This certainly was a busy week and a half!

 Hope you all were able to get through my last blog(and maybe even the video!). Scott's choir was back at it last Friday singing during a Memorial mass at school. Tom and I were home, but opted out since we were busy getting the house ready for guests. Tom took on a few maintenance projects including painting our foyer ceiling from an old roof leak and changing out the bathroom faucet downstairs.

Tom's sister Susan and husband John arrived on Friday night. We took them along with Scott's boy scout troop to the Memorial service at our local military cemetery. Each year the boy scouts have placed flags in front of the headstones at the Baltimore National cemetery with a small ceremony following. This year it was just unbelievably cold! It was hard to stand outside very long with the cold wind blowing and we didn't exactly dress for snow!  Scott was a bit taken aback when a woman visiting her son's grave asked for his photo while he placed the flag at the tombstone. I told him that was what it was all about. Afterwards we headed to Olde Ellicott City for dinner and to get out of the cold. Only a few days earlier we had to turn on the AC when it was in the 80s and very humid!

Allison was recuperating at home last Friday night from a long week of finals and graduation rehearsals.They had to practice the ceremony at least 2 hours each day!  Unfortunately the Seniors had a pool party on Friday afternoon, but not much swimming. It was about 50 degrees outside! But the kids enjoyed themselves with a cookout and volleyball. And earlier in the morning they had an awards ceremony at school. Allison was given the Top Honors Student of the Year in the Teacher Academy program at school, complete with a plaque. Her Kindergarten mentor was very proud and so are we. But now on to Business school. She is just happy to be done with projects and tests. (Although we still have the Gold Award project to work on this summer which she got caught up on after finishing her finals).

Scott was busy this past week finishing up his big Social Studies presentation on Madagascar. He downloaded his power point presentation, but when he got to school it did not work! Fortunately Tom was able to email the presentation to the teacher, plus Scott had the written report to go along with it. At least he did not have to present. So he is wrapping up just two more weeks of school. He was also busy last week with his Patrol Leader meeting on Monday night and Boy Scout meeting on Weds night. We couldn't get to swimming though since we had some thunderstorms rolling through. We made up the lesson on Saturday morning instead.

I finally got hit with paperwork for my new job which I needed to turn in the following week. Our whole new rehab team starts on June 3rd with orientation the Saturday before. I also finished up my dental appointment with the endodontist. All in all I put in 9 hours of dental treatment, but I am not sure if she was able to make a difference. Now I need to go back next week to cap it off with the dentist. Oh well. I tried.

Over the holiday weekend, Scott went off with the boy scouts for an overnight camping trip to our local fairgrounds. The boys worked an electronic swap meet-assisting with parking and setting up/cleaning up sales booths for which they get paid.  The boys had a terrific time digging through electronic odds and ends too. I volunteered to drop off Scott camping and to his swim lesson while Tom took Susan and John in to Baltimore for a tour. They visited our submarine and The Constitution, the 100yr old tall sailing ship docked in the harbor, as well as some souvenir shopping. Allison was off working, and when she got home we headed back to Olde Ellicott City for a Ghost Tour. The weather was a lot nicer and the evening stroll around olde Ellicott City was a lot of fun. Until we were all scared silly by a cardboard box that rolled down some alley steps(all by itself!) right in front of us. Until the guy taking out the trash caught up to it!  That gave us a good laugh. As usual, the ghost stories are fun, but the history of the town is even more interesting.

On Sunday we took it easy at home. I had to drop off Cookie to doggie day care since we were headed out of town for a few days. Sunday afternoon, Tom and guests visited the electronic sale and picked up Scott. Scott spent the rest of the day finishing up studying for some upcoming tests and then passed out for over 12 hours! We also enjoyed watching the Indy 500-interesting finish. On Memorial Day we all headed down to Williamsburg, VA. We decided to visit Colonial Williamsburg and turns out military personnel and family were admitted to the shops and town for free! What a great deal for Susan and John since John is a retired Marine. We bought our tickets and enjoyed the afternoon exploring historical Williamsburg. I think Scott most enjoyed making bricks with his feet and buying colonial root beer! Afterwards we had a great chinese dinner buffet and spent the night with Tom's travel points covering the hotel costs. On Tuesday we headed over to the Water Park. Scott missed out on a field trip at school that day, but we decided our field trip was more fun! There was hardly anyone at WAter Country and the weather was pleasant. We felt like we had reserved the whole park for ourselves! We had a great time on all the rides and floating down the lazy river. We left early in the afternoon and enjoyed a game of putt putt golf before heading home in the rain.

Weds was Allison's big day!

Scott went off to school in the morning and I had to run over to my new workplace to get tested for TB and drop off paperwork. The graduation ceremony was at noon, and Allison had to be there by 11am. We got great parking in the nearby mall as all the high school ceremonies are held in our outside theater. It was already getting pretty hot, but we were nice and cool under the canopy with the monstrous ceiling fans. The high school band provided music as well as the Senior choir and they managed to pass out 4oo student diplomas in just over an hour! All in all it was a very nice graduation ceremony. Allison is wearing her NHS sash as well as a double gold cord for being in the top 5% of her Senior class(so about 20 kids out of 400 had the highest GPA). Way to go Allison! Apparently they do not have Valedictorians or Salutatorians anymore(GPAs have gotten very complicated with all the different levels of classes). So after the ceremony the kids have to turn in all their sashes and cords(they don't get to keep them). And we were off to lunch. I then needed to get home to complete an online computer training session for my new job, and Tom and Allison went to pick up Cookie and SCott. Scott had some homework to finish and after dinner I took him over to his boy scout meeting. Tom, Susan and John had a tour of Allison's high school.

It was wonderful having Susan and John visit over the holiday weekend and help celebrate Allison's big day.  Thanks everyone for all the great cards and gifts! Since Allison is now done with school she has been keeping busy with thank you notes!  Susan and John got up early and headed out to spend the day at Gettysburg in PA before heading home to Indiana on Friday. Thanks again for visiting!

Enjoy my photos of graduation(Allison getting and gotten her diploma!), Scott with the Boy Scouts placing flags at the Baltimore National Cemetery for Memorial Day and a few shots of our visit to Williamsburg(Governor's Mansion, Martha Washington's carriage, and Allison tries her hand at the hoops-hours of entertainment).