers lost her sister-in-law, and we know a few others as well. Hard to believe. When we turned our phones back on after the ceremony, they were blowing up with texts from out of state friends and relatives.
But there was also good - Prom was Saturday night and he had a great time. His STEM Academy senior graduation/celebration was last night - I anticipate that it will have felt more like “graduation” to me than the bigger one in a week and a half will, since I knew most of the kids :). Friends visited us from Florida so we were able to see them. UAH orientation is in two and a half weeks, then the next weekend we head to Florida and cruise. I hope I’ll be organized enough to not miss anything important in all of this lol.
Kid is being kept busy this last week of school, which is finals. Even for APs, where they wrote finals before the AP exams, there are projects or assignments due this week. Last day of school is Thursday, then Friday is the cancelled-but-then-rescheduled senior breakfast, graduation rehearsal and finally graduation. D19 was a little dismissive of her CSF award (“it feels like EVERYONE got one” - there were a good number admittedly as one would expect at a good school) but I see that the stole has now been removed from the packet and hung around the gown in her closet!
Oh also - tips please - I realized that the dress I had been planning to wear to graduation is almost the exact shade of green as the gowns. Is this a positive (like yea school spirit), a negative (like wearing white to a wedding), or doesn’t it matter?!
Some of the kids wore matching colors underneath, some wore complementary colors. What astounded me was the shoes. Some of the girls wore heels that looked acutely painful. Some few of them hadn’t practiced walking up and down stairs in these heels so it added a bit of drama to the roll call of names. One girl, already tall, had these amazing high spike heeled golden gladiator sandals and she strode across the stage to claim her diploma like a goddess accepting sacrifices, it was glorious.
It’s so adorable with a graduating teenager when they try so hard to look grown up but then suddenly you see the kid sneaking in around the edges. It would kill these girls who were wobbling up the steps to get their diploma if they knew just how cute and young they looked in that moment. I’m proud of them for growing up, but those little reminders that they’re not completely grown yet just tug at my heartstrings.
DD forgot her heels at home on Graduation Day. We live 11 miles away so we went in for church with the intention of staying in town for the day. My suggestion to just continue to wear her white birks was not acceptable to her so her sister ran home after the heels. I have to say it looked a lot better. She is a pro at heels, while I’ve never worn them!
Just a heads up, re: our earlier conversations about booking flights for thanksgiving and winter break. Southwest announced a sale yesterday. I was able to save $50 on one flight, just had to go in to the reservation and modify it, rebooking the exact same flight.
My 5’11" D19 wore kitten heels with her cap and gown, but her favorite pair of dress shoes are 5½-inch platform stilettos. (Do the math—some girls aren’t afraid of being taller than the boys.)
@momzilla2D lucky! When I checked ours it was same out but actually a lot more back as the cheap fares were all gone - it’s now about $150 more pp (for 3 people) glad we booked as soon as we could!
@dfbdfb That’s fantastic. DD is 5’1" so she’s just trying to keep up with everyone else. Her boyfriend is still taller than her in heels, but barely. They sling a lot of ‘short jokes’ at each other.
They are walking across the field at grad so slim heels are out. She’s settled on a black floral dress, so she’ll wear her flat black “interview shoes” - smart but comfortable & practical. She looks so grown up even in flats…
Ugh. Just got news of a training accident at West Point that initial reports say killed 1 cadet and injured more than 20.
This is the kind of stuff that will keep DW awake at night. DW already has the normal mom worries about sending off a daughter to West Point. This won’t help.
Prayers to the cadets, families, and West Point community.
@MWolf The last dance sounds wonderful and congrats on graduation!
@ninakatarina WOW!! Congratulations on that awesome surprise!!
@milgymfam Ykes - sorry about the accident, hope everyone is feeling ok now. That is a great story about the tutoring!
@SwimmingDad Congrats on graduation - sounds like your S had a nice night. D was really iffy on going to the overnight grad party because at her school once you get there you can’t live until 5am no matter what. Have a great vacation - sounds amazing!
@EganAg Add me to the list of people who will help eat your cookies!
@RightCoaster Congrats on graduation and good luck at New Englands this week - that is so exciting! Sorry about the sad news about the friend though.
@liska21 Congrats on graduation! N thanks to the fear challenge!!
@momtok Welcome! Sorry I don’t know anything about that college, I have not heard anyone talking about it on here but you could search the forums and check.
@parent2one So sorry that you were close to the VA shooting. Hope you enjoy your cruise - where are you going? Get ready for the FL heat, this week has been the start of the true summer weather.
@SJ2727 I say go for school spirit and wear the matching color! I didn’t realize it until you said it but I wore navy which matched the gowns as well!
@momzilla2D and @3SailAway D had a great time at Gov Ball. She saw lots of wasted people but it didn’t bother her - I don’t think she saw anybody super young so that was good. She has been to a bunch of music festivals including Gov Ball two years ago so I think she knew what to expect. At first she was bummed she couldn’t go on Sunday because she really wanted to see The Strokes, now after the mess with the weather it turns out she is lucky she wasn’t there!
As for us our summer has started off very busy! D had a a lot of fun flying up to NY to meet her new roommate. They got along very well and are already trying to make plans to see each other again before school starts. We will see her in New Orleans when we go to do the schedule at the end of June but they want to see each other again after that I think so that is a good sign.
D got invited to go to Lake Tahoe next week with one of her BFFs. They have room for her in their house at LT but would have to send her home when they went to San Francisco because there only have a tiny hotel room. We said yes then started talking about how we hadn’t made our summer vacation plans yet. We have always though about going to CA because my brother lives in San Francisco and my kids have never been there but it never worked out. We decided to plan a super last minute trip and meet D out there!
She leaves this week then we meet her next week in SF. We will stay in the city tow nights, head to Yosemite for two nights (all I could get so last minute), drive over to the coast for one night so we can do the coastal drive back up to SF for two nights. Going to be hectic but I cold only get those exact two nights in Yosemite and since I have always wanted to go there I could not pass it up.
You’re having the summer vacation that we were going to have, @momtogkc We had held off on booking flights and hotels up until now because there was the possibility of Scotland, which has indeed come to pass. We were going to go to SF to see my sister and some high school friends, go to Yosemite, go to Reno to see my husband’s aunt and uncle (uncle has early Alzheimers so we’re going to have to visit sooner or later), then back to SF then home. Now we’re planning that for the later fall or next spring and hoping Uncle J holds on.
Copyright schmopyright!! Baked our own cookies and decorated them with the school logos names and colors. Party tomorrow at our place. If I get into trouble I’ll count on y’all to destroy the evidence
Hope you enjoy your cruise - where are you going? Get ready for the FL heat, this week has been the start of the true summer weather.