Caitlyn

The school year is almost over. Caitlyn had her 8th grade award ceremony the other night. It was more of an irritation that anything.

As usual, it was crowded and many of the families were badly behaved...so we were pretty irritated before it even began. A good quarter of the kids getting awards didn't even show up to get them. They spent an inordinate amount of time on little specialty awards that had little significance. Spending time on awards that were not really available to all the kids and spending time giving awards to adults that worked at the school or helped out. This assembly should be for the kids who worked hard all year. Isn't that the purpose of sending our kids there?

Caitlyn got an award for history. She also got called for some bilingual award which she didn't even go up for because she thought (and for good reason) that it must have been a mistake). We thought that they must have made a mistake as she had only taken one measly quarter of Spanish last year during this weird elective rotation they put the kids on and could barely remember any of it.

Then they sped through the last awards which was the President's Academic Awards. You had to have a high GPA all year for this since they were in actuality giving the award before the year was officially over. They called the names one after the other with no pause for the kids to even make their way up. It was in no kind of order and we thought that they were going to pass over Caitlyn entirely (who has had a 4.0 gpa during her entire middle school career)  but called her up at the very end. Before they finished calling her name, the stampede of ill behaved parents were already surging forward shaking the stands we were sitting on and blocking our view somewhat of Caitlyn receiving her award.

In fact, the school normally has an award ceremony after the first semester for the kids but didn't bother to acknowledge them then either. They did manage to arrange a weeklong string of activities for those with perfect attendance because that's all they care about. They claim it is because attendance matters because there is a correlation between attendance and performance, but in actuality, they only care about attendance because that is how the school gets their money. So, as long as you show up all the time, they bend over backwards to pat you on the back. Actual performance means very little to them.

Now that I think of it, the school didn't do anything for the kids who worked hard and performed well, since the award they received was from the President...not the school. The school did nothing but tack on the delivery of these awards at the end of their own award ceremony, spending as little time and energy on it as possible. 

Mother's Day and more

It's been a fairly busy month thus far. Summer is just around the corner now. Emily had to take the AP Exam for her US History class. We won't know how she did until some time this summer. Unfortunately, no one is holding their breath on this one.
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The stake boundaries were redrawn...again. Our ward was dissolved and split into either the Mt. Rubidoux Ward or the Canyon Crest Ward. We ended up in the Canyon Crest Ward. Many of our friends are now in the Mt. Rubidoux Ward. I hate changes. The way they went about it was less than ideal. On the bright side, we were all released from our church callings. We don't, however, know what we might be called to do next. We didn't make it to the first Sunday meeting though as we had plans to get together with my family for Mother's Day.
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My nephew, Christopher graduated from USC. He already has a job lined up to begin at the end of summer with Adobe. We joined the family for a celebratory dinner Friday evening. He has plans to do some traveling this summer before he starts work. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera and didn't get any pictures.
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Christian made me some fresh English muffins for my Mother's Day breakfast. He put in these neat

LED lights under my cupboard so that I have better lighting on my counter for cooking and stuff. Sadly, my kids hardly acknowledged me. Caitlyn worked on a watercolor card for me the day before but never finished it to give to me. Emily murmured a half hearted Happy Mother's Day in passing as we got ready to leave to see my mom. It sucks to have teenagers.

For Mother's Day, we usually plan a picnic or something for my mom but it was overcast and a bit cold out that morning. We ended up meeting up at my sister's house for lunch. We figured if the sun burned through, we would go to the park afterwards. We all decided on a Hawaiian menu for lunch. As an afterthought, my sister suggested that it might be fun to dress up for the occasion. Christian took some group photos for us that turned out pretty cute.

After eating too much, we decided to take a walk to the local park and get some air and exercise. Debbie, my brother's wife, went home to get some housework done. Christopher had been staying up late and partying a lot since graduation and stayed in to take a nap. My sister's husband and her youngest son had left the day before for the graduation of their nephew/cousin.

My sister beat Collin and Caitlyn at basketball. My brother and my mom reigned at bocce ball. They had a final round in the end and my brother ended up as the champion.

Afterwards, we returned to my sister's house for dessert which ended up to be dinner and dessert. We went home way too late.

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Unfortunately, after my nephew went to sleep that evening, he had some severe pain in his chest and couldn't breath. My sister ended up taking him to the hospital. Apparently, his lung collapsed. They had to put a tube in his chest to let the air out. He was able to breathe on his own after that.

After 4 days, he is finally being released from the hospital. He still has a small hole in his lung, so they had to leave the tube in. He has to go back on Tuesday to get a check up and see if the hole healed, otherwise, he might still have to have surgery. I guess if it is healing okay, they will take out the chest tube.

He was supposed to leave for his trip to Asia today. He had plans to travel around China, Japan and Korea, meeting up with his friends as he went. Of course it is all cancelled now, but we are thankful that he is safe at home for this emergency.

Caitlyn's Birthday

We continued Caitlyn's Birthday celebrations this past weekend. We had to delay her birthday party a week since we spent last weekend celebrating Garth's birthday in San Diego.

She got a bunch more presents. She got a lot of gift cards this year...must be part of the whole becoming a teenager thing. It becomes harder and harder to shop for them. Christian put together a new electronics kit for her. He is getting her pieces to make her own touchscreen alarm clock. She will be able to program it to work however she wants and she will be able to upload her own music or sounds to it. She will be able to put it together this summer as she will have to get up on her own for seminary next year.

She had a huge growth spurt this past year. She grew 3 5/8 inches over this past year. She is very nearly my height. The difference is negligible (unless she insists that she is now taller than me, that's when I insist that I am still taller...at least for another month or so).

We had more cake. Her birthday lunch is always shared with grandpa whose birthday is about a week before hers.

Grandpa Caldwell and Jackie rolled out of the door after the festivities. Marian stayed for a movie (and laundry). We were all still too full for dinner so we opted to just have some popcorn with our movie and called it a night.