Senior Prom

Last night was Alex's Senior Prom.  It was held at the Easton Club which is a beautiful location right on the water.  Everyone looked amazing.  Afterwards, the kids went to the after prom party that was held at SSPP's gym.  The theme was Arabian Nights and from what I hear, the decorating was amazing.  The kids had a blast and were picked up at 3am and taken back to Amy's house which helped me tremendously because then I didn't need to worry about Alex driving home at that time of the morning.

 They always give away prizes at the after party and this year Alex won an Acer Icinia A500 tablet.  Cool prize!  :)

Here are some pictures of their evening...

Award

Last night, Andy and I traveled to Delaware to watch Alex, 9 of his senior classmates and 70 other seniors representing all 8 Catholic High Schools in the Wilmington Diocese receive the Saint Francis de Sales Award.  This award is presented by the Bishop to select seniors in recognition for excellence in faith development, service, scholarship, citizenship and leadership through out their high school career.  What a wonderful evening and we are so proud of Alex for being selected as one of the recipients this year.

Bishop W. Francis Malooly

Bishop Malooly and Alex

A happy Alex after receiving his award

Alex and his girlfriend Amy

Alex, Joey and their principal Mr. Nemeth

Saint Francis de Sales medal

Awesome crucifix in Saint Joseph's Church in Middletown, DE

Sorry for the color in some of the pictures.  I was trying to take them without flash while we were in the church.


A little about Saint Francis de Sales:
Saint Francis de Sales was an accomplished preacher and is known also for his writings on the topic of spiritual direction and spiritual formation.  He proved with his own life that people could grow in holiness while involved in a very active occupation.  His goodness, patience and mildness became proverbial.  He had an intense love for the poor.  His food was plain, his dress and his household simple.  He completely dispensed with superfluities and lived with the greatest economy, in order to be able to provide more abundantly for the wants of the needy.  He heard confessions, gave advice, and preached incessantly.  He wrote innumerable letters (mainly letter of direction) and found time to publish numerous works.  St. Francis de Sales was beatified on 1661, and canonized by Pope Alexander VII in 1665; he was proclaimed Doctor of the Universal Church by Pope Pius IX in 1877.
Take from the handout given to us by the Diocese of Wilmington during the ceremony.

Busy Day Ends in Party

Today started off bright an early at 7am and is just now winding down.

Kenzie, Tyler and I headed to Laurel this morning to watch her softball team play in a tournament.  Even though she can't play, she wanted to be there to support her team.  I was a little worried that she'd be depressed sitting on the bench watching the other girls play but she seemed to handle it well and everyone seemed genuinely happy to see her.   We had to leave right before the end of 2nd game but her team had won the 1st game, was losing the 2nd and haven't heard how they did in the 3rd.

We ran home (okay, drove quickly) so we could meet family that was arriving at our house at 2 to celebrate Connor's 15th birthday.  My parents, sister, and my nephews were coming.  As a bonus we got my BIL.  I thought he had to work today but he was able to get off early enough that he made it over with the others.  What a nice surprise.  I think Connor was really surprised with the present from my parents....shown in the picture.  He was pretty speechless as he was opening the items associated with it.  I just hope he remembers that we celebrated his b'day today and doesn't expect something on Tuesday, which is his real b'day.  Hopefully he'll be too busy between baseball practice and piano practice that night that he won't remember.  Is that a bad mommy thought?  ;)

My youngest nephew decided he didn't like the cake and ice cream we served and decided to munch on an ink refill instead.  I should have snapped a pic of the nice ink blob on the floor.  It certainly didn't hurt it any...thankfully we have a hardwood laminate and things wipe up pretty easily on it.  But I have learned the trick of making a paste of baking soda and water and rubbing it on ink marks on good wood furniture.  I about had a heartattack when I saw the ink that covered our wooden chess table but that's a story for another time.  And speaking of ink being on things...my oldest son seems to have a fascination with leaving ink pens in his pants pockets and they are forever being run thru the washer/dryer.  Which is not good for them...or the clothes they come into contact with.  I found another instance of this yesterday.  The silver lining in this cloud was that I've learned to wash/dry his clothes all by themselves so if things get ruined it's only his clothes in that state...not the rest of the households.  As and added bonus, summer uniform starts at school tomorrow so that means that his last pair of pants that just came out of the dryer with ink marks on them are no longer needed.  Yeah, I'm looking for anything to make this better.  ;)

7 Hours

That's how long I was in a vehicle yesterday.  Thankfully it was not a continuous 7 hours but that's a heck of a lot of time to be driving around.  And I didn't really go too far from home.  We had a department meeting at our Washington, DC office so I drove to our Baltimore office in the morning (1 hr).  Caught a bus with the rest of the folks to DC (2 hrs due to traffic).  Spent 4 hours at the office.  Took bus home (2 hrs, again due to traffic).  Stepped off the bus and immediately hopped in my car to drive howe (1 hr).  Headed to Easton for the Parent Appreciation Reception at Alex's school (40 minutes). Returned home from reception (40 minutes).

Too bad we didn't have any free time in DC.  It would have been fun to see the cherry blossoms since this is the time for them.  Our old building used to be in the prime location for viewing the blossoms.  We could walk outside at lunch to the Jefferson Memorial, walk along the water and see all the beautiful trees.  Unfortunately the location of our new building doesn't lend itself to easy viewing.

I was never so glad to work from home today.  :)  And thankfully Andy took Kenzie to her appt in Baltimore so I didn't have to go anywhere near a car today.  I worked some in the morning then took a break when it was time for Adam's nap...he gets just cranky when he's tired.  ;)  Keari, Adam and I watched Tangled during this time.  I love that movie!  Then back to work when Andy/Kenzie got home.

Appreciation

Alex is getting closer and closer to graduation and tonight his school hosted a Parent Appreciation Reception for the seniors and their parents.  It's the first of a number of activities that will be happening between now and May 26th.  It was a night set aside for the kids to say "Thanks Mom!  Thanks Dad!  Thanks for putting up with us thru the years.  Thanks for always being there for us.  etc.  It was a lovely evening.  Started with a prayer because he does go to a Catholic High School.  ;)  They had a slide show of each of the kids thru the year from baby thru now, pics of them doing their favorite activity, pics of their entire family.  After that, they had interviews of the kids giving a message to their parents, saying what they would miss after they graduate, impersonating their parents...one kid was hilarious.  He impersonated his mom yelling at him about having only one thing to do and how could he have forgotten to do that ONE thing!!  LOL  It sooo could have been our house.  :)  At the end, each of the kids gave their parents a flower and a hand written letter that told their parents thank you in their own words.  It was a wonderful evening.  I'm having a hard time believing that he will out of school in a few short weeks.

First Day of School

Today was Connor's first day of high school. Amazing that he is already at that stage in his life. He seemed to enjoy his first day...talked to a few of the kids that he had met during soccer practices the last couple of days. Today and tomorrow are half days...I think they are trying to ease the freshman into high school life. He was only annoyed with one teacher today because they got homework in that class. He made me laugh as he was telling me about it.

After 3 trips to school and 2 to Subway, Alex finally has his parking permit for this year. He almost didn't get it today because I almost missed that he needed a copy of his license (I was going to pick up the permit for him because he had to work) but it did require an extra trip to Subway to get said license so it could be copied.

Connor had soccer practice tonight where he scored his first goal. Yay!

Kenzie had soccer referee training tonight, which Connor was supposed to go as well. I'm actually not sure how it went because I forgot to ask her when she got home. Oops. I got distracted by her request to sleep over at a friends house. We then got into a discussion on why she couldn't...nothing bad on her part, will just need her help with the kiddos tomorrow.

Andy and Alex are driving to Pennsylvannia tomorrow to pick up a couple of church pews. We've talked forever about getting a church pew to use at our kitchen table but have never been able to. I happened to be searching online recently and found a couple for a great price...except they won't work at the table due to them being slightly curved instead of straight. But we are planning on using one in our living room to replace the sofa, that is currently being used as a wall...no railing at the stairs due to a remodeling project many moons ago where we took down the iron railing with the intention of putting up a wooden one. Somehow that has never happened. But the plans are tomorrow to move the sofa to the kids playroom to get rid of the junky chairs in there and put the pew where the sofa is and that will act as a wall at the stairs. Hopefully it will look okay. The pews we are getting are lovely and it's quite ironic that they are numbered 1 & 2 as when we go to church we almost always sit in the 1st or 2nd pew. This is a pic of what they look like. The gentleman we are purchasing them was so kind as to clean them off some and polish them with Murphy's Oil.

With some more cleaning and polishing, they are going to look awesome. I can't wait to see what they look like in person. I'm not quite sure what we are going to do with the second pew but for the price we just couldn't pass it up.

Alex actually had to work today. He almost never has to work during the day, always the evening shift but they asked him if he could help during the day today. Normally that would not be a problem except for it being Connor's first day of school and Alex needing his parking pass. Everything worked out but there was a lot of juggling going on today. He did have some excitement towards the end of his shift. Apparently the bank across the street from their store got robbed today. The cops went around to each of the businesses asking if they had seen anything. As Alex was leaving, he saw a guy getting arrested at one of the stores down the street. I have to assume that it was related to the robbery.

Work was crazy today...I wonder if it's a full moon, I know it's getting close. I feel like I was jumping between 10 different things today and didn't get a single one done. Bad thing is I'm not sure what they all were now so I'm not even sure I'll be able to finish them tomorrow.

The weather here has been lovely the last two days. Windy, cool..has actually been chilly enough to wear jeans in the morning and a light jacket outside while playing. It's great weather for staying in bed and snuggling under a blanket. Unfortunately, with these munchkins, there no chance of snuggling under covers for very long. LOL

Discerning Direction

Alex had the opportunity to attend Discerning Direction at Assumption College in Worcester, MA. 4 students from SSPP along with one of their religion teachers made the trek to Massachusetts for the 2 day conference. Alex really enjoyed himself and I'm thankful for the opportunity for him to have him attend. Next up on his traveling agenda is a missions club trip to Gallup, NM in June.

Last Lesson

Alex is off with his driving instructor getting his last lesson which, among other things, is teaching him parallel parking. That should be fun as most people don't enjoy parallel parking. I haven't done real parallel parking since I took my driving test umpteen years ago with a spot that was big enough to parallel park a limo in. LOL If I can't pull into a parallel parking spot, I don't park there. ;)

Alex had a pretty easy day schoolwise today. His class had a field trip to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. On display there now is Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered. I'm sure he had a good time although I haven't heard about it yet since is instructor picked him almost as soon as he got home from school.

Spirit Week

This past week was Spirit Week at Alex's school. They had a different dressup days planned for each day. What's nice about Alex going to such a small school is that just about everyone participates when they have events like this. Monday was Las Vegas Day and Alex dressed up as a Black Jack dealer. Tuesday was Color Day. Sophomores are yellow so the class all bought yellow sweatpants that have 2011 down the side. Alex also wore a yellow sweatshirt so he was very yellow that day. LOL Wednesday was Cowboy Day. Can you believe that not a single store around here had a cowboy hat as part of a halloween costume? I finally was able to find a kids foam cowboy hat that looked like the one in Toy Story. Alex was a good sport and wore it anyway.
Thursday was 70's Day. I dug out a green and yellow paisley shirt for him to wear with his jeans and bandana. I had a pink paisley shirt but he wouldn't go for that one. His spanish teacher really like the one that he wore which is the one I remembered to take a picture of. Friday was Blue & White Day which are the school colors. In addition to dressing up the also had events like tug of war, pep rally etc.
Friday night ended with a huge bonfire and Saturday was the Homecoming Dance. Alex didn't take anyone this year and it turns out he didn't even dance...he sat around and played black jack all night with a bunch of other kids. Too bad they were only playing with play money as it sounds like he was doing pretty well. ;)

A New Driver

Uh oh, Alex got his Learner's Permit today so he's the first of many new drivers in our family. I sure hope my nerves can take it. I think he looks entirely too happy about that little card he's holding. ;-)

Busy Day

Whew, nothing like running around all day. I know Andy is going to say that he had the roughest day because he had to be out of the house by 7am to get Kenzie to her softball tournament...she had 4 games today...but at least once he got to the field, he was there to stay for the day. I, on the other hand, spent the day running back and forth to the fields to get Taylor and Alex to their soccer games, running to the shopping plaza to meet Connor's coach so he could get a ride to his soccer game, then running the boys back and forth to church to serve tonight. Talk about totally disrupting Adam's eating/sleeping schedule, not to mention Keari's naptime. And I still need to get the girls to bed without disrupting Adam too much since Andy won't be home til late.

So far, Tay and Alex's teams lost their games today, Connor's team won and Kenzie's team tied their first game and won their next two. Haven't heard about the last one yet.

Well, they won their last game so the got their first 1st place trophy of the new season. Way to go Riviera Beach girls!

Back to School Dance

Alex attended his first after school function for the year in the form of the Back to School Dance. It's more of a get together rather than a dance as they play video games and other stuff while there but there is some dancing that goes on as well. And it's quite loud...you can hear the music as you turn off the highway to go down the road to the school. Seems like he had a good time even if he did go dateless...hung out with a few guys and a ton of girls. The girl he was seeing last year transferred to another school so they are no longer together...although I'm not quite sure either one truly understands the concept of boyfriend/girlfriend since they both seem to think they are still together yet they haven't seen each other since early summer.

Getting Alex to school functions is always a challenge since his school is so far away and there aren't many kids from our area that go there making carpooling a challenge. Andy did drop off duty last night after running by the soccer field to drop Kenzie and Connor off for their soccer practices. That left me with pick up duty. It was my first trip out of the house without Adam and he was a little angel. I was able to feed him and put him to bed before I left and he slept the entire 1 1/2hrs that I was gone. What a sweetie! But I don't want to be doing too many late night trips right now as I'm not getting much sleep yet.

Awards Banquet

Tonight was the Academic & Services Awards Banquet at SSPP. Alex wasn't sure that he was going to go until a teacher called a couple of nights prior to tonight and personally invited him to come. It was held in the gym of the school and the place was packed. I wasn't expecting there to be that many people there. They gave out all kinds of awards thoughout the night, from perfect attendance to participating in the debate team...but I didn't realize they were going to pick one student from each subject (Math, Science, History, Theology, etc) to honor. The very first subject award was for Theology and Alex got the award for Excellence in Freshman Theology. How exciting! And it was such a surprise for him...he had no idea. He got a certificate and The Prayer of Jabez book. In addition the awards, they also served us dinner which was okay but the desserts were delicious and very, very plentiful. LOL

Fracture

That's what Alex ended up with after a game of soccer with his dad last night. And no, Andy didn't cause the break. LOL Alex couldn't put any weight on his foot last night and when we took him in to the orthopedics office today, they said the injury is located in his growth plate area...what else is new, that's where all his injuries have been. He's now in a very attractive looking black shoe which gives his foot great support...he wasn't able to walk into the office but he was able to walk out with this shoe on. Dr says no sports for a month which is a bummer because baseball is just about to start. Hopefully his coach will be understanding and still let him be part of the team.
I had to make a stop on the way home because one of my headlights burned out. I'd just gotten it installed when this happened. What timing.

I also discovered today that the drs office made a mistake in scheduling my appt to have the nuchal translucency u/s down. They scheduled it for 3/27 instead of 2/27 and needless to say the March date doesn't work at as it's way too late for the test. This meant that I needed to reschedule the appt for an inconvenient time for me which defeats the purpose of why I made it a month in advance in the first place. Ugh!

Sickies #3, 4 & 5

Today it got Taylor, Alex and me. I didn't think the mom's were supposed to get sick. =(

Biscotti anyone?

Italian Double Chocolate Biscotti to be exact. Alex had to make an international dish for school and he chose this one. Having never eaten biscotti before, let alone make it, I'm not entirely sure that it turned out the way it's supposed to but Alex says it tastes good, he nibbled on the crumbs that fell off after slicing the loaves into pieces was done, so I guess that's all that counts. Guess we'll find out on Tuesday once the other kids get a chance to sample it. I think it's really cool that everyone taking a foreign language class at Alex's school has to prepare a dish. I can remember doing this within our own foreign language class...but never something for all the foreign language classes that all the students of the school then get to share in. Will be interesting to hear what other dishes are brought in.

Finally!

Yes, Alex and Sara finally got together to go skating this afternoon. No problems getting into the rink this time. Andy did think that they were mad at each other, though, when Alex called an hour after being dropped off to say that they were done. Turns out they were both just tired. Guess they don't understand the value of getting the most for your money yet...they lost out on an hours worth of skating that they'd paid for. Oh to be young and so carefree. LOL They then went to Dairy Queen to have ice cream before heading home.

In addition to that going on, Kenzie had softball practice in the morning, Connor had select baseball tryouts in the afternoon, Kenzie and I went to 5pm mass where she abandoned me to go help a friend serve, then Alex got dropped off to youth group while the rest of us went to watch Connor play indoor soccer, then afterwards Connor got dropped off at youth group. Then Andy picked them both up and headed over to Alex and his indoor soccer game...Connor went along to watch. Whew, we did alot of driving around and crossing over each other but it was a good day.

Results Are In

We just received Alex's grades in the mail and here are the results:

Honors Algebra II: 80
English I: 85
Spanish I: 85
Catholic Christianity: 94
Computer Science: 93
Honors World History: 86
Honors Biology: 90

3 A's and 4 B's which enables him to make the 2nd Honors list this quarter.

Way to go, Alex! You worked really hard this marking period and the results show.

Foiled again

Poor Alex...his plans to get together with Sara aren't working out very well. He was supposed to go ice skating with her tonight but she ended up having to back out. They did make tentative plans to go on Sunday. Then they were going to a dance Saturday night but not enough kids signed up so the dance got cancelled. Guess one of these days they'll finally get together.

So instead, he ended up hanging out at a friends house and then went to shoot some baskets later that evening. He ended up having a nice evening even if it wasn't the one he originally planned.

Happy Birthday, Alex!

My oldest turns 15 today. Where has the time gone? He's a year away from driving now. Ack! And only a few years left before he leaves home to go off to college. How sad that will be...I don't want my babies flying the coop. But I guess we can't keep them young forever. Have a wonderful day, sweetie, and don't grow up too fast.