Happy Friday Everyone!
May has been a whirlwind. Not only did everyone in our household get sick right after we got back from Scottsdale… (3 out of 4 of us needed steroids AND antibiotics— thankfully not me!!) But, the teens got out of high school 2 weeks early due to the construction they’re doing on the school. May is busy enough, but man… I had NO time to prepare for anything minus those 2 extra weeks! However, I did have TWO happy teens! Ha, ha! So, we’re going on 4 weeks of summer vacation already over here. Enough about that… I have a HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE and he turned 18 in May! So, I’m sure you’ve seen lots of graduation posts… feel free to skip on by or you can read all about Nathan!
One – Nathan’s High School Graduation
Nathan had a beautiful graduation day outside, we couldn’t have had better weather. Somehow we lucked out with really good seats too! Man, all I can say if when your first child graduates high school you will feel ALL the emotions… have all the flashbacks of when they were little… look at yourself in the mirror and realize MY have I aged since I’ve birthed this child in my twenties… then you’ll start counting down the years till your youngest (or middle child, etc.) will graduate and you’ll want to cling desperately to those years and wish them to go by slow (or some days maybe not, when they’re being a true teen and showing their horns- ha!). It is beautiful as a parent to see your child grow into this independent adult with their whole life in front of them, but man it is EMOTIONAL too… and a little scary! But, this is what the whole point of parenting was, to help them learn to take care of themselves someday. I’m SO proud of Nathan, he is such a caring, sweet, kind and intelligent young man. I just still can’t believe this day has come, but I am excited to see his next chapter unfold. I know he will do great things and I trust God’s path for his future. It is such an honor to be his mom.
I have SO many photos from his graduation, but I’m keeping this short and brief in this post. If you follow me on Facebook, I’m sure you’ve seen all of the photos. The photo on the left shows Nathan going up for his diploma and the photo on the right is where they tossed their graduation caps.
One thing they did during the ceremony was they had the students write a card out to their mom along with a carnation. Nathan said they only had a minute to write it, but I thought what he wrote was really sweet.
We had a lot of senior events before the graduation. Such as his baccalaureate (religious) service and the senior convocation where they gave out awards. Nathan received the George Washington Carver Award, which means he graduated in the top 10% of his class. I am so proud! He is naturally smart, but he does work hard in school and it doesn’t come naturally all the time for him. He truly deserves it!
Two – Graduation Party/Mother’s Day & Nathan’s 18th Birthday
We decided to keep Nathan’s graduation party intimate and easy, so we celebrated it on Mother’s Day, which was the same weekend of his graduation. Once again, I have a lot of photos that are mostly on Facebook, but we had a really nice lunch at Annie Gunn’s in Chesterfield. My brother and SIL were very generous and gifted Nathan a new laptop for college! (THANK YOU, Jeff and Tracy!) and I surprised Nathan with a jar of ALL the items I had cleaned out of his pockets since he’s been born. Ha, ha! There was even some cash in that jar!
We celebrated Nathan’s 18th birthday at one of his favorite restaurants, The Melting Pot. It was delicious and I still can’t believe he’s 18!!
Three – Other Happenings
So, I didn’t cover the Solar Eclipse in my April Friday Five, because I wrote the post really early due to our Scottsdale trip. I’ve decided to still include it in this post, because it was cool! Unfortunately, we had planned to spend the Solar Eclipse at my parents house, because the day was my dad’s 83rd birthday. However, he landed up in the hospital that day, so we still celebrated it at the hospital (unfortunately, my dad couldn’t come down to see it). The teens were in school during it and they planned a fun afternoon for them to see it at school. I did get a couple of photos of them at school, but their friends are in the photos, so I won’t be sharing them on here out of privacy.
My brother had a really cool lens, so he was the show off! Ha, ha! The shadows on the ground were so neat during the eclipse.
So Autumn had a little break after Lancerettes ended and she decided to take up THEATER! This was a surprise, but WOW she was amazing! She helped with the choreo that the outside instructor taught the theater students and was the dance captain. She danced in the performance (James and the Giant Peach) and had a duet. It was so neat to see this new side of her and I think it was such a great experience for her too! She earned the Dancing Star award at the theater banquet. And if you follow my personal account on Facebook, you saw some videos and photos I posted of her performance.
Four – Latest Shows I Finished / Latest Books I’ve Read
I recently finished Lessons in Chemistry and it was SUCH a good book (more on that below). I decided to watch the series on Apple TV and it was pretty good… but, it did divert from some parts of the book that I rather enjoyed. But, I still recommend watching it AFTER you read the book.
Then I watched the Peacock series on Apples Never Fall and WOW! It was GOOD!!! Annette Bening WAS AMAZING in it! Highly recommend this, but read the book first. However, if you haven’t read the book and are not plan on reading it, I still think you’ll REALLY enjoy this series. I read this book in 2021 and this was my review on it: I’ve read other books by this author and Apple Never Fall did not disappoint! This book talks a lot about tennis and how Stan and Joy owned a tennis club at their home. They have four children that are brought up learning tennis, but none of them make a career out of it. The books flashes back to the past, but the main chunk of the book is after Stan and Joy retire and they have A LOT of time on their hands and how they’re just a little disappointed with how life turned out. A character named Savannah pops into the book and she is mysterious and Joy and Stan are overcome with the distraction she gives them while they try to figure out what to do with all of the hours in their retired days. However, the grown children start to ponder who this Savannah character is and there are a lot of secrets (and self discovery) unfolded throughout the rest of the book. Then Joy goes missing… and, detectives are involved and I won’t give away any details, but the book gets very serious and becomes a huge page turner where you’ll want to stay up late at night to figure out what happened to Joy!
What I REALLY want to watch on Peacock next is The Tattooist of Auschwitz, which I read BOTH books and I’d really like to see how they made this into a miniseries.
Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Grams – This book is really cute and quite original! I enjoyed it! Chemist Elizabeth Zott goes to school to be a chemist in the 1960’s, but finds it is hard to get anything more than a tech job during this time period. She never gives up though and befriends one of the chemists at her first job and they have such a quirky yet cute relationship that involves a dog (with a very unique name). However, things aren’t all rosy for Elizabeth Zott and she finds herself as a new mom, rower (as in the sport) and lands up on TV doing everything they don’t want her to do on air. I found it refreshing to see her take on life during this time period and how she didn’t conform to the mold. The mini series on TV is good too, but they added a lot to the series that wasn’t in the book (which happens quite often!). I highly recommend this book!
The Last Love Note by Emma Grey – This book is about Kate, who is happily married yet finds out her husband has something wrong with him medically (don’t want to add a spoiler here) and it will forever change both of their lives. She has a supportive boss, a new neighbor and a best friend that help her navigate through all the challenges this diagnosis bring her way. This was a really cute book, has some sad parts yet also some uplifting parts as well… great for a vacation, it was a quick read for me!
Five – Visit to the Strawberry Orchard
Every May we enjoy getting to Eckert’s for their strawberries! We haven’t been able to pick them the last couple of years due to weather, but they still have a great store where they sell them. We start our visit there with breakfast or lunch in their family style restaurant. I got the strawberry and chocolate chip pancakes with some eggs and it did NOT disappoint! Then we had a kind man offer to take a photo of us by the antique truck. I have photos of the teens from when they were babies and we used to come here. Aww!
I usually enjoy grabbing a jar of their Peach and Pineapple salsa, their apple spice donuts AND of course (!!) strawberries. I also found some cute garden accessories on this visit and you’ll see my new butterfly and rock in the photo on the right. Yay! Such a fun day and a great way to kick off summer!
I hope everyone has a nice and relaxing weekend!
