abjacabjacal: school

Last night marked the end of the golf season at school. The coach found a few pennies laying around and he put on a nice banquet and awards ceremony to honor the kids for all their hard work.

This is our varsity team...

Seniors.

Arilee played varsity every tournament and earned her letter. She worked hard but needs to learn to keep her feet planted and how to putt. Her coach even razzed her a few times during the ceremony about it. She's such a good sport.

Justin also played varsity every tournament. He placed three times, was finally given his "bars" to add to the letter he received as a freshman (which he's earned the past three years but never awarded) and was given a plaque because he is one of them super cool seniors.

Both of them did fabulous this season and I am very proud of them!

Bet you didn't know I could go this long between blog posts, did ya?

A few weeks ago, I could look outside my front door and virtually nothing for atleast a mile. I've loved every ounce of this view for the past ten years. I didn't even argue when the owner of the property across the street poured a concrete slab and plunked a camp trailer down in the middle of his 20 acres because he was very adamant, he was doing nothing else with that 20 acres, not even building anything on that concrete slab. Sure, I'd rather NOT have an old camp trailer in my view, but I figured it was way better than the alternative.

Then one day a few weeks ago, cars started showing up and hanging out at all hours of the day and night. I got curious (rather, my mother in law got curious), so I checked the classifieds in the paper only to discover that this 20 acres, which happens to be one of the last vacant fields in my whole neighborhood, was FOR SALE! Oh how we wished we had the money to buy it, but we didn't. Too bad the owner lived in Colorado, I'd egg his house for this one!!!

A few days later, some rather interesting fellers showed up on my inlaws new house's doorstep, asking for a drink of water for their dog. Turns out, they'd just bought the property. They said "I hope you don't mind old junky cars, because we have an auto body business and this is where we're setting up shop." Double whammy!

Two days ago... this showed up... and I threw a mini temper tantrum over it...

And this morning, it looks like this... I wanted to cry...
My view... is gone. It's being replaced with buildings and junky cars and who knows what else. I'd still like to know how they can just set up and auto body repair business on a "residential" zoned piece of property, or have it zoned commercial without notifying the neighbors. It boggles the mind. All I can hope for is that if they have any kids, they better not be little stink pots! *sigh*

In happier news... my kids are officially done with school for the summer. They were home for approximately 27 seconds yesterday when the bickering, weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth began. I was able to shut them up for a few hours with cartoons and "Enchanted" the movie (which reminds me of a huge rant about Directv, but I'll spare you for now), and informed them that their summer would not consist of 24/7 television. They informed me that in their "off" time, they'd just play video games instead. Is sleeping in as late as I want for the next 12 weeks really worth the payoff?

Our week was busy busy with the end of the school year. Ishee had her field trip which I attended... because I love riding school busses and hanging out with three different elementary schools kids at our itty bitty zoo. The pictures were good, though, weren't they? Thanks for pointing that out...

The boy had an assembly I was invited to, which turned out to be an hour of my life I'll never get back. It basically consisted of them announcing the names of students who had acheived honors, high honors, and who were in the renessaince club (which means you had honors/high honors/no truencies or tardys). They read two very long lists which would have been shorter had they announced the names of the kids not on the honor roll, and played silly games only a 14 year old would enjoy (except mine) and sent us on our way. Not a single photographic moment worthy of capturing.

My husband took a couple of days off work to do some "honey do's" around here, and ended up helping his dad do concrete in between rain storms. He did mow the lawn and wack the weeds, so it hasn't been a totally worthless vacation. He also took me to lunch one last time....

The boy also got to experience what life would be like if he'd had brothers instead of sisters... and he enjoyed it so well, he begged me to trade the girls in. My niece was up visiting from Arizona with her parents and brought her wild and crazy but oh so cute little boys. They attended a temple session and left the little boys at my house for a couple of hours. The boy finally had someone who met his match in the odd noises department. Must be a boy thing...He had someone he could wrestle with, play matchbox cars and airplanes and dart guns, and then there was the little one who preferred to be fed like a dog, which the boy very much enjoyed doing. Sorry Tanner ... we did a whole lot of giggling at your expense... Ishee happily declared the little boys were way messier than she could ever dream of being... which is a flat out lie... she could totally take them any day of the week! When the little boys left, my big boy cleaned up their mess without being asked, partly because it all belonged in his room, but mostly because he had big plans to park himself in front of the computer for the rest of the day out of sheer exhaustion and he knew I'd be so impressed with him I wouldn't argue too loudly.