Weekend Notes

A focus on family in today’s post.

Prom

Saturday was L’s junior prom.

Originally the plan was for her and a group of girlfriends to go together. A month ago we rented a sprinter van that would hold up to eight, with plans for everyone to gather, get ready, and do pictures at our house before the dance.

Then three weeks ago one of the girls got a date for the night and dropped out of the group because his circle of friends does not overlap much with her’s. And then another girl got a date, but asked if he could come here for pics. Sure, why not?

Next, the kid L dated a year ago unexpectedly asked her to go with him. I get the feeling he may be interested in re-igniting things, but she seems fine just being friends so I think this was a fairly innocent pairing. And then that kid’s best friend asked one of L’s best friends. Plus another girl asked if she and her date could come over.

Parents know how this goes. We went from eight girls, at most, more likely 5–6, to maybe 12 kids. And in the end we only had 10. But we also had parents over for pictures so we had between 25–30 people here.

We were worried about the weather all week but fortunately the storms cleared out in the morning. The sun was not out, it was not warm, and it was a little breezy, but we were able to do pictures outside. This was our fifth prom night, the first with a windchill. The weather apps claimed the windchill was in the high 40s but it did not feel that cold. The girls might disagree.

All the pre-prom stuff went well. The bus driver said the boys were welcome to squeeze in with the girls, which was a bonus. We heard the dance was kind of boring, which is an annual complaint. Everyone got back here ok after.

The hope was they could get into a party not too far from our house, but were never sure if their entire group were on the list or not. C was home to help L with her makeup and volunteered to drive the girls around. We stayed up until she got back right around midnight, saying the girls had no trouble entering the party. I got a text from C at 1:30 saying that everyone was home safely, and then slept through the night. Less stressful than past years where we were either picking up, or staying awake until we were sure our girls were at their landing spot for the night.[1]

L said it was a decent night. All her friends were well-behaved and avoided any issues. The girls cleaned up our basement before they left.

Five proms down, one left.

European Vacation

I teased our big news on Friday.

You may recall M was supposed to spend this semester in Portugal until a change in their immigration rules nixed that. She pivoted by finding a co-op for this semester – more on that in a bit – and deciding to spend six weeks in Nantes, France this summer in a program one of her best friends did last year. It’s a pretty nice set up. Four days of class each week, leaving long weekends for travel. She’ll take one full week off for a bigger trip through Italy, then finish with a week of classes in Brussels. That adds up to 15 credit hours.

She just got everything finalized within the last couple weeks, so we could finally look into going over to meet her. Originally we thought that meant going to France. But when she decided to spend the last week in Brussels, she wasn’t excited about going back to France.

We kicked around several ideas but eventually landed on meeting her in London, spending a half-week there, then flying over to Dublin for the second half of the week. That works out for her as she has a sorority sister who is from London and will be home for the summer. When M wraps in Brussels she’ll take the train under the Channel and hang out with that girl until we get there.

S has been to both cities before but first time for the rest of us. Figure mid-July means warm weather in London, based on recent summers maybe even hot. Dublin still variable but hopefully not cold if wet. We are working on our list of things to do. Our hotels are around the corner from Buckingham Palace in London, and smack in the heart of the city in Dublin.

All, of course, pending our president not doing something that makes either the world end or it just be too dangerous to leave the country. Which seems like a pretty low bar but you never know these days…

Working Girls

M has two weeks left in her spring co-op. It is kind of random, working for an architectural firm mostly funded by government contracts. They hired her largely because of the software platform she worked on at her first co-op. Strangely, though, she’s done almost no work on that this semester. She’s learned a lot about government contracts, and even helped finalize their proposal for a chunk of a massive project that would keep them going for years. She’s impressed them enough that two weeks ago they asked her to come back next fall to finally start working on the software they hired her for.[2] And they are giving her a raise. The bigger pleasant surprise was that they also said they were interested in talking to her about a permanent position after graduation.

Pretty damn cool!

A potential formal offer is a year or so away, and a lot could happen between now and then. Or she may decide she’s interested in going another route. It’s still a nice ego boost, a confirmation she’s doing a good job, and a relief that maybe the search for a “real” job won’t be so scary.

So she has her summer classes, probably one online course in the fall while she’s working, and then a full load next spring to graduate. Kids, those hours you rack up in dual-credit high school courses pay off!

L’s ice cream scooping career is going well. She was floored last week when she got her first real check. She knew they got tips, but was not expecting how much her cut of the daily tips would be. She made $300 or so on that check, OVER HALF was from tips! And these weren’t even on hot summer days. She is looking forward to really pulling it in once summer break begins.

C played phone tag for a few days but finally spoke with a mom who needs help with her kids in the summer. It seems like she has the job, but both sides of that conversation were flakey enough we can’t be sure. 😂 When she heard about how much L is bringing home, she asked L to talk to her boss to see if she needs another body for the summer. Figure watch those kids one day a week, then sling ice cream a couple more, and she’s in good shape for her sophomore year.