Fourth of July weekend is here! And already I can't even believe how quickly this summer is going to go by. First, the recap. The thing on M's arm turned out to be nothing, thankfully. Of course, she has a cough now and a doctor's appointment next week, but otherwise she is doing OK. She's exhausted with swim practice and working at the beach, of course it never rains when she is there so she's already unnaturally darkened from all the sun. She won't have as much time off this year as she did last so I hope there will be more rainy days this summer! (sorry to those who planned to soak up the sun, for wishing it temporary respite).
Graduation day was also beautiful, which was a great thing. M ended up graduating fifth in the class, and today she found out her AP scores, which were good enough to get her out of three more classes in college! So now she has six AP tests with a score of 4 or 5, so she *should* be able to get those credits in college. And some, like Calculus, are two credit classes. Biology was a disaster, but we had been warned that her teacher was not very thorough. M had an A+ average in the class all year, and she could not possibly have done worse on the AP!
As for B, he did pretty well on all of his finals, except for one or two. He passed everything but he didn't score high enough on his drivers ed final to get exempt from taking it at the DMV. So he has to go down there on his birthday now, and he can't get the pre-permit six hours of driving lessons until he passes the test on their computer.
I have managed to keep him busy for the summer, too. He's been doing a low key summer swim team, which practices in the evenings, so that works for all of us (except those who come home looking for a dinner on the table!) and he is now signed up for about 19 hours per week volunteering, two 8 hour days in a big hospital, and two afternoons in a nursing home. He started the latter today and enjoyed it. I am hoping that he can continue that one throughout the school year. He said that today they had 'Happy Hour' where they sit around and eat cheese and crackers. He enjoyed that. At the nursing home the volunteers' main purpose is to keep the residents entertained. At the hospital, they are put to work a bit more.
As for me, I have been somewhat rooked into increasing my hours. I didn't really want to do it before the summer ended but then the way things worked out I sort of didn't have a choice. So I'll be working 36 hour weeks, but getting paid holidays and vacation days. I also stipulated that I would like to be able to continue taking vacation days without pay when I need to, so that will allow me to keep my flexibility. I am happy about the extra pay, and will expect that my wage will increase as well. We discussed it briefly but no resolution was reached. I'm sure I'll hear next week. If I'm not happy with the terms, I'll just keep looking. At this point, if the agreement is satisfactory, I think I'm in a good place for the next year or two. But one never knows with these things.
And in other news, Abby is regressing to devouring our personal items when we leave her in the house. I think she was rattled by her travel and our visitors, and now she gets nervous when we leave. I hate to have to crate her again, especially with the days being longer, but it may come to that. The most recent victim was B's tennis shoe. Oh, and that was the one activity I forgot - his free day will be Mondays. So he's doing the tennis camp every Monday for eight weeks (except for next Monday, when we will be in Boston for M's orientation). And speaking of M, she got her move-in date. She moves in August 31. Her dorm is an artsy/musical/creativity dorm. That ought to be interesting!
