Junior High Awards Night

Carmen had her first school awards ceremony this week.

She made more than one trip to the stage.

Too bad this one was blurry, it's one of our favourites.

Freeing her hair from the ribbon around her neck.

(Thanks to Jaclyn for doing Carmen's pretty hair.)

To summarize: The Science Award, Band Award, Citizenship, Honours with Distinction, Basketball: Most Dedicated, and the Mosaico Fellowship Award.

Congratulations, Carmen!

Countdowns

Besides our countdown for Europe, each of our girls have had countdowns of their own:

Carmen counted down to the day her braces came off! 

Jaclyn counted down to a little trip she and I made to Idaho to go to the mission farewell of some guy she knows. Many of my friends thought I deserved either pity or praise for taking a weekend to do this, but it was actually fun. Thank goodness I liked his family! Ken tells me my going to Idaho with Jaclyn is just the natural extension of 18 1/2 years of accommodating parenting on my part. Jaclyn could have done the drive herself, but with her work schedule it meant late night driving through mountains, and I wasn't crazy about her going alone. 

I wonder how many Statues of Liberty there are in the USA?

Chloe counted down to her Harry Potter birthday party. She had to add four days on to her countdown when we postponed her birthday party to accommodate my trip with Jaclyn, which stretched her anticipation.

Some decorations were my creations, but many of the decorations were done by Carmen and Chloe.

I was really glad that Professor Carmonigal was available for the party. Her alternate personalities were House Elf (before and after the party), Mr. Olivander, Madam Hooch, and "the snitch."

The sorting hat sang a song (Harry Potter in 99 Seconds) and then sorted the guests into their houses with a little bit of help from its blindfolding powers and a bowl of house crests.

Chloe was sorted into Hufflepuff again, just like her Pottermore account.

Hogwarts houses merged to play Quiddich. Our original plan was to set up the rings on soccer goals at a park near our home, but it was really raining out and we decided that after 15 minutes walking to the field everyone might just want to turn around and come home rather than stay and play, so we hung the rings from our garage for one goal and borrowed a neighbour's driveway for another goal. The girls still got wet, but less so.

Following the athletics we held a grand feast. Sadly, the food didn't magically appear on the table as one guest pointed out, but the buffet that mom (aka The Head House Elf) put on was quite a spread. Jaclyn said I should take pictures of all the food to somehow embarrass myself at how spoiled Chloe was with this party. Happily, we will live off leftovers the rest of the week. I love leftovers, they're the dinners I didn't have to cook!

Hagrid delivered a cake. (It was a little smooshed like he sat on it or something.)

11 candles! No boyfriends!

"Expecto Patronum!" (A dozen times or more) until the dementor pinata was history, leaving gold galleons for a trip to Hogsmeade.

The *shopping* helped the girls load their loot bags with Butter Beer, Snitch Cake-pops, Liquorice Wands, every flavour beans, chocolate frogs, liquid luck, and so on.

I wasn't embarrassed by the feast, but I'm a little embarrassed by all the treats. As a dental hygienist, I mean.

Iron

The next time someone hears me say that I'm tired, will you please respond with, "Have you been taking your iron supplement?" I ran out a long time ago and I've been dragging and low energy without realizing or identifying it until I was hiking on Friday. Hello! I'm anemic! But did I buy my Proferin on Saturday like I said I was going to? No, I did everything else instead. Then this morning my yoga instructor actually asked me what was wrong. Hello! I'm not taking care of myself, that's what's wrong. And I feel like an idiot letting myself get to this point when I'm so philosophically against self-neglect. I went straight to the pharmacy after yoga.

Carmen had her final band concert, probably final as in forever. She thinks she will choose drama as her arts option next year. I'm afraid the band teacher will be heart broken.  

Chloe and I have been preparing for her Harry Potter birthday party next week. Pinterest is my best friend and worst enemy. Lots of good ideas. Too many good ideas. Can't do it all!

Oh, I'm on Instagram now. I'm drowning in social media, but my children and friends keeping moving on to the next thing. And I was hoping that Instagram would be a quick and easy way to stay in touch on our holiday. We'll see - no one is following me yet.

My new favourite app on my iphone is PathAway. It connects to satellite via bluetooth, so I have GPS on my phone without cell coverage in the woods. No data required, and plenty of fun features like adding points that link to photos I've taken along the way. Plus altitude, so we'll never again have to wonder on a road trip what our altitude is (not even kidding, this is something we muse over).

We used PathAway to go on a quick backpack trip with Steven on Friday night. He had a couple of requirements to check off on some scouting awards which is what got us out of the house this past weekend. We didn't hit the trail until 9pm, but we managed to set up the tent before it was dark which was exactly the timing we were going for. It was a short hike, a little steep. Nothing that adequate red blood cell levels wouldn't have been up for.

Here we are in the morning, ready to head home.

And the boys.

Part of the point of the short hike was to do an equipment check before we hike in and out of Mount Assiniboine in August, and it was a good thing we did it. Steven was my size when we bought him that backpack - time for something larger. My air mattress had a leak. Ken's headlamp needed new batteries. No big deal on a short hike, but things that will matter more on our 55k trip later this summer. I should have my iron levels up again by then.

But what of Jaclyn you ask? Well, 2 weekends ago her he's-not-my-boyfriend came up from Idaho to hang out. And she and I are heading to his mission farewell this coming weekend. Also, she's now a probationary writer for the BYU 100 hour board, and feeling confident that the 'probationary' status will be lifted at the end of her trial period since she received Editor's Choice recognition for one of her answers last week. If you are curious as to what this is all about check it out here and if you still want more, I suggest hitting 'I'm Board' on the sidebar.