A Taste of Summer

We got a sweet taste of summer this past week! The temperatures were in the 90s, and we broke out the sunscreen and bathing suits for the first time. Memorial Day Weekend always marks a big milestone in the school year. With only a few school days left, we will be out on summer break before we know it! Last Friday evening, Emmy and I went to Zander's Little League game. Zander is doing such a good job learning the game of baseball. He often hits the ball from his coach and rarely has to hit off of the tee. He also does really well in the field playing pitcher, 1st base, and several other positions. Emmy and Maddox generally love running around in the open area behind the bleachers. In a rare moment that she was sitting, Emmy posed for a photo with Aunt M in their sunglasses.

Last Saturday, we hit the road to Lake Tillery for our annual Memorial Weekend lake trip. When we arrived, there was a smaller crew than usual: Granny, Paw Paw, Aunt Carlin, and Trivett. The rest of the gang (Goosie, Darby, and the girls - Adelynn, Kessley, Ellison, Whitlee) arrived later on Sunday afternoon. While it made sleeping arrangements easier with family coming and going throughout the weekend, it was fun to all be together for a few hours on Sunday (minus Kyle - we missed him!) I was curious to see how Emmy would react to the water this year. She loved splashing around in the baby pool on the dock and riding on the boat. She stayed in the baby pool for hours on end, and we rotated an umbrella around her to keep her mostly in the shade. When more of her cousins arrived on Sunday, I was pleasantly surprised at how well she shared the pool and her figurines. The two closest cousins, Ellison and Emmy, both 2 years old, had fun playing together while the bigger kids jumped off the dock and went for rides on the jet-ski. This lake trip was particularly nice because for the first time Boomer did not bring along his lap top! We joked that his fingers were going to start tingling from lack of typing on a keyboard. Now that he is done with graduate school, I am glad that he can enjoy time with family without the added stress of school work. 

A true sign of the school year wrapping up was the Forbush Graduation this past Wednesday evening. It marks the conclusion of Boomer's third year as a Falcon. Like in years past, the ceremony was again held at Wait Chapel on the Wake Forest University campus, and my parents, Emmy, and I went along to cheer on the principal. Grammy and Grandpa were such a big help picking up Emmy from daycare and getting the Kennedy girls to the ceremony on time. This year Boomer was decked in his full doctoral regalia - thank goodness he is getting extra use out of that expensive get-up! His charge to the graduates was to "Enjoy the journey," with the analogy of a train heading toward an elusive station at the end of the tracks. Rather than focusing on the final destination (like graduating, having children, putting your last kid through college, retiring), he encouraged the students to focus on the journey in the here-and-now. Just like the previous two years, I was so proud watching him speak from the podium. After the ceremony, we snapped a few photos and celebrated with dinner at Olive Garden, another tradition we seem to have created over the last three years. Even without a graduate, commencement ceremonies always have such an exciting atmosphere. Congratulations to the Forbush Class of 2019!

The following evening, Boomer and I headed to Troy for the East Montgomery HS Athletic Banquet. A couple of weeks ago, Boomer was asked to present the award to the EMHS Male Athlete of the Year. With the two county high schools consolidating next year, the banquet marked the final year of East Montgomery athletics. The new school will be opening in 2020 as the Montgomery Central HS Timberwolves. Boomer was honored to be asked back to his alma mater to present the award, and it made for a fun evening for the two of us. With Emmy staying home with Grammy, I count any time together just the two of us as a date! 

This past Friday and Saturday, my Morganton best friends all got together in Winston-Salem for a girls weekend. There was a pretty bad storm Friday evening, and the power at Carrie's house went out; we ended up sitting around and talking in the dark by candlelight for several hours. Then on Saturday we walked from Carrie's to a wine festival on 4th Street. We found outdoor seating at one of the restaurants nearby and enjoyed drinks and appetizers for lunch. Then we went out to dinner that evening at an Italian restaurant called Quanto Basta. We are already looking forward to being together again in July for our annual beach trip!

 



While I was off "gallivanting" with my girlfriends (as Boomer would say), he and Emmy had a fun Daddy-Daughter date on Saturday at the Greensboro Science Center. After going several weeks ago, Emmy hasn't stopped talking about seeing the meerkats, the porcupine, and all the other animals. She was so excited to go back, and based on the pictures, it looked like they had a great time. It was hard not to be jealous as Boomer was texting me photos. Going on these adventures with Emmy at this age is so fun. She has such a curiosity for everything around her and her memory is so impressive. She again loved the meerkats, and during this particular Science Center trip, she really liked the wolves, too. She was not a big fan of the crocodiles.



During naptime after the Science Center, Boomer even got a jumpstart on some of our summer to-dos. One thing on the list was to clean out/declutter the office. This is what it looks like to purge books from 8 years of graduate school! Between watching Emmy all day Saturday and checking things off the honey-do list, Boomer was the MVP this weekend - I think I'll keep him around! :)