June ends too soon

 I can't believe the end of June is right around the corner. Since I haven't managed to sit down and update this all month, I'm again throwing up some photos to represent the events of the month.

June was a month of parties. It began with our twenty-second wedding anniversary. We celebrated by helping friends from the east coast host a west coast retirement party. They used to live here and came out for a visit and to organize the Wear Blue: Run to Remember mile at the Rock and Roll Marathon. So the beach bonfire was followed up with a very early morning of volunteering to hold flags during the marathon.  We also were hosting our oldest son's girlfriend, who came out a couple days after her return from a semester in Ireland to cheer him up from his recovery from ACL surgery.

The next weekend we hosted a twelfth birthday party with a cooking competition theme that was inspired by our daughter's love for the Great British Baking show.  It also made buying gifts easy: a big mixing bowl (a good size for making bread that I have always wanted), a new pyrex measuring cup (oh, mine just shattered not too long ago!), an apple slicer (I've always desired one but couldn't justify the drawer space), and wait are those new measuring cups and silicone spatulas in cute colors! Perfect! Just what she wanted/I needed!

It was nice to give the newly minted twelve-year-old some attention because the following week was devoted to promotion/graduation activities.  We've attended a variety of end of the year awards ceremonies and celebrations, but the actual end of the school year was until June 14th. My parents arrived on the 12th, and celebrated our son's promotion from middle school to high school the next day, which happened to be the warmest of the year.  That event had a lot of pomp and circumstance, but the ceremoniousness was interrupted first by the fainting of a middle school student cameraman, and then by watching two or three light-headed choir members being led retching from the risers on the football field to the sidelines. Then during a long, predictable speech about working hard and having a good attitude by the superintendent, a couple seagulls swooped down to the field to clean up the mess. It was good entertainment.

The next night was the high school graduation for our third son. The emotion wasn't quite as high this time, but I still caught myself feeling sentimental and nostalgic for the years that went by so quickly, especially as I pulled out old photos from albums (which also made me miss prints).  The high school graduation, even though it is an hour longer than the middle school one, was much more fun. The speeches were better, the students threw beach balls and blew bubbles and cheered anytime someone said "Class of 2018," and some random kids were mock kung fu fighting on the far side of the track for added entertainment.  The final perk: the ceremony was held at 7 pm, so we got to watch a glorious sunset over the football field. 

Both of these celebrations were followed with dessert fests. We hosted a graduation open house for my son's friends and dropped in on a couple of other students' parties, but having my parents here made the events feel more like celebrations, too.  It always helps to have family to celebrate with.

In addition to these momentous occasions, we've had a half a dozen going away parties (we only hosted one last weekend, aloha themed, for about 30 people). It is PCS season, and again this year, we are staying put instead of leaving. This year it seems like my whole group of good friends is  leaving - four families from our friend group, the family we've been stationed with three times, friends down the street we have over to dinner, my daughter's best friend, the women I have coffee with to talk about teenagers, my one other friend with a big family who was my partner in organizing our pre-school co-op. . . . It's a sad time for me. It's easier to be the one going sometimes.  My daughter was crying big, gulping sobs the morning her best friend left - which happened to be from our driveway where they had spent the night in their RV.  I know we'll see them, and probably some of the other families, too, again, but it means readjusting what next year will look like --- which will happen anyway as we send another kid off to college.

More decisions and celebrations to come...

  

The almost 9th-grader (in the jacket he picked out).

High school sunset 

Almost graduate with grandparents

Celebrating!

Concert in the park

The cap illustration - future home

A much needed familiy getaway to Mount Palomar for some vitamin N

The baby betta fish are growing! 

New hand-me-down bike trailer

Midsummer sunset

Greetings and good-byes

Life has been roiling around here. The big boys are home, so more bodies and voices are taking up space and driving away in cars when I need one.  They also have been helpful with finishing off leftovers and piling up laundry.  Best of all, they have been generous with hugs and watching baby sisters, so it has been a true delight to have them home despite the increase in dirty dishes and laundry.

We have had a lot of celebrations in May - the boys coming home, two confirmations, several birthdays, Mother's Day, award ceremonies, end of the season potlucks, prom, Memorial Day weekend, farewell teas, and feasts with friends visiting from afar.

This time of year is always full of comings and goings, but this spring the Navy is taking several good friends away from us.  I can't bring myself to go to library story time this week because our best preschool friend left this past weekend, and her two little boys won't be there for LK to sit with. And my middle school daughter is dragging her feet every morning because her best friend who usually stops by each morning to walk to school with her has also moved out. There are still two weeks left of school, but one by one our friends are saying goodbye.

This is the peril of military life.  Usually, it is we who are leaving after a couple of years, but this time we are watching our friends here pack up.  I've tried to pay forward some of the help we received in the past - watching kids and dogs, bringing by baked goods, washing a few windows, taking bags of half-finished condiments. Inside I'm quietly dreading the summer months and then the school year without them.  It seems like we had just crossed the boundary between acquaintances to friends to good friends when it is time for them to go. And it might be a little easier if it were just one family, but multiple of our favorite families are leaving.

The only consolation is that this week also brought visits from friends we knew from Navy life elsewhere. First, last Sunday we met up for a quick coffee with friends we met 12 years ago in Norfolk. Their oldest son is stationed here, and they came out to welcome him home from a deployment. I'm hoping they'll visit again because we didn't have enough time to talk about all the things that came tripping out once we got going. It was like no time had passed at all. Too short of a visit but wonderful to catch up in the flesh.

Then we welcomed our son's girlfriend for a week's reunion. She had been in Ireland this past semester and came out to surprise him after he had his ACL repaired in his knee. He's been laid up since he came home from school after this injury derailed his plans for the summer.  She's always a smiling face and welcome visitor

Finally we hosted our best friends from Guam who came out to celebrate his pending retirement with west coast friends since they used to live here, and to run the Rock and Roll half marathon with the organization Wear Blue: Run to Remember, which honors fallen service members, in memory of our friends' son who died in an incident just as we were leaving Guam.

We had a great weekend reconnecting while roasting marshmallows at a beach bonfire, drinking coffee, and picnicking at the Sunday night concert in the park.  My only complaint is that because we had so many people to visit with, I felt a little like I had ADD; I was always thinking about catching up with the next person. Yet again I found myself wishing for more hours in the day to spend with the friends we have made over the years and across the miles.