End of School Glory

  In a nutshell, here are the end of school activities and award shows we have attended lately:

1.  Hope of America 5th grade awards  (Mr. Lamadingdong--He's in the red shirt in front of the flag)  His ENTIRE class earned the award.  We need to nominate that teacher for Teacher of the year.

 The tiny pictures are the only ones that come out clear, I don't know why.  Choose your own picture to enjoy.

2.  7th grade Choir concert.  Lil' Mama was singled out with about 7 others for an "Above and Beyond Award"  for good grades, service and contributions.  Her choir teacher is also fabulous;  she is a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and accompanies the kids on the piano as she leads them.  The night of the concert, the lights kept going out in the auditorium, and she just kept plugging on.  Amazing.

3.  Nellie L's Ballroom Dance recital.  Very enjoyable.

  

I would just like to add that along with her unpaid volunteering at the Animal Hospital, Nellie L has finally landed a REAL job at my favorite fast food joint.

4.  The elementary school's Dance Festival that involved Mr. Lamadingdong, Princess, and Little P.

Little P dancing with her Kindergarten buddies about staying cool.

  (I totally missed the Mother's Day hula dancing in Kindergarten.  Wish I could find someone with pictures.)

This is a picture of Princess the day she decided to act as bodyguard for her teacher.  Cool, sister.

This is the best picture I could get of Princess dancing.  She was too far away.  They danced to "Life is a Highway."  She did an awesome hair-whipping break out solo.

Mr. Lamadingdong dancing with his class.  (In the blue.)

6.  Award  Assembly for 7th grade.  (Lil' Mama)  She earned Student of the Year for Keyboarding, and then a High Honor award for having a perfect 4.0 for the year.  She is very smart, but she doesn't coast.  This girl works hard and is almost OCD about extra-credit.  She has over 100% in several classes.  (Do any of the teachers realize that this technically isn't possible?)  We're proud of her.  And we mock her, also.

(At least she didn't earn the perfect attendance award again this year.  I swear it was a clerical error in 5th grade.  Still, it was embarrassing--first, we're laughing behind our hands at the little geeks, then our daughter's name was called.  It will never happen again.)  Her father purposely pulled her from school to go skiing a couple of times this year just for insurance.

'Lil Mama also earned the top score  (98%) in her Algebra standardized testing for all of that teacher's students.  This test was for 7th, 8th, and 9th grade Algebra students.

7.  Award Assembly for 9th Grade.  (Mr. Cool.)  He earned an award from the Jr. Honor Society and a  High Honor award for having a perfect 4.0 for the year.

8.  Kindergarten Graduation. Sigh.  I'm not sure if this counts as an accomplishment.  But it was very cute, anyway.  Plus, there were cookies.  My favorite part was the teacher--she was on her second graduation in as many hours, and looked like she would hurt someone if given half a chance.  Also, the paper hats were coming apart.  Little P had a HUGE wad of gum in her mouth.  One kid (at least) was digging around in his nose.  I was gettin' a little snarky towards the end and whispered to my neighbor, "What!  No diploma presentation ceremony?"  That was just before the diploma presentation ceremony began.  If they had announced a commencement speaker, I would've been outta there.

They told the kids to shake hands with the principal, "Use the one that you use when you say the pledge."  So some of the kids had their hands on their hearts while standing in line.

I was trying to capture the hat situation.  Little P's is standing straight up and hanging by a thread.

The diploma.  Presented to her in a beautiful case, etc...Uh.  Maybe more is less...

The view from my lap...Little K
The Littles and Handsome taking a break from all the boring audience stuff.

School's Out for the Summer!!!

Summer Reading Challenge

My friend Kristen started a summer reading challenge on her blog, http://lostpiecesofmymind.blogspot.com and I decided not only to join in, but to copy and paste her entry into my blog for anyone else interested in taking the challenge.  (Blatant copyright infringement and plagiarism.)

If you'd like to accept and/or add to the challenge, just reply and it will find it's way onto her blog, too.  Hey, you may want to check out her blog, it's very entertaining.

(Also, I want my readers to see just how very famous I am because I have now shown up on TWO different blogs.  Maybe more than two blogs, I can't remember.  But I can definitely document  Kristen AND Holly!  Can you believe you know me?)

SUMMER READING CHALLENGE

'Tis the season for summer reading. The libraries always have a program for kids that turns out pretty well, but if they do anything for adults, it is lame. So here is the challenge to my friends (all one of you basically):

Read a book that fits these five categories and make up five more categories of your own. Either make your own post for me to steal your five categories off of or email the list. Together that's ten books. We know that ten books is a small fraction of the amount that we will read this summer. Make a list you plan to read now, but it can change at any time. You can start reading now, because half of my kids are done with school and already crying bored, even if summer reading at every library technically doesn't start until June 1. We are old enough we can make our own rules, so here we go

Friends Kristen & Jeri Challenge

1. Read the book that has been on your goodreads TBR shelf the longest.
2. Read a classic - Grownup or childrens book.
3. Read a book about summer. It can have summer in the title or take place in the summer.
4. Read a book with a color word in the title.
5. Read a book that won a Newbery Award or Honor Award during the years that you have been alive.
6. Read a book that you picked apart until it made you scream in High School English that you haven't read since.
7. Read a book that teaches you something you didn't know before.
8. Read an "Old Friend" that you've read a million times, but never tire of.
9. Read a "Reader's Choice Award" book.
10. Read a book that is on display at the library, i.e. recommended by a librarian.

We have to finish by the time all of our kids return to school.  On a day to be determined later (and after the first day of school), we will call each other on the phone with a lovely dessert at our elbow and talk. Maybe even about the books we read.

Kristen's List

1. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
2. Pygmalian by George Bernard Shaw
3. Mud, Sweat, and Gears by  Joe Kurmaskie
4. Clear and Present Danger by Tom Clancy
5. Our Only May Amelia by Jennifer Holm (2000)
6. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Which I picked apart in high school, but never actually read, yet still got the best grade up to that point on the essay, hence encouraging me to not read any more books for that class.)
7. At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson
8. Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
9. Surviving the Applewhites by Stephanie S. Tolan
10. ?

Jeri's List

1. An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 by Jim Murphey
2. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
3. Beyond Summer by Lisa Wingate
4.  Love, Ruby Lavendar by Deborah Wiles
5. (Here's where I stretch it a little) The Trouble With May Amelia by Jennifer Holm - #5 isn't a newbery, but it's the sequel and I wanna read it.
6. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
7. The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean (I'm re-reading it with the hopes that I understand it more the 2nd time.)
8. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
9. The Maze Runner by James Dashner
10. I don't know

My Beef

So, I just had the horrible varicose veins in my legs obliterated with lasers and multiple injections of caustic materials.  This was the funnest thing EVER, and I highly recommend it if you're bored.

Anyway, I had a little (very little) time on my hands to lay around with my legs propped up and watch Netflix.

Found this sweet little Australian series about teenagers at a National Dance Academy.  Amazing talent.  Sweet kids.

 Just about the time I got really involved, two of the teens kissed.  No biggie, except they were both MALE!  UGH.  End of that one.

Then, I decided to go for a little bit more high-class.  Much Ado About Nothing.  Shakespeare, right?  Plus, it starred Nanny McPhee.  Can't go wrong there.



Until the opening scene ended and everyone started stripping.  Naked booties EVERYWHERE!  What!?!  I get it, it's a costume change.  Why do I have to see it?  I don't.

OK.  How about a PBS Masterpiece Theatre set in the 1920s?  This one's got Professor McGonagol.  Bingo!


AND, it also has the Footman kissing the Duke.  Bleck.

WHY, PEOPLE!?!  WHY, WHY, WHY?
Is Phineas and Ferb gonna be the most intellectual movie destination for me?  Am I doomed to watch the Backyardigans for the rest of my life?  (I have to admit, though, that I LOVED the Muppet Movie!)

AAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!

And it's not just the movies.  Why do entertainers have to cram sleaze and dreck into EVERYTHING?

I'm hollerin' 'NUF!  Already!

Gimme a break!!!

It really doesn't matter too much, I guess.  I don't have time to watch...

Also, since I'm griping anyway, I would just like to mention that if there is a Dr. out there who is willing to actually use anesthesia on his vein patients, count me in.  That procedure...YOW!

Here are my before and after pictures:  (Kidding)

After

   

Before

Backyard Bees

Last night Lil' Mama said, "Hey!  Look at the rabble of bees in the yard!"

"Honey, no one cares about the erst of bees in the yard."  I snarked.  (I might be a little grouch, lately.  Or all the time.)  And then, "OH!!!  Run for your lives!"  It was an Alfred Hitchcock movie.


Huge clusters of bees swirling around one of our trees.  Handsome Prince bravely walked among them as I huddled the children inside and ran to call the realtor--we obviously can't live here anymore--there are BEES!!!  (A whole bike of them!)

"Come in, quick!  You're gonna get stung!!!"  But even as I was hollering at the Prince through a tiny crack in the door, the balloon of bees slowly grew smaller and more compact until they all settled into a family bee-ball on one of the branches.

I gathered matches, newspaper and kindling.  We were gonna have to sacrifice the poor tree for the common good.  Can't have bees in the yard!  Bees!  (Seriously, a game of them!)

I began to alert the neighbors and the local fire department.

My little fantasy--no worries!

Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and HP said, "They're honey bees.  Let's see if we can find a beekeeper who would want them."  Oh.  Plus, he really wasn't getting stung.  

I googled it.  Who knew?  There was an entire web site with a gajillion names to call.  Crazy people who were begging for us to let them have our stand of killer bees.

So, we called one beekeeper and he gleefully abandoned his cart at Home Depot and raced over with three of his kids and a cute little beehive box.

 Then, he just held the box under the tree and sort of gently knocked the entire cast of bees into it.  The sections in the center of the box were covered in bee's wax. This made the bees very happy. They rejoiced in their new little bee villa.  We were all just standing right there, watching the little buggies move in.  They ignored us completely.

Then all 10,000 of them (more or less--that's what the beekeeper estimated) stuck their little bee butts up in the air and started fanning and buzzing informative pheromone messages to all the scouts out there, uh, scouting around for a new home.  It was beautiful!

Did I mention that we all just stood around, really, really close, and watched the entire thing.

No one got stung!!!

Our bee guy explained that when a bee colony gets too large, they create another queen and split up.  Then, the ones moving out have a gigantic Thanksgiving dinner--honey--and they swarm away.  This group of fat and friendly little buzzers had decided to call it a night after shopping around all day,  and thought our tree looked like a nice enough place.  They had just settled in when a better opportunity just popped up out of thin air.  (Imagine finding one the right size AND it already had wax!  Honey, quick!  Make an offer!)

When most of the stragglers were gathered, our beekeeper gently helped them to get into the box.

 He recommend that they use the front door from now on, and to emphasize the point, he put the roof on.

The glove got a few stings.

 He told us that one hive like this could produce about 5 gallons of honey.  It takes two of these to feed the bees for the winter, so he'll stack 4 or 5 on top of each other, leave the first two for the bees, and then harvest the rest.  Fascinating.  The beekeeper called them low maintenance pets that keep on giving.

 When the roof was on, he left for about an hour, so that any little lost bees could join the group before he carted them home.

I now have a Handsome Prince who would like to start a new hobby. I told him he could do whatever he wants when I am six feet under...

**Wikipedia, the ultimate source of all knowledge states that a group of bees can be called the following:

A bike of bees. 

A cluster of bees. 
A cast of bees. 
A drift of bees. 
An erst of bees. 
A game of bees. 
A rabble of bees. 
A stand of bees.

** Little factoids from our bee expert:

Boy bees can't sting.

When a bee stings, it dies.

A queen bee costs $40-$50 because you have to overnight it.

Our elementary school had a swarm like ours happen a couple of years ago and he had to cut down part of the tree to get them--they were a bit more excited that day.  (Several children were stung.)

Mr. Lamadingdong: Our Hope of America, and Great American 5th-Grader!

Mr. Lamadingdong (hereafter referred to as Mr. L) is the middle child, and thus sometimes under-appreciated.

Since joining scouts on his birthday last September, he has earned his Tenderfoot rank; Citizenship in the Nation, Citizenship in the Community, Family Life, Personal Fitness, Collections, and Coin Collecting Merit Badges.

Seriously, SIX Merit Badges!

He's also been busy earning the Great American Challenge award--he finally earned it yesterday.  

To do this, he must:

1.  Recite the Gettysburg Address

2.  Recite the names of the 44 American Presidents in order by date office was held (he can do it so quickly that it makes my head spin!)

3.  Locate and spell correctly the States and Capitals on a map.

4.  Recite or sing the National Anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner"

5.  Recite the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States

6.  Write the Pledge of Allegiance

This is spectacularly amazing!!!  But, he's the middle child, so...

Mr. L, we are so proud of you!  That was a lot of stuff to memorize!

He also participated in the Hope of America program that was staged in the Marriot Center at BYU with all of the 5th-graders in the area.  It was a patriotic program, and their T-shirts were colored to make a human flag.


The entire stadium was filled, and our favorite part was when they were doing the wave.


Mr. L has had a great school year with an amazing teacher.  But more than that, he is self-motivated, a hard worker, a good friend and brother.

I can't imagine life without him!