Almost Summer

Wow. What a weekend!
The school year is coming to a close, so we have end-of-year events all over the place. It's really fun to see your kids demonstrate how they've grown and what they've learned, but gosh! I need a vacation after this!
Last week, Andrew's school band held their spring concert. He performed with the jazz band and also with the symphonic band. Here he is playing a jazz euphonium (!) solo:


And here he is, smiling just a little after I begged and pleaded with him to do so. I love that he is wearing his Solo & Ensemble Festival medals! Makes a music-teacher-mom so proud, I tell ya.


Friday, of course, was the end-of-the-year field trip with Emma's school. Every year, they get a big group discount ticket rate for the parents to spend a day with their kids doing something fun. For the longest time, Cypress Gardens was the annual destination and I liked that. They had beautiful gardens and water skiing shows and lots of fun rides. Rides that you can enjoy while fully clothed.
Now? Now that Cypress Gardens has closed, we go to water parks. This means that I get to participate in the joyous activity of subjecting the general public to my bare, white mamma-thighs. All day long.
Emma had fun and that's what matters.
Me? Oh, me and my stupid herniated-disc back had to go down water slides. Fast ones.
It's okay though. I'm starting to feel better today.

I'm not bitter.

Anyway.
Saturday was Spring Recital day for the studio where I teach. There are plenty of students and we've had to expand to three recitals, so it's pretty much an all-day event for the teachers. It was so great to see all of my students dressed up and their parents so proud of them for what they'd learned.
My own kids take multiple lessons there, so they were performing as well, and for them it was a big deal because this was the last recital/performance of the school year.
Hooray!
Emma sang with the children's choir and performed a recorder solo. I don't have a photo of her solo because she gets pretty nervous, so I went up on stage with her and played a little piano accompaniment for her.


Andrew performed a piano solo and a euphonium solo.

He also performed with the guitar ensemble, playing bass guitar. He's taken that up just this semester, but he really loves it! Rightly so, I suppose. The bass he plays with is a hybrid that my brother built out of one of his guitar bodies and the neck from Chris' old bass.
Yep.
Chris used to play bass. He played it, I would imagine, because his dad also plays bass. Chris didn't keep up with it, but between him, his dad and my brother, I guess Andrew pretty much couldn't help but inherit the bass gene.

I, for one, am really looking forward to this summer. We have a few day camps planned for the kids to enjoy and I'll still be teaching (but my student load will be reduced for the summer), but we are hoping to slow down our pace quite a bit. I want to build things with my kids and work in our garden. I want to play board games and tons of Super Mario Brothers! We will build fires in our back yard and read a million books and maybe...just maybe, we'll see the return of a weekly Blackout Night.
I'm trying hard not to pin all my happiness on what this summer can hold, but it's a little difficult. I'm excited. This is my first summer in many years that I do not have to pay someone else to enjoy my children during the day while I am stuck in an office somewhere.
And I can't wait for it to start!

Also? Here's a cool dragonfly that landed on my dad's car antenna. I just liked him.