May Snapshots

The merry month of May signals a summer break from two big outside commitments: American Heritage Girls and Young Musicians of Virginia. Thursday night AHG meetings cease mid-month, and Tuesday and Friday YMV classes finish up by months end. Both however go out with a bang, after an end-of-the-year flurry of activity.

The beginning of the end kicked off with our troop Constitution Night. Most of the girls in the troop earned the Our Constitution badge, and this evening was to celebrate their hard work and show off their Constitution related artwork, skits, radio PSAs and other projects. With limited budget to decorate, I suggested the classic party decoration: paper chains. The week prior, I cut enough red, white and blue strips (on my paper cutter) to make over 130 feet of paper chain. 3 sheets of construction paper, one each of red, white, and blue, properly cut, makes about 6 feet of chain. Who knew? As I cut, I placed the strips of each color in individual baggies. Volunteers took a baggie or two home, glued, taped or stapled their 6 ft length of paper chain, and returned a little early on Constitution Night so we could hang them up. Teamwork! Can I just say? Never have such awesome decorations been so cheap! Never have such cheap decorations looked so awesome! They really did look great!

The first Saturday of May is usually The Daughter’s Spring Recital. She played beautifully! (And asked for Bangkok Garden instead of ice cream). We celebrated Mother’s Day with Grandma Midge and brought Papa Gene home from the Rehab Center (after ONLY two weeks!), and had a Wedding Anniversary. #1 Son came home in time for Captain America: Civil War and then returned to GMU for summer session and courses on Modern Russia, Creative Writing and History of Internet.

Mid-month we attended a series of year-end musical performances at Young Musicians of Virginia. The Daughter sang in the High School Choir concert on one night and accompanied for the Junior and Middle School Choir concert later in the week. The High School Choir returned the following week to sing two numbers with the Concert Band and String Ensemble.

Sandwiched between the concerts was the AHG May Court of Awards. Usually, I’m sitting in the audience for The Daughter’s big events, but because I’m Troop Shepherd, I was charged with running the Stepping Stone ceremony for the girls moving up to the next level. It involves introducing each set of girls, and reading a brief poem about their level as the girls and their parents pass under an arbor of lights and such. It went relatively well, no one noticed my minor slip-ups. (Yay) Mr. Garner was in on the act, charged with running the sound and video board, and the lights. By the end of the night, The Daughter received six badges, two service stars, and a Silver Presidential Service Award!

The last week or so of May was a bit more relaxed. The performances and exams were over and the class parties, and social gatherings closed out the month. Whew.

On the Reading List: Looking back at the month’s Bullet Journal entries reminds me that I started reading A Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason with an Ambleside Online forum group. I’m behind on that already, but making progress on Tale of Two Cities and picking up G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown stories.

Mr. Garner planted 60 pink begonias in our patio border. Fingers are crossed. Of course we were also working our homeschool schedule…