Thanks for the congrats, Tanya, WE is all officially graduated and out of school now. The graduation ceremony was wonderful and very touching. This is a class that has been through a lot together starting with their teacher dying during the school year when they were elementary school and a classmate dying in an accident in 8th grade. Also, in a class of 54 kids, there are at least 4 kids who have lost a parent in the last 5 years and the class valedictorian's dad has only weeks or possibly days to live and everyone was so very thankful he was able to make it to the graduation ceremony to hear his son give his speech. This is a very close group of kids who have been there for each other through some pretty bad times and the principal made a note of that during his address to the crowd. They're a great group of kids and I'm going to miss seeing them around.
Most graduation ceremonies tend to celebrate those going on in academics, announcing the honor students (this class had more honor students than non-honor students), giving out scholarships, etc, but our principal did something special which meant so much to our family. After talking about the kids going on to school and the workforce, he spoke of those who were going on to the military and had the ones who were enlisted stand up, WE and his buddy Casey got a huge round of applause and a standing ovation, I was so proud of my boy. WE said there were kids in his class who were brought to tears. It was wonderful to see.
This weekend brought a round of graduation parties. It was a lot of fun hanging out with friends and getting to know new people though I'm definitely peopled-out for awhile.
We also did some major work on our house over the weekend. We've got about half the new siding put on the house now, which is great since it's been just board insulation on the outside all winter and it looked pretty crappy. I'm sure every time someone drove by they'd say to themselves: When are those people who bought the old O'Connell place going to fix that awful looking house up??? We also got all the windows replaced. Now every window in the house opens and closes and the ALL HAVE HOLE-LESS SCREENS!!! You can't get us now, mosquitoes! Replacing the patio door was a bit of an adventure. Last week, hubs pulled the roof off the old porch on the front of the house, leaving only the base of the porch, kind of like a real ugly deck. Then on Saturday, they pulled the old patio door out, it was one of those old things from the 1970's that weigh about 100 pounds. After pulling it out, they decided it would be better to rip out the old porch base before putting in the new door. Turns out that they had built the porch right over top of the cement steps that used to go up to the old front door. The cement steps had to go before we could install the new door and they were HEAVY. After having a huge 6 foot hole in the wall of our living room for the majority of the day, our neighbor came over with a skid steer and finally pulled the steps away. It seemed like everyone in town drove by our place while we were doing the work because just about everyone I saw over the weekend commented on the house. One friend happened by when we had the big hole and when I saw her later in the day she said: I drove past your house this morning, it seems to be missing some pieces. - But, it's all good now.
We just got back from Regionals for track & field. Angel #4 competed in the shot putt, but didn't do so great. WE was in the 100, 200 and the long jump. He made finals in the 100, but missed the call for the final race so he missed it, which sucked pretty bad. He also made finals in the 200, but finished in 5th place - the top 4 go on to Sectionals. He did manage to go on for the long jump and will be competing on Friday. He has a pretty bad cold, so he didn't do too badly - considering. He claimed it was being zoned out on cold meds was what made him miss the call for the 100. Oh well, that's life.
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