May Instagram

May was busy.  I know it is for everyone, and I know some people really thrive on the busy-ness and are bored when summer hits, but I am not one of those people.  Between all of the track meets, band/orchestra concerts, cub scout events, ball games, piano lessons, etc., I found it very hard to keep up with my levels in Candy Crush maintain my house and sanity.  Every Sunday this month, Dave and I sat down and worked out a schedule…who would get which kid where, and who would attend which game/concert, because unfortunately we seemed to have a lot of overlapping events this year.

But June is right around the corner, and I just can’t wait.

I attended a lot of concerts this month.

Above is a shot of Ben in the school band concert.  He and the other band members got to perform at all 4 elementary schools, so it was really exciting that he came to mine!  Unfortunately, when you teach fifth grade, your seats are located just a little bit south of Campbelltown, however, I promise he’s up there on that stage somewhere.  We also saw his evening band concert, Maddie’s band concert, Maddie’s orchestra concert, and Maddie’s Big Band Bash (jazz band with the high school).  Maddie will also be traveling to my school this week to perform with the jazz band.

I get one personal day and I used it to attend a Mother’s Day Tea with my favorite 8 year old:

I also got all my my pots planted and much of my vegetable garden planted that day, and three days later we got major wind and afrost warning.  All of my plants survived, but I was nervous.

I missed my Maddie a lot this month. She left me early in the morning on Mother’s Day to head to the Delaware Bay with her Envirothon team to be trained to lead the elementary teams on their field trip their the next day. 

                   Rain Delay at one of Ben’s ball games.

And then a week later she headed to Outdoor Ed with her 7th grade. She loved the week at Camp Swatara, but there was no contact at all with us, and I missed her a lot.  A super duper crazy whole lot.    Dave picked her up from the bus the Friday she returned and I rushed home from school and found her sound asleep on the sofa.  I woke her up and kissed her anyway and then she promptly fell back to sleep for another 12 hours.

Maddie also did her Relay for Life again, and this time she reached her goal of walking/running a marathon at the relay!

It’s lilac time!

And dandelion time!

And thunderstorm time.

I bought a cart full of new kids when I got tired of the old ones, but then I returned them the next day, when I found out they were even whinier than the old ones.

(Actually my friend Amy took this one and sent it to me…Jack and his “twin” Olivia were invited to dinner with Amy’s kids).

We attended the Forge Road Elementary Art Show.

                                                                              Ben a la Magritte, Jacka Lisa, and The Scream.

On the left below is Ben’s favorite piece of art and on the right is Jack’s:

I’m sad to be missing all of Ben’s 5th grade stuff this year (including his upcoming “graduation”), but many thanks to my friend Janet who keeps sending me pictures, so far from the 5th Grade Tug-O-War and his field trip (not pictured):

To celebrate Memorial Day we grabbed candy at the Annville Memorial Day Parade…

…squeezed a bunch of kids into the hot tub (because it was too darn cold to swim!)…

…and made our first batch of s’mores:

All of that doesn’t seem so patriotic, but we also sang “America the Beautiful” at the top of our lungs in church on Sunday.  I love patriotic holidays because I know we’re going to get a good hymn.

Goodbye crazy May.  Hello lovely June.  I can’t wait to meet you and your sweet friends, July and August.