The end of the school year

Summer is just about upon us, though we have not had much hint of that here in Utah--it has just been too cold. But the activities that have surrounded us have reminded us that, yes, indeed the end is near.

Each class and grade has had their end-of-year concerts, performances, show-n-tells, and the like. This would not be so bad if I had one or two of these to attend. But as it is, I have 9 kids in my home and they all have had something that I have had to attend. I do so look forward to the end of the school year, but does it all have to be at once?

Just for the month of May [these are just the activities involving the kids in my home]:

• Kindergarten invited the parents to come and watch their students show their new academic skills and then eat lunch with their student.
• Fourth grade had a "wax musem" to show a famous person they had learned about.
• Elementary school had a student of the month luncheon.
• Elementary school had a literacy night so that we could listen to our kids recite their poetry.
• Elementary school had a concert at the high school so that each grade could perform a song they had worked on throughout the school year.
• Middle school had a band concert.
• High school had a bell choir concert.
• High school had a concert band/symphonic band concert.
• High school had a jazz band concert.
• Piano teacher had a recital.
• Baseball games were held twice a week.
• Oh, and high school graduation is June 3rd. Thankfully it is in June...but just barely.

Ah...and then summer vacation begins with 10th grader starting drivers ed June 5th.

Boys of Summer Spring Winter

Isn't it supposed to be warm for baseball games?? Apparantly, not here in Utah this year. Standard equipment for enduring these little league baseball games has been coats, blankets, propane heaters, hot chocolate, two pairs of socks and gloves. I kid you not.

Not only has it been in the 30s and 40s for these games, but it has been windy and snowy.

Because of this strangely cooler-than-normal weather we have a few die-hards who show up to watch the boys play. There was one game that was held on an evening that was warm enough to bring out everyone else. The very next game was held during another cold one. Those same die-hard parents were there as before.

This evening I plan to wear two pairs of socks, legwarmers, a coat (with a hood), gloves and I will take a blanket (the warmest, fuzziest one I can find.)

Olympics

I stumbled upon this picture I took back when the Olympics came to Utah in 2002. This is the Olympic Stadium (aka University of Utah Rice Eccles Stadium). I spent a LOT of time on that campus as I was a student there for a few years.

My hubby and I were attending the Para-Olympic's closing ceremonies when I snapped this image.

Interesting side note: It hadn't snowed for weeks before those Olympics. Then the night before the Opening ceremonies Salt Lake City got a really nice snow storm that set the mood for the entire Olympics.

Computer is down

I was telling a friend the other day about being nervous about my computer. It had been acting sluggish. My hubby had ordered a backup system for our computers but it had not yet arrived.

Yesterday I had a bit of a challenge getting my desktop to boot up. I got it running and all was going fine...

...until today.

I got up to put finishing touches on a Sunday school lesson I had to teach today. This time my computer said, "NO WAY JOSE!!" My oldest son did his best to figure out the problem. Later, my dear shweetie hubby took over. No, it is still not working, but at least he has saved the contents of my hard disk. WHAT A MAN!

He took my hard drive out of my computer, connected it to his computer and transfered a bunch of files from my HD to his despite getting errors on the disk.

I do not know when I will have it up and working again, but I am happy that my pictures, writings, web designs, and other miscellaneous files are still accessible.

For now, I will be accessing the internet via my laptop and perhaps I can convince my oldest son to let me use his computer to play my favorite computer game...City of Heroes/Villains.

If not...patience is a virtue!