Memorial Day Weekend

Strawberry Breakfast

This year my employer gave us a four day weekend for Memorial Day. I like long weekends. We started out Friday with the Strawberry Breakfast at my son's school. The Strawberry Breakfast is a tradition each May at his school. Every year is pretty much exactly like the year before:

The 4th grade girls and 5th grade boys do the processional.
The sophomores put a flower crown on the senior girls and pin a flower on the senior boys.
The 10th grade girls do the Maypole dance.
The high school chorus sings.
The third graders do the ribbon dance.
The 10th grade boys do a sword dance.
The second grade dances, sings and plays instruments.
The fifth grade girls do the Maypole dance.
The sixth grade does the recessional chain for the seniors.
Everyone has strawberries, donuts, punch and coffee in the dining commons.

The children really look forward to the grades where they get to perform at the Strawberry Breakfast, and the day eases everyone into the holiday weekend. Normally the ceremonies are in the school courtyard, this year it was moved to the gym because it was raining. My son is in fifth grade so he was in the processional. He was the first person in the processional on one side of the gym and I don't think anyone told him to walk slowly because he walked as fast as possible over to the place he was supposed to stand. Here is a picture of him below:



I noticed that some of the 5th grade boys enjoyed the effects of breathing in helium after the program was over.

Kittens

Friday evening my neighbor across the street knocked on my door. He wanted my help because I am a cat person. A stray cat had kittens out behind his shed in a wood pile. We caught one of them and another neighbor added it to a batch of kittens his mother's cat was caring for. The mother cat and other kittens took off for parts unknown. Since the neighbors whose yard the kittens were born in were leaving on vacation they asked me to care for their new pets. So I am going over there a few times a day with food and water, I haven't seen any cats, but something is eating the food.

Hard Work

My son is a boy scout and on Saturday morning it was his duty to help an older scout with a service project. I dropped him off at a residential medical daycare facility where he would spend the morning mulching the yard and cleaning windows. I gave him his father's cell phone and told him to call home if he needed anything. He has been asking for a cell phone for several months, but he really has no need for one, until yesterday. When I dropped him off two older scouts came to the car to greet him. I made a point to ask my son if he had "his" cell phone with the older boys there, I think he appreciated that.

I went home and helped my husband open the pool. I spent most of the time clearing the debris from the trees of the pool deck and patio. There were a million little helicopter seedlings all over the place. I also weeded the area around the pool. My son called on "his" cell phone and said they finished early, could I go get him. So I drove over and picked him up. I spoke briefly with one of the other scout's mother and she said my son was extremely helpful. I then went over to the scouts who were in charge, one of their mother's said my son was extremely helpful, then the scouts said my son worked harder than any of the other scouts. I'm so proud of him.



We went back home to finish up the work on the yard. The little bird above serenaded us from the roof as we worked. We planted some new hosta plants around the house and pulled out some english ivy. We had the pool open for only an hour or so before a mallard decided to go for a swim. I hope all the chlorine we put in to shock the water didn't burn his fins.



Defragmenting

My PC has been choking on all the pictures I've asked it to handle. Before it would let me see another picture I had to defragment the hard drive. It was so badly fragmented that the defrag took 12 hours! That delayed this post from last night to tonight. I watched the defrag as it was performed. I was oddly entertained by all the little blinking lights on my screen. My son was too. We defragged his computer today just to watch it happen. We need to get real lives.

Parade

Today we went to a parade in a neighboring town. I'm saving the pictures I took for TNChick's July Photo Contest. I got that picture of a fire truck out of the way!

An Invitation

Someone left a comment on one of my Flickr photos the other day. Here's what it said:

Hello, this picture is very suitable for our group. Would you be so kind to send it to The Guild Of Crappy Photography. Thanks!

Tomorrow

My son and I may go out to the river gorge to watch the Kodak falcons fly and hunt. In the afternoon we are going to a barbecue at a friend's house. I better bring my camera, a BBQ is on TNChick's July Photo Contest.

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend. What have you been up to?

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