School is Winding Down

School is winding down which means a ton of events are taking place and my kids are going in every direction. It also means I have to catch my breath whenever I have a moment. 

The pool is open and although it was very green and slimy last Sunday when we took the cover off, it was blue after a day, and today its clear and balanced.

AND the chairs... that we left in the pool all winter... they are white.

I only had to hose them off. No bleach. No scrubbing. Woot Woot!!!

Meanwhile, in between all the outdoor projects, I've been killing the tips of my fingers with the glue gun and with the constant bending of card stock paper to make flower petals. This has been a rewarding project. I found it on pinterest. I'm making the flower balls for Anika's graduation party which we are having here at the house. I had to add a little touch of decoration, because its the only bit of decoration I'm planning to do. Its on to cleaning, setting up and cooking the food. Oh wait! I don't know how to cook. Only Terry does!!! (If you don't know that joke, just go back a few posts).

Sunday was the Teeny Awards which similar to the Tony's only its for local high school students who perform theater here on Long Island. There were nominations for all the categories and the red carpet with interviews and performances during the ceremony. Jennah performed with a vocal jazz group called Music Master's Fellowship under the direction of Lauren Kinhan. It was an excellent and glorious experience. I am so happy and proud of them.

This is the group being interviewed for LI News Channel. Dang. I picked the blurry picture. (Too late. Not going to change it now. I have cleaning to do).

Here they are on stage performing Moonglow.

Beau (Anika's beau) was nominated for two and awards and won two awards. Best set design (he was the only nominee, but that only meant he was the only student to do the entire set design out of all the participating schools) and also for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy. I was very proud of him.

Our PTO Year End BBQ was on Friday. It was a competitive Kickball game, then Talent Show, then Food. I wasn't going to play kickball. I was only going to take pictures, but they easily lured me in. LOL. I pitched the ball. Good times. We won, of course. Teachers/Parents/Seniors vs about 1000 7-11th grade Students. haha

Photo bomb

Caleigh and Jaden

 This is me taunting the other team with the moonwalk.

For the talent show the kids did a great job. Jennah and India sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Glee version)

Caleigh played  a piano solo I taught her. She was the only one to do something different than singing. Go Caleigh!!

Jennah and Lizzy did a beautiful duet, but I can't remember the name of it. Lovely sisters.

Lizzy is back to normal, BTW, in case you wondered about her.

The annual field day was on Tuesday of last week. Caleigh was disappointed that the red team came in second place.

She's competitive. Don't know where she gets it from.

Took some portfolio shots of India for a TV show audition she was going to.

So when she's famous, remember where you came to know of her. Right here folks (except for you locals... )

Beyond the events listed and photo journaled--you do know that I take all these pics so I can remember what really happened over the past several daze?!

My parents are coming on Wednesday and staying for the summer.

Anika is graduating on the 24th and her party is on the 22nd. Other family members are coming for graduation. I have a feeling its all going to be a blur. I'm doing fine, but every day there is something else and I have this tendency to try and avoid things.. like cleaning. But dagnabbit if over the weekend I didn't get behind the stupid backyard fence (I had to climb over) into the woods to weed out every bit of that blasted mile-a-minute weed. And I was already terribly sore from the kickball game. So after the weeding, I was not only sore, but also itchy, tick-phobia-ridden and scratched up everywhere. The invasive weed is easily to pull but very prickly!

So that's all. That's my life lately. Now I have some major cleaning to do upstairs where my parents will be staying. Luke stayed there for an entire year without ever dusting once. YIKES!!! Oops. I guess I should never expose my kids that way in a public genre. I'll be expecting a private email of rebuke shortly.

Concerts and End of the School Year Stuff

I was going to post something about illegal immigrants and politics and decided against it. LOL!

There's lots going on around here. I haven't really been using my camera as much as I have over the past 5 years. I think I should recommit. Maybe I need a new lens for inspiration. The skills get rusty and I get lazy too. Need something to spark...

Anyway, we've been working on the yard and having all kinds of events and happenings here, there and everywhere. Its hard to keep track. Its SPRING right? My kids have a tendency to spring things on me last minute. I'm not really involved with the PTO (i.e. involved in all the goings-on at school) anymore, so I'm kind of in the dark about a lot. When I was involved, a greater portion of my time was spent trying to be sure parents, kids and teachers were informed about everything, as well as including communications with photos, so that if they were unable or unwilling to attend an event, they could still feel like they experienced it to some degree. Its good to make people wish they came to something. Right? No one really does that anymore in the PTO. I'm not sure if what I did for those 4 years is missed really, but my good friend, who has been faithfully a part of the PTO for probably 15 years, (go Mel) said she didn't think there would be one next year. What???!!!

Aw gee! I don't want to go back to it. Maybe I should, though. The plan was to create a vacuum so that new people would come into the picture. I guess the vacuum wasn't strong enough to suck 'em in to stay. LOL. Sad fact really. I think the fun factor is missing. Not fun during events but fun and crazy for the meetings. That went missing when we started to be accused of being a clique. Its such a fine balance. You don't want to seem exclusive, but not everyone has the ability to have fun the way we were doing it and so they didn't fit in completely. So we formed a REAL CLIQUE hahaha which is our group of friends who hang and do crazy stuff and take vacations together. And we mostly abandoned the PTO to those who didn't like our type of fun. Oh well.

So here we are at the end of the year. The kids have about 3 weeks left (give or take, depending on what grades they are in). It seems that they have a field trip every other day, or an unused inclement weather day, or sick day. Ayi yi yi. If they would just be done already!!!

Caleigh had her spring concert two weeks ago. She was excited about her "solo" for chorus, which she had auditioned for and everything, but it was a shared thing and she had about 4 lines of a verse. Why even bother? She has such a pretty voice, but that almost didn't even count as a solo. Sheesh! Next year baby. Next year. You gotta fight for it!!! Hahahaha... kidding.

Last week was the secondary school spring concert. Pictured below are my three. The two in the front (Lizzy and Anika) and the one in the back (Jennah).

The high school chorus.

Seniors had a solo piece. They choose Heartless, recorded by both Kanye West and The Fray. This was the Fray's version (But still... that's what they chose?) Anika was one of the soloists there on the right, next to Brenden and Caanan.

Lizzy and Jennah are the two on the far left on the risers.

And then there's the fabulous accompanist. I can't say that this concert felt amazingly inspirational. Oh well. But I will never forget one of my clique members in the audience cheering for me "Go Karen" and then starting the humorous chant we joke around with at our private parties "She's drunk! She's drunk! she's drunk!". O.M.G. BAAAHAHAHAHAA! Raul!! He can be completely inappropriate without even realizing it. But I will laugh about that for a long time.

The spring concert always includes an art show of the students art work.  The displayed was  very good. Anika had several pieces on display and wow, she has become quite the artist. She even had a few offers on some of her work. Pretty cool.

Next up on the agenda, Tall Ships in NYC Harbor this weekend to celebrate our 23rd anniversary, then performances which include my girls (I'll be accompanying) at a street festival in Riverhead on Sunday, then Memorial Day party with The Clique right on into June which is a whole other bag of tricks. My parents will arrive in a few weeks and Anika's graduation is on June 24th. I still need to get crackalackin on party plans and invitations etc. Egah!

One day at a time!! One day at a time!! Of course that doesn't help with planning ahead... At least I paid bills yesterday and took care of a huge pile of paperwork coming from all different sources. That was a major accomplishment (she's says while patting herself on the back).

The International Dinner

Every year, usually around April, the International Dinner takes place. Every year it feels like a blur to me--like I wasn't even there. It's the springtime allergies kicking in again. (However, last year I really wasn't there. I had a performance on the same night).

I was there last night taking pictures. The pictures aren't great and I haven't been super motivated to make things happen with my camera lately. Chalk that up to allergies as well.

 One of the parents and some students made some amazing paper flowers. How cool!!??

Some students also made informational posters. I love that!

There was quite a line for food. The food was AMAZING as usual.

There were lots of little ones. There were really cute too!

Mexican Folk dancers are always enjoyable to watch.

The antelope dance...

Mexican Hat dance...

The preK kids sitting and watching very attentively...

Elementary kids providing information on several various countries...

The water glass dance... see the glasses of water on their heads? Amazing.

The Shinnecock Indian Youth dancers made a presentation.

They are one of the oldest recognized tribes in the northern hemisphere.

The butterfly dance...

The Ukrainian Heritage Folk Dancers presented some delightful dances as well. YAY CHRISTINE!!!

I loved this move, even though the picture doesn't do it justice. They swung the two girls around in a circle. You had to be there.

Tambourine dance...

OK! Then it was time to sing HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our beloved Coach Johnson aka Carl aka Jack aka Pujack. FIFTY???!!! Or is it 51? It's 50. We made him go through the spanking machine at the end of the night too!!! 8-D we will be celebrating his birthday further once we reach Jamaica! Hooray!!

The Japanese Drummers were really fun to watch, too.

I loved how they're drumming was a dance as well. So Kool!!

It was a great night. However, altercations broke out between a few kids TWICE during the night. WTH??? That never usually happens, but there were a few kids present for the event, who were either  a newcomer to the school (and not coming from the best situation) or not a BH student, and in both situations somehow those boyz thought it was ok to pick on another person. Pick pick pick until something "bad" came about... it was so disappointing and embarrassing. Sheesh! Agh!

I have some opinions about some of this--the condition and atmosphere of the school this year, but I'll save it for another day. I've got other stuff to do.

Went Back to the 1920s Again

Every year The PTO and Student Council together host a themed dance at the school. We've had a Sock Hop, a Barn Dance, a Disco and now a Roaring 20s Speakeasy.

It was a lot of fun...
The student council is pictured here on the left, plus Lil and Lizzy on the right. Love the student council to pieces but they really left me hanging for most of the night. So things were quite chaotic!!! A LOT of kids showed up and very few adults... which makes things extra challenging. A lot of things about the night were challenging, but I didn't care. For some reason, I was able to just go with the flow. And it all worked out.
I loved these giant cutouts.
And Jennah and Hayley were GOLDEN all night. They really spiced up the party.
We had to play lots of games throughout the evening, like the human knot [pictured below], and the caterpillar, because no one knew how to dance in 20s style, and things didn't work out to have our instructor from last year come in to teach. The lack of dance instruction really added to the overall chaos of the dance... but, we rolled with it. It's a good thing I've been involved in youth ministry for so long, or things could have been way worse.
Here's Jolene, getting into the spirit of things.
The dance was a family event, but mostly planned for the elementary school kids, because the high school student council bailed out. They didn't think the HS kids were interested in having their own dance, which was originally planned for the second part of the night.
THEY WERE WRONG!! Several of the high school kids actually came to the event. Some of them even came dressed in their best 20s. They didn't necessarily participate whole heartedly. They more-or-less sat in the corner or went out in the hall to goof off. They were also continually asking if we could play their music now? HAH! They should have went ahead and planned their own separate dance for later. The opportunity was offered.

We knew they would end up coming... and I'm glad they did. I just wish they wouldn't have put all this pressure on the younger student council. They felt so intimidated and thrown off suddenly, when earlier, before the older kids showed up things were fun for them. Teenagers are so selfish, sometimes. It was unfair and it created a lot of stress for the students who were trying to run the event. Hey. The HS kids had their chance and if they couldn't get their act together, I AIN'T DOIN' IT FOR 'EM!!! And no one should have to cater to them when they spontaneously decide they DO want something that was offered but they rejected daze before. No. I left the silver platter at home that night.

But... then there's Jennah and Hayley... :-D They openly enjoyed the ENTIRE event!! Love that.

Raul's camera screwup is pretty darn cool. His gangster hat was messing with the flash.
It was a good night overall, and I was HAPPY to get out of there by 9 rather than 11:30.

I am so looking forward to Jamaica!!! Ten of us are heading down there together.
I have a quick tale to tell... about booking and paying for our plane tickets 9 month ago, only to discover this past week that our tickets were never actually booked!!! [ruh roh] and now there weren't any seats left on the plane... except in first class for $1400 a ticket. HAH! :-0 We weren't sure what to do, because those $1400 tickets were not an option for us.

Well, guess who got bumped to first class for the price of original coach tickets? YESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!! Terry spent about 4 days arguing with customer service about the whole ordeal, but it was their mistake. So... we will be riding first class to Jamaica, and business class back. Nice!!! Everyone in our group thinks we ought to share the blessing by trading up seats with them every half hour during the flight. BAH!