middle school graduation

Today was the Middle School Graduation and Awards Ceremony.  Shaylee graduated from 8th grade today and will venture on into high school next year.  Man, where have these years gone?  She has grown into such a beautiful and intelligent young lady and I was one proud mama today.  Shaylee received awards in all of her classes for having all A's, along with a tardy free award, science fair awards, and honor roll.  The girl is smart, I tell ya, and she's been known to say, "it comes easy".  Lucky for her because it wasn't as easy for me when I was her age.

Here she is receiving her certificate of graduation.

 I should have counted how many times she got up from her seat to go get another award.  (I guess I could because the awards are in the kitchen, but that would mean getting up, and right now I don't want to.)  I would estimate 8 times or so? 

The most exciting part of today was what she won!  For reading books and filling out a BINGO card in the library and getting at least 2 blackouts, the students would be entered into a drawing.  She got at least 2 blackouts, along with maybe 15 other students.  The first name to be drawn got to choose between a Kindle or $50.  Low and behold, Shaylee's name was drawn out of the basket first.  She chose the Kindle!  She has been wanting one for awhile and had put that on her list for her birthday.  I guess she'll have to come up with a new idea, huh!?

 Moving on, Shawndra also received awards in all of her classes for having straight A's.  Today's awards ceremony was also for the 6th and 7th grades.  Shawndra is in 7th grade, so she has one more year.  She also received tardy free and honor roll as well. 

I couldn't be more proud of the these girls.  Teachers have told me time and time again that they appreciate their hard work and attitude and that they are great girls.  

it's us

Many pictures were taken today.  In fact, I had about 125 to sort through.  Lots of them turned out blurry.  And this one we are looking at the other photographer.  But it is us, none the less.

new blog picture

So I'm pretty excited to know that tomorrow I will have a new family picture for this blog.  I doubt we'll have matching clothes and look perfect, but it will be updated, and it will be us, and it will be spring looking instead of this dreadful clash of winter coats and a frozen lake.  :)

Tomorrow is Grandma Dorothy's 75th Birthday party and she wants to have a big big family picture.  I plan to use this opportunity to see if I can stick someone behind the lens of my camera and snap a few pictures of us, too!

Mother's Day



Planted two tomato plants in my whiskey barrel. Things were going good until the bottom band broke. Luckily my husband had a quick fix until he brings the bander home.

We also went shopping at Medary Acres where I picked out a new plant for the front yard.

And a new bush to replace "Bushy" that died.  We have lots to do in the front yard ever since we ripped up the landscaping.

Jayden caught a caterpillar and kept it for a few days, but then decided to let it go.

We discovered a robin's nest under our deck, which is such a weird place for a nest.  It is at chest level.  We held a mirror up to it and could see 3 eggs. 

Shaylee spent a lot of the day in the yard reading and suntanning.  Our yard has such big trees she was forced to move frequently due to shadows.

And Jayden rode his bike through the gutter spraying water everywhere.

Shawndra in Track

Shawndra ran in a track meet the other day in Volga.  I was able to pop over and watch several of her events.  She did really well and we are so proud of her.

Look at those muscles!

She took 3rd in the hurdles.  That was my favorite event to watch.  It's something I never tried, so to watch her succeed at it is fun.

She also ran the 400.

tidbits

• Shaylee is done with volleyball club.  Her last tournament was last weekend.
• Shawndra is out for track.  Took some pictures at her meet on Thursday and hope to post them on here.
• Things are still tough.  And confidential.  And that makes things all the harder.
• Joseph has an eye appointment on Tuesday.  His glasses are being held together with tape. 
• School is out on the 21st, but there is a school near here that is done on the 9th.  That is way too early!
• Jayden has a huge goose egg on his forehead.  I earned Mother of the Year award for it.
• Devin is doing well with no major issues to report. 
• My mom had knee replacement surgery, so I've been busy helping her this weekend since Craig is out of town.

This week has been one of the most difficult weeks to go through pertaining to my job.  I have come face to face with the biggest challenge and most heart breaking situation anyone could even imagine.  Due to confidentiality, I cannot disclose on a public blog what is going on.  Just know that I would deeply appreciate your thoughts and prayers as this week (and following weeks) continues.

blogger changes

Blogger has yet again changed how it works and I dislike it.  I used to be able to make nice, symmetrical posts and now the changes they made are so difficult.  I tried for 2 days to get these pictures up of the fence.  The picture loading is a pain and then trying to find places for text is just as bad.  Now I see the final post has weird frames around some and some sentences are centered and whatnot. 

Be patient as I try to figure this out. 

finished fence



The north side of the fence.  Very long and never ending, or so it seems.

The fence goes along side the trees.  We cut the branches up high on the fence side and left them low on the street side.

This is the view from the street.  The trees are large and help hide the fence.

This is the east side of the garage.  There is a walk-in gate on the left and a drive-in gate on the right.

This is another view of the outside on the west side of the house.

tired

After working on the fence for 10 hours yesterday, I am so tired today.  So tired that I woke up at 7am.  Haha.  It rained again last night and we still have one side to finish up.  Maybe 2 hours and we'll be done.  I'm so excited!  Probably head outside after a bit.  Once the fence is done we have lots of mud piles to clean up.  Either way, I think we will be totally completed today.

fence

I haven't had time to post pictures of the fence, but have had time to rant about Lowe's. Again, that's another story which isn't finished yet. The posts finally arrived on Monday evening. We've been going to town put them up...one...by...one. It's very time consuming, but we're hoping to be completed by this weekend sometime.

This is where we were at on Tuesday night when we quit. Last night we did another couple of hours, so we are much farther down the long stretch.

I cannot wait until this fence is done!!

Lowe's

I have been royally frustrated with Lowe's. They have screwed us over and over with this fence. It all started when we went in and ordered all the supplies and lumber, then paid for it. All items were on hand and paid for. So that means they were ours, right? Well, they called us the day before delivery and said they only had 11 of 45 posts. Mike was upset because his brother was coming up on Friday to help with the posts. He went to Lowe's and talked to them and they said this shouldn't have happened. They arranged to get the posts from Sioux Falls.

The next day, the delivery truck called 15 minutes before leaving the store and said they only had about 200 of 750 pickets. Again, we were upset, made several phone calls and were told that there was nothing that could be done and hopefully the pickets would be in on Tuesday of the next week, or Thursday at the latest. They said they would call. Well Thursday night came and we still hadn't heard anything from them so Mike called them. The employee knew nothing and couldn't find the pallets of pickets. When the pickets came in they were supposed to set them aside with Mike's name on them. After the employee couldn't find them he asked to speak to the manager. With a little digging, they found the purchase order and looked up the order to learn the truck never showed up.

Several more phone calls and no luck. The truck with the pickets never delivered. The next day Lowe's called us and said they had found about 200 pickets. Mike went in and got them (even though we had already paid for delivery). This morning we went out to start putting the pickets up, but quickly realized the pickets were bad. They were really rough, too short, or very knotted. The entire load was bad. Mike and I think they were pickets that someone else had already returned as "bad" because when we ordered pickets, they said they would suggest ordering 1/3 more because there will be bad ones. So of course we had to load up the trailer again with the bad pickets and take them in.

Dropped them off at Lowe's this afternoon and we wanted the bad quantity to be added to our order. We got to the truck and realized they had refunded us the money versus putting them back on our order. So we had to turn around and repurchase the pickets. As I'm watching this I'm realizing that it's more expensive because we had a coupon for 10% off our entire order originally and now we had full price. I pointed that out and complained about how everything that is happening is really inconvenient, etc... They ended up giving us 10% off.

Lowe's is apologizing for everything and say our names are at the top of their priority list, yet they have offered nothing to us. I think they owe us something, whether they give us some money back, or a gift card or something. I mean we paid for this stuff and they turned around and sold it before they delivered it to us. Ugh, this is so frustrating!

Right now, Lowe's does not get good reviews from us.