Time for Sr Pictures

Unbelievably, it is time to order Tyler’s cap and gown and start thinking about graduation announcements. Today Tyler had his senior pictures taken. He hasn’t had his picture taken professionally in quite some time (school photos don’t count), so we decided to make the most out of this opportunity. We went to 2 different locations today and got lots of pictures. The ladies did a great job making it fun. I’m excited to see the results...which will be in a couple weeks. 
Definitely not a professional picture, but I like his shirt!

He made this sign for one of his pictures. He had a vision. 😜 I think the idea turned out great, but we’ll know for sure in about 2 weeks. 

It was fun spending the morning with him. We enjoyed lunch together afterward. It was a good day.

A Little Fall Decorating

We finally put out our Halloween decorations tonight. We meant to get them up a few days ago but we’ve been a little busy.

After Halloween was over last year we bought Tyler a fog machine we found on clearance. He tried to set that up tonight just to test it out. It was a bust! ☹️ It made a terrible high pitched beep the whole time it was making fog but only put out tiny puffs of fog. Our neighbor stuck her head out to check on us because she thought it was our smoke detector going off and she saw smoke. Guess we won’t be incorporating that into our fall decor this year.

Clara was helping.

The ghost and projector looked good though. We need to add the window lights and a few “expertly” carved jack-o-lanterns to the front steps to complete the look.

Homecoming

Last Saturday evening was our homecoming dance. Danielle decided not to go. Instead her best friend spent the night. They ordered pizza, watched movies, ate snacks, and fell asleep long before they had planned. :)

Tyler went with his group of friends. They all met up for pictures, went to dinner & then ice cream, went to the dance, and then hung out at one of their houses until the early morning hours. It was his last high school homecoming and he made every minute count. We went along for pictures before hand. He seemed genuinely happy - it wasn’t hard to get good pictures.

^ Danielle’s pic



^ This is the pic Danielle was taking above :)

Football Friday Night

Fall Friday nights are for high school football. Well, more accurately, they’re for the band half time show during the football game. I love our Football Friday night routines and look forward to it all week.

Tonight’s game was an away game. We left after half time so we could get some dinner and get home in good time because Danielle has an early morning softball game tomorrow. 

The sunset was beautiful. The band sounded amazing. We got to watch Tyler have fun with his friends. And we won the game. I will miss these Friday nights next year when Tyler is in college.

Publishing from My Phone - a Test

I downloaded an app for my phone that will hopefully allow me to post a little more frequently. (Once every 6 weeks would even be more frequent!)

So this is a test. 

Monarch Time

We've had lots of monarch activity this summer. One day I watched a monarch lay several eggs. When I went back out to look at them later, most of them were already black. After doing some research, I concluded that they were all parasitized by a type of wasp. I squished them all to prevent being overrun by these tiny wasps and hoped the butterfly would come back. It did. This time I picked several leaves right after the eggs were laid. I brought 27 eggs in the house to take care of. 21 of them made it into their chrysalis. Today the first one of that batch eclosed. The other day I found 15 more tiny little caterpillars and 6 larger ones on the plants outside. I left them outside this time and am hoping they all make it.

Female laying an egg

The tiny white dot is the egg.

The rest of these are cell phone pictures. I haven't had a chance to download pictures from my good camera since we've been back from our softball "vacation".

It's kind of hard to believe that Danielle and I have been doing this for almost 11 years. We first started looking for monarch caterpillars and raising milkweed after she got painted lady butterflies for her 5th birthday. She will be 16 next week.

 

A Walk in the Park

I had a very nice evening at the park yesterday evening. I saw so many little things - katydids, a tiny praying mantis, caterpillars of all sorts, a walking stick (both the insect kind and the other kind) ;) , frogs, dragonflies, flowers. While I didn't actually see the mosquitoes, I do have proof they were there. Here are some of my pictures.



This was the tiniest tree frog I've ever seen. I stopped to look at a little yellow bug and happened to find this guy tucked in the leaves close to the ground.

My index finger for size reference.

Tiny inchworm (Maybe a 1/8" worm?) ;)

This guy was making a lot of noise.

 

 

Dragonfly Nymphs

When Danielle and I were at the park a couple weeks ago, we noticed these dragonfly nymph exoskeletons on the reeds in the wetland area. The more we looked, the more we saw. They were everywhere! I don't know how I've never noticed them before. We thought they were neat. If you look, there is always something new to discover at the park.

More Achievements

The high school softball team finally had their awards banquet last week. One of the local businesses catered it for the girls and their families. There was a slide show with lots of great pictures and videos from the season. The girls got fitted for their championship rings. After eating, the coach called each girl up one at a time and said some nice things about them and gave them their awards. He was very complimentary to Danielle. She ended the season with the 2nd highest batting average on the team. There are a lot of very talented ladies on our high school team - this was quite an accomplishment, especially for a freshman. She earned a couple other awards, including the "Good Thief" award for having >10 stolen bases. Danielle has worked hard for years to continue improving her skills. It was nice to see all that hard work pay off this year in the form of playing time and good stats. She knows she still has a lot of work to put in, but that's all part of the fun. Once summer ball is over, she'll start preparing for the next season with speed and agility classes and by resuming weekly hitting lessons. There's always room for improvement.

Tyler was called to his manager's office last week. A guest emailed in to express her gratefulness for Tyler and his helpfulness. Tyler was kind of quiet about it all, but he told me he was working the slides and this lady was trying to carry up her disabled son so he could go down the slide. Tyler saw her struggling and helped her bring him up and get him settled. Whatever he did meant enough that the lady took the time afterward to send an email about him. It seems like just a small thing, but that made this mom's heart swell. Both of our kids make us so proud.

Celebrating Academic Achievements

The high school's end of the year awards assembly was Friday morning. It was invitation only for parents, and thankfully we received invitations for both kids! This is the first and last time Tyler and Danielle could be recognized at the same assembly since Tyler will be a senior next year -they have their own awards assembly - so it was really nice they both were recognized.

Tyler helping Danielle with her Honors Geometry homework one day last week.

Danielle received awards for all As, the Golden Science Award, and Outstanding English 9 student. She has worked very hard all year long and has kept most of her grades in the upper 90s all year. She gets nervous if anything falls below a 95. Some of the group projects just about pushed her over the edge, and her table expected her to carry them every time they had a team test in Honors Geometry. Those kinds of things are very frustrating for someone who is extremely serious about her grades, but she managed to pull it off. She just has to get through one day of regular classes and 3days of exams this week. I think she'll make it.

She said the principal handed her her award and told her he really enjoyed watching her play softball in the regional semifinal game on Wednesday. Lol.

 

Not just grades, but a good classmate

 

Tyler received his academic letter. In order to earn that, he had to finish 5 semesters of high school with a gpa of 3.5 or higher. There have been so many highs and lows over the past 3 years; There were so many times I worried he wasn't taking his school work serious enough, but obviously he was. He took honors and college classes and still finished with above a 3.5. He will have to apply for early admission considerations to colleges this fall, and these are the transcripts they will evaluate. I'm proud of him.

Danielle cheered for Tyler as he walked by. He acted like he was ignoring her, but I managed to catch the little smirk he made before he regained control of himself.

Tyler and Danielle are so different. They are different in so many aspects, including how they approach school, homework, course selections, and thinking of their futures, but both of them have successfully handled the stress and workloads. They both make us so proud we sometimes think we just might burst.