The end of school

is this Wednesday. With the end of the world imminent we managed to cram into one week, Emily's French exam award ceremony, her choir concert and a piano recital. The last piano recital with her teacher Kenda.

Emily is the third girl from left, in the back row, and Kenda is the second.
I am feeling nostalgic about all the people we are leaving behind as our move gets closer. I have been making arrangements to withdraw Emily from Jenks schools so she can enroll in her new school and register for the fall. Her eighth grade year has flown by. It feels like being on the top of a roller coaster ready to free fall, with no turning back.
But not everything is coming to an end.

There's still dance. Dance recital, dance camp, a performance of Sleeping Beauty. Emily was cast as Cinderella. Who knew Cinderella shows up in the ballet of Sleeping Beauty? But come on, who cares, what ballerina doesn't want to be Cinderella? I asked Emily what she thought when she saw her part. She said on a scale of one to ten, a twenty-five!

Emily is also a featured dancer for the 9 stake youth conference this summer. She's doing a 1930's and 1950's swing dance with lifts and flips and her personal favorite the "tootsie roll."

One performance she missed was her competition team competed last Sunday. They placed first which is so awesome just sorry it had to be on a Sunday.

Next up, the recital and the black swan.

April showers

bring May weddings. Is that what they say? The Townsends are having an off year for weddings in 2011, but still best wishes to the happy couples all celebrating their anniversary this week.

May 8, 2004

May 10, 2002


May 12, 2010

And congratulations to me that they survived to wed.

I was reminded of my offspring's frequent peril on Tuesday afternoon. Emily and I were leaving the dignity of the French Exam Award Ceremony. A girl and her younger brother were running and screaming toward their car to sit shotgun. I am talking teenagers, the girl had just received an award. A high school student, you know, old enough to know better and big enough to slap her beloved sibling harder. They collided in the front seat together until the big sis ended the slugfest by surrendering.

Their dad was horrified that they might have dinged our car while flinging their car door open. They had not. I couldn't resist giving him some unsolicited advice though.

Assigned seats.

It allowed my kids to grow up and marry relatively unmaimed. The scars they carry are from other forms of abuse.

She's number one.

Emily placed first in the state on the National French Exam!
I know. I am impressed as well.
I don't know why she is pouting about it.

Actually I just wanted to take a picture of her adorable self and this is what she gave me. I am thinking she is not going to place first in her cooperation skills.