I am back....

Wow! The end of school madness did me in this year... and boy-o is (was?) only a sophomore! I can't even think what it will be like in two years when he is graduating. Note to all. You might want to consider buying stock in Kleenex. I anticipate a big bump in sales in about two years. Just sayin'.

The social studies department at my son's high school does an event called the "History Extravaganza" instead of having a final. The students write a paper and then do a tri-fold and presentation one evening. All social studies students in the school participate. I skipped karate one night to go see my son. I walked into the gym to where my son's class had their posters set up. He came over and told me that he hadn't presented yet and he would prefer that I not be there. I ended up going out into the main lobby and giving directions to other parents. I did manage to sneak back into the gym a few times to look around and see what his classmates were doing. Apparently after I spoke to one classmate, he went over to see what I talked to her about. He was concerned that I might have said something embarrassing. Who? Me? Can you imagine?

Last week, I received my green belt in karate. I had to write a paper on the history of karate (8 pages, thank you very much) and also had a test where I had to show my stuff as they say. I will admit that I worked very hard on my katas. I will never be the most skilled martial artist but for an out of shape over-weight old lady, I do OK.

My son left Monday afternoon for his (delayed) school trip to Germany. When we dropped them off in April for the trip that ended up being cancelled, the parents and students were all pretty incredulous and stressed. We wondered if the trip would leave or if it left, if they would get stranded somewhere. This time, everyone was much more relaxed. The general consensus from all the parents was that we wanted to leave them home and go instead! It is great to see the opportunities that our children have to travel.

How does my dog know it is summer vacation? During the school year, she bounds out of bed and pesters me until we take boy-o to school. She is practically running laps in excitement. Once summer vacation comes, however, it is all I can do to drag her out of bed to make her go outside before I leave for work. I would understand it if she was hopeful for a week or so and figured it out but, somehow, every year, she figures it out from the first day of summer vacation. She also gets up with great excitement the first day of school. How-on-earth-does-she-know? She is going to be disappointed next year, however, when boy-o drives himself to school. Yup. He will probably get his license this summer. On the day of his last final this year, I commented that it was probably my last day of driving him to school. Needless to say, my reaction and his reaction to that news was a bit different.

That is it for today. Here's to having a bit more time in the mornings.

School's out for the summer....

My son has one final today and then is officially on summer vacation! It is also the last week of Babe Ruth baseball. YEAH! That means, in concept anyway, more free time for all of us. We will see if that ends up being the reality.

Summer vacation benefits me because I can sleep in a little later since I won't have to drive him to school. Usually the boy scout troop takes the summer off but some idiot recommended that we have a summer program and planned activities all summer long. Yup, you guessed it - that idiot was me! Actually, I think that the summer activities will be fun as we are doing everything from a tidal pool exploration to a history walk to a trip to an IMax theater to see Harry Potter.

My son does have some exciting things happening this summer. He is (gulp) turning 15, taking drivers ed and starting his first job. He will be bussing tables and washing dishes at a local restaurant just down the street (no need for Mom to transport him to work!). He is also going to band camp for a week (you can save the "one time at band camp" jokes - I have heard them all) and we are going on a family cruise.

I remember the last day of school back when I was a kid. We got out much earlier in June and always tried to go swimming on that last day because it was a half day. A short distance from my house was a saw mill that had a pond and a small stream. I remember going down there swimming with my best friend Betty-Lu. Sometimes, we took the younger neighborhood kids with us. No grown-ups anywhere nearby and two girls under 12 "in charge". Hard to believe that 1) nothing bad ever happened and 2) no one thought anything of letting us go swimming by ourselves. Summer vacation seemed to last FOREVER because it basically meant we were hanging out in our small town. No summer camps or activities were even offered. Our big family vacation was camping for a week with another family and we were one of the few families in our town to even take a vacation. Times were certainly different back then. I do think that it was nice to have some real "down time" where we weren't on a schedule and we didn't have obligations. Nowadays, kids are almost overbooked. My son just told me this morning that he has to write 2 papers over summer vacation in addition to doing the summer reading. He wasn't impressed by that and I can't say as I blame him. He is also going to review the outline in a computer applications course in hopes that he can test out next fall. He was selected for the School's WorldQuest Competition team so he will probably be studying for that competition over the summer also. Whew. It makes my brain tired to think about all that.

Here's to summer vacations.