Final Day

Today is the last day of school for my youngest.

As he left the house this morning he turned and said, "Mom, when I get home today, I will be an alumnus."

Graduation ceremony is this Saturday at 10:00 am. We are hoping to share the day with friends and family to wish Casey well in his future.

He read these verses from the first chapter of Joshua at Baccalaureate service Sunday night.He also made brief comment on them:

8 "Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do.

9 This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

Senior Activites

This is the last full week of classes for Casey. Monday was a field day. All the seniors went to the baseball/softball complex and had a day of fun and play. He came home a little sunburned, and still itching from the poison ivy he contracted while camping out last Friday night.


Tuesday, at noon, was the Senior Slide Show. It is always a tear-jerker. It begins showing each Senior as babies or toddlers, and then progresses on until it ends showing their Senior Panel photographs. Of course the ending song was ridiculously sappy, causing everyone to cry..."The Time Of Your Life (Good Riddance)" by Green Day.

This morning was practice for Baccalaureate service. At 2:00 was the Senior Tea. There were a lot of empty places and a lot of Seniors who attended alone. That was sad. It was nice to see that many of them "dressed up" for the event. I could not get Casey still long enough to get a shot of him. I tried to take some candid shots of him talking to his friends and some of the parents of his friends, but I was unsuccessful.

For the most part, high school is pretty much over for him. He still has to attend classes for the remainder of the days, but it is just a formality.

*Extra note*
Today is my 25th wedding anniversary.

A Boy And His Dog

Not too long ago Casey and I were changing some furniture around in some of the rooms. That always requires quite a bit of cleaning and throwing away...

I was using an antique dresser in the living room and using the drawers as storage for some magazines, CDs, and youth literature. Casey was going to move it into his bedroom so I had to clean out the drawers. I found a certificate that read, "Ol Roy Dog of The Year" and the recipient was Casey's dog, Jack.

Casey was seven years old when his grandpa gave Jack to him. Jack is now eleven years old. He was from a litter of Jack Russell Terrier pups born there at his grandpa's house, and Jack was the smallest. When we brought him home, he could wiggle through the links in a chain link fence. He surprised us all by becoming a fairly tall Jack Russell Terrier.

He has had many, many disasters in his dog life. He jumped from the bed of a moving pickup at 65 mph, skidded across the asphalt and lived to whine about it. The children carried him around and outside to relieve himself for several weeks. He limped around, but came out of it. He didn't seem to be affected by it later, as he is faster than lightning, and can jump as high as my 5' 2" head from a flat stance, even now. Other calamities in the "Saga of Jack" have been eating rat poison, being hit be a car (more than once I think), and numerous dog fights with dogs much, much, larger than he. We often joke that he must not be full blood Jack Russell, and must surely be part cat because of his nine lives.

He and Casey have grown up together. Jack is old now and is beginning to show a lot of gray. He likes something soft to sleep on now, and prefers the people furniture. He pretty much gets to sleep wherever he wants to sleep, unless we have guests, then he goes to "his room", the laundry room, where he has a big, fluffy pillow to keep his old arthritic bones off the hard floor.

Jack has been a good friend to Casey all these years. He's been a good pet, and is a fierce watchdog. He is also an accomplished escape artist, for he finds ways out of the backyard that I can not even see!

Casey spends much more time away from the house now. He is with his friends, or playing music in his free time and doesn't spend a lot of time with Jack anymore, yet Jack doesn't seem to hold it against him. They both look very happy and satisfied in the pictures.

Thanks, Jack.

The Countdown!

Ten days until Casey's high school graduation...

No more pencils

No more books

No more teachers' dirty looks...

...at least until the fall college semester begins in August...

Time Of Decision

The end of the school year is drawing near. There are many decisions to be made, and Casey is having a rough time making them. I always pray for my children, but it has been much more important as of late. In fact, I find it hard to keep either of them off my mind, and so it seems I am in a constant state of a type of prayer. It is not a worrisome prayer, just rather a "keeping them before the throne" type of prayer, I think. I really have left them in the Lord's hands many years ago when we dedicated them to Him as babies. I know they will find their way, but, being their mother, I want it to be easy and pain free. However, I know that it will not be either way.

I have experienced a calamity of sorts...my washing machine quit this morning! Yes, I just bought a new dryer a few weeks ago, so naturally I am going to have trouble with my washing machine. As of now, it is full of water, with the clothes still inside. The pump must have burned up. I smelled an electrical type burning smell this morning, luckily, and went into the laundry room. I turned off the machine, which wasn't doing anything anyway, and lifted the lid, only to see the clothes floating about in a full basket of water. I have been trying to think of a clever way to include this experience in my devotional blog, but alas, nothing yet. (Hm, I wonder if this yucky discolored water that we experience from time to time has anything to do with it? YUCK!)


Back to the "end of the year" school activities...I have, as of today, received six graduation announcements of high school graduations. All of them, but one, is from a family member, and they are all out of town graduations. We knew this was coming this year...all of us cousins having children the same year! It does make for fun times when getting everyone together. I probably won't be attending many of the graduations since we have one of our own, here, and things to plan, but "the check's in the mail."