Sunday, October 14, 2018

Endings and Beginnings

It's all starting to run together a bit here. The end of summer was a swirling vortex that both took forever and was over in a blink. I'm just going to smash it all in here in one final summer end/school start/Romney turned 13 post.

A treat for mommy!

After that whirlwind week of theater in St. George I made it home just in time to go get pedicures with dear friends Becca, Elyse and Lynnette. I'm in the light blue flip flops. My poor dry feet loved that very very much.


Also I had to say goodbye to my friend Jeannie! Our sons are the same age and when I met her when they were kindergarteners I had this feeling that we were going to be friends. I was right. When our boys had the same 1st grade teacher we started to get to know each other and had many years of watching each others' kids, us going to her for hair appointments, going to movies and lunches and pedicures. I really love her. She and her family moved to Florida for a big job change and it's a little weird that she's not right around the corner any more to pop by with her doggie. We enjoyed an awesome brunch at a little place downtown called the White Horse.



Okay and you may officially call us batty-pants. Earlier in the summer we found out that a dear friend would be performing in the Gilbert and Sullivan opera HMS Pinafore, which I had never seen. I have such a soft spot for G&S because my mom loved them so much and really educated us on her favorites. I still feel like I'm expressing my love for my mom and processing her passing by seeing musicals and thinking of her. This little production was rather a silly version of the play, but that didn't mean the singing wasn't wonderful. We went on the Monday after we got home - it seemed reasonable back when I bought the tickets but when I reminded my family of the event I really was expecting groans since we had returned so recently from our big drama trip. Nope. My girls were so excited to go and my boys were so excited to not go. At least everyone is predictable! The show was hilarious if sparsely attended.



We of course fit in another trip to the zoo...I mean, what else would we want to do?


Midway through August our school hosted a back-to-school night, which is really out of tradition for how they usually do it. Usually it happens during the first week of school but this year we had this big BBQ outside and it was much more of an open-house. My big kids had fun coming and seeing favorite teachers from previous years, including their 4th grade teacher, who is retiring this year.


Emma is in 4th grade this year, but she didn't get Mrs. Farrell like the other two did. She got our school's new teacher, Mr. Mitchell. He is a terrific addition to our school and Emma is doing so great in his class.

Oh man this is all feeling awfully random. I'm just going to go with it though. After all, it's Sunday night at like 10pm and I feel like if I don't finish blogging the summer before Halloween, I'm never going to recover. Let the random topics continue.

So Romney turned 13!!! Yay sweet Romney! She is SO AWESOME. She is so lovely, funny, loves theater so much, is really building some great friendships, and grew so much over the summer. You are NEVER going to believe what she wanted to do for her birthday. So....she loved Newsies so much in July that she decided that that was the single thing she wanted to do for her birthday. Go see it again. And it just so happened that Hale Theater opened up an additional matinee the last weekend of summer, the weekend before her birthday. And I found out about this early enough that I got her two tickets on the front row. She invited her fellow theater-loving friend (who maybe knew the lyrics a little too well...) and they had a great time seeing it again. I was a little sad I wasn't seeing it too but since the tickets were twice the price for me I thought it would be best to just let them have a great time together.






That same weekend we had a visit from the St. Georgians - I have to say that I have no recollection as to why at this point. Maybe just a last hurrah? I can't remember. 



 Someday I'm going to make a book of all the photos taken just at this spot over the years - we started with just one or two kids, little toddlers climbing on this statue


One of our other activities for the weekend was going up to fan day at the Utes Stadium. It was pretty crazy, so packed with people. We got some mediocre snow cones and played a couple of carnival-type games, but the real fun was the people watching and especially getting to walk out onto the field. Man was that spectacular, to see the stadium from the point of view of the turf. What a sight.





And then, it came. The big day. The first day of school. I was so happy and so sad at the same time. 

Chase started his sophomore year at West:


Romney was off to 8th Grade at Clayton:


And Emma made it to the 4th grade:


We took a few obligatory first-morning pictures:



The kids all seemed to have a great day and were excited. Well, maybe not Chase so much. He is not a super fan of school. I know he likes the social side and he's involved this year in a dance crew (!!!!) as well as in A'cappella. Every day when you ask him how school is he mostly grunts and says boring. But you know I'm sure he'll warm up to it. In about June of 2021.

Tuesday was Romney's actual birthday and we had the grandparents over for dinner. At the last minute we decided to invite a few of Romney's friends and I'm so glad we did because they just had a big old massive giggle fest in the living room while the aged folks hung out on the back porch and talked and enjoyed the evening air.





I made a very sad-looking lopsided birthday cake. It was all I could muster.



Romney has some seriously sweet friends.



So yeah I guess that's it! Summer ended, like it does every year, though it often feels like it won't. And school started, no matter how much some kids dreaded it and some kids yearned for it. It's all feeling a little anticlimactic at the moment - like that Shel Silverstein poem:

Here comes summer,
Here comes summer,
Chirping robin, budding rose.
Here comes summer,
Here comes summer,
Gentle showers, summer clothes.
Here comes summer,
Here comes summer
Whooshshiverthere it goes.

Except for the times when it feels like it won't end. But then, whoosh, it does!!

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