80 glorious days of summer vacation before us!

Congratulations to our niece Becky who graduates from CCHS tonight!

Announcement: Hannah is a senior now!

Today was the last day of school till August 26th. I don't think Alex changed that much this year as far as his face goes, but he grew several inches. You can tell by where his head hits the front door.

Alex, first day of 6th grade

Alex, 9 months later, on the last day of 6th grade

And speaking of Alex, he scored a 261 on his MAPS Math test the other day. He started the 6th grade at a 251...the high result for the end of 6th grade is a 231 or above. For an 11th grader, the score of 249 is considered high. And Alex has a 261. Way to go Alex!!!

Glen on his 1st day of his 24th year of teaching and Hannah on the first day of 11th grade

looking much the same at the end of the year

On Tuesday night we attended a barbecue that some of Glen's students put on. They are seniors and invited Glen--their theatre teacher, Mr. Fleming--their music teacher, and Mrs. Swenson--the accompanist, to the party to thank them for their influence in their lives. It was really a sweet thing to do. They cooked homemade pizzas on the grill...it was delicious!

We will really miss these students. They are so talented and just fun to be around. While we were waiting for the sun to go down enough to watch a slide show Derek had made, they sang to us (they are reading the words to the song on their phones):

Pierson, Jordyn, Spencer, Demi, Braden, Derek, Schyler, and Katie

I subbed on Monday and that was my last day for the school year. For the rest of the week, I have been getting the house ready so that when summer arrived, I'd be able to play. I have big plans and have already started on them.

I saw on pinterest where you stick magnets on the backs of old scrabble tiles and use them on the fridge. I have bought tiles several times at the thrift store, so I had plenty on hand. I made a "S M T W T F S" set for the week's menus. Then I made "NOTES" with an initial for each of us here at home...I can see that I need to add more letters as someone (Hannah?) has already been rearranging the few tiles we do have to spell words.

turn scrabble tiles into magnets for the fridge

Another idea was to take clothes pins, glue pretty paper on the front and a magnet on the back. OK, they actually glued thumbtacks on the back, but I only had 1 "regular" thumbtack, so I opted to use magnets again:

I saw on pinterest the great idea of using chalkboard paint in the pantry to make it easier to find all your items in your pantry. I had used red labels to identify my cans...but sometimes I'd rearrange where things went. Peeling off the old label and making a new one often didn't happen, so several things were mis-labeled.

As I was searching amazon.com for blackboard paint, I came across blackboard contact paper. It seemed like an easier, less messy method, so I ordered some. I used one of my punches and cut out the fancy label, then used my chalk. Super easy.

old way--the red label on the left / new way--blackboard contact paper

I can tell it's June because the day lilies are starting to bloom!

It's going to be a great summer.