A Marvelous Birthday

Today is Marvelous' Sweet Sixteen. Apart from sitting at the DMV for 3 hours, she had a pretty uneventful day. She did accompany me to the store as I picked out her birthday card. Now don't think I'm a totally awful parent. M's birthday has stretched out for over a week. We started last week with her party, then grandparents came bearing gifts this past weekend, and I bought her a pair of sandals yesterday. So she hasn't gone totally unnoticed.

Here is a video from her party. Hopefully it plays. It looks a little blurry, but maybe it will work. M is on the end in blue with a white skirt. Mr. C filmed, so sorry about that.

Happy Graduation

A proud middle schooler with his sisters!

Last week was full of graduations. Mr. C started things off as he graduated from 5th grade on Wednesday. The ceremony was beautiful at a local Presbyterian church. The kids sang and each said one line of remembrance from K-5th grade. It was sweet. They had a speaker who preached on the two greatest commandments and told them the importance of loving God and loving others, as well as the impact they will have on the future. It was inspiring and hopefully didn't go over all their heads. They ended by bringing white carnations out to present to all the moms in the audience. Precious.

Do I look old enough to be the parent of a graduating senior? Don't answer that.

Thursday it stormed and we had the high school graduation inside a local theatre. It was a complete fiasco. I was embarrassed that we had family drive eight or nine hours to come to it. There were no tickets so people just kept streaming in, standing in every available square inch. The principal announced before it began that she thought there should have been tickets but that the seniors hadn't wanted that. Who is running the damn school anyway?! Plus I know that S had said ahead of time that there would probably be tickets, so who knows who the renegade seniors were who pressured the administration into not having tickets. There was no speaker to offer words of encouragement or congratulations. The valedictorian and salutatorian did a fine job with their speeches. We even got a shout-out from the salutatorian (well, it was actually a mention of the good times that were had in the Swagger Wagon, but we'll take it). The fire marshall showed up half-way through the ordeal and ordered the aisles cleared. No one moved, including the sheriff's deputy standing next to me, for 10 minutes and then we continued on, just as crowded as before.

GPS was the graduation gift from us--"So you can always find your way home."

We did have a good visit with the Grandmas and Grandpas. Smarty left at midnight Friday for a senior trip to Disney World with a few friends. I have texted her a few times and it sounds like they are having a blast.

Posting

When I haven't written anything in awhile it's hard to think of what, if anything, should be said. I am extremely busy right now. Only two more days of school left (for me). I've been deep into doing end of year records and reports.

We had the honors program today. It was extremely long. Mr. C got a few awards. I have pictures of him standing up front holding various certificates. They aren't very inspiring, so I won't put them on here.

S finished school on Friday. She graduates this Thursday.

M turns 16 on Tuesday, but she had a party last Saturday. They set up a blow up screen, projector, and sound system in the backyard and played some dance party game on Wii. The kids all seemed to have a good time. There were probably about 20-some here at any given time. I have a video of them dancing that would be fun to put on here, but I can never get videos to upload.

Tomorrow is 5th grade graduation. I may put up a picture or two. I can't believe that by next week I'll have a child in middle school, high school, and COLLEGE!

It's Starting

The final countdown is upon us. This Sunday was Graduate Day at church. We have three seniors. Each of them put together pictures for a slideshow that played during the service. Afterward there was a luncheon for all of their families. Each graduate asked someone to get up and give a speech about them. One of them asked his sister, another asked a friend of the family who attends our church, and Smarty asked her school librarian, Mrs. C. She came and ate lunch with us and had wonderful things to say about S. S has always loved her teachers, and they love her right back. I hope that doesn't change next year.

Smarty and Mrs. C

Here are a few of the pictures from the slideshow. I'm having a hard time holding it all together. Maybe it will get easier with M or Mr. C, but I doubt it.

I wish you all could be here.

Mother's Day

I know I'm a little behind with this post. There is so much going on right now and very little that I can write about. Remember how I'm trying to keep this positive?

Last week we went to the Botanical Garden. We usually go to a garden on Mother's Day. We started the tradition when we lived in Indiana and went to the Shaw Botanical Garden in St. Louis. That is still my personal favorite. If you live anywhere near there, you should go at least once.

The best part of the Birmingham garden, according to me, is the rose garden. I love roses! They are my second favorite flower. Here I am with the kiddos in the rose garden.

I turned the camera over to Mr. C for most of the day, so I have a lot of pictures that look like this.

He also noticed this huge rock that resembles a turtle head.

His favorite part of the garden is the Koi pond.

Happy Belated Mother's Day to all of you!

Sights Around Town

M needs to practice driving. So I let her drive and I took some pictures.

The big news in town this week is that they took down the water tower. I don't know who they are. I just heard that they thought it was an eyesore and took it down. There has been general uproar over this, as it removed the sole identifying object from our town's skyline--it was the only object in our skyline.

Now for some history.
This is a statue of Emma Sansom pointing the way. She helped General Forrest (remember who Forrest Gump was named after?) get across Black Creek after General Streight burned the bridge, hoping to cut off the Confederate pursuit. General Forrest asked the Sansoms (widow and daughters) if there was a way to ford the creek. 15 year old Emma offered to show the way if the soldiers would saddle her horse. Forrest said there wasn't time, so he hoisted her up on his horse and she led the way. When they got to the water, the Union soldiers fired on them and a bullet went through Emma's skirt. She took off her bonnet and waved it at them. When they saw they were firing on a girl they stopped. The Confederates crossed and continued pursuing the Union army. Emma returned home.

General Streight was going to travel on to Rome, Georgia and cut the railroad there. John Wisdom heard of the plan and rode from 3:30 in the afternoon until almost midnight to beat the Union army to Rome. He warned the town Streight was coming and they set up barricades and were armed. Forrest came up right behind and Streight was hemmed in. Rome was saved, for a while. Sherman came back a year later on his way to Atlanta.
So there's the history lesson for today.

Some Nature Stuff

Here are some nature pictures. I titled this Some Nature Stuff because I had a teacher in high school who wouldn't let us use the word "stuff". So there.

This is an interesting bug we found when we cut down our tree this weekend. It looks like it has really big eyes, but they are just dots on its back.

This is something purple I planted in my front garden a couple of years ago. I think it might be some kind of sage. That is just a guess. I love the deep purple color.

My coreopsis are starting to bloom. I do actually know some technical flower names. I love putting purple and yellow together.

It is so beautiful out. I love flowers. I love nice weather. It is hard to believe there was such a bad outbreak of tornadoes last week. Recovery continues and will for months/years. Yesterday we were waiting at the stop light and power trucks started rolling through. Our light changed to green but they just kept coming, probably about 40. There was a pick-up truck blocking the intersection, but even if there hadn't been, no one would have tried to get in their way. We just want everything fixed as soon as possible. There are five hotels out by the interstate where a lot of storm victims are staying. They have picked clean the grocery shelves--at least of things you don't have to cook. Several people around here have friends living with them now. Extended families are living together.  S said Chick-fil-a has brought in workers from other towns because we have the only operational restaurant in the region for them to work. I didn't think she would be working because of that, but she's on the schedule for three days this week.

Speaking of S, she didn't get into the architecture program. No, everything is not handed to you on a silver platter in this life. Hard lesson to learn. Not sure of the back up plan.

Belated Birthday

In all the excitement over the past week, I neglected to mention Mr. C turned 11 on the 26th. We actually celebrated the weekend before so the whole family would be there. His big present was a basketball goal. The girls got him little toys like a gyroscope and that wheel that rolls up and down the bent wire (you know what I mean?). He received money in the mail, which he wants to spend on a foosball table. I told him to wait until we move to our new house. Let's see if he can keep from spending his money for that long.

If you're wondering about the candles he is blowing out, there is a story behind that. We went to the store and bought all the stuff to make him a Heath Bar cake. I even picked up a new box of birthday candles because I knew we were out of them. I remember opening the box at the store to see that there were enough "boy" colors so I wouldn't have to use pink candles on his cake. Actually Mr. C likes pink, so it was more for me than him. When I went to put the candles on the cake, I couldn't find them. No one could remember putting them away. We tracked down the grocery receipt and there were no candles on it. They must have fallen through the wire basket at the store. I hate it when that happens. Luckily we had two candles sitting around that served just fine. I told him that when we put the candles next to each other, they looked like a big "11". So I couldn't have planned it better.