May 2021 – The Payne Chronicles

Sam started off the dive season last weekend going to Morehead City and diving on the Indra with Rum Runners dive shop. While Sam was diving, Mom had plenty of time to go shell hunting along the beach and it appears she hit the motherlode as the table at home was full when she laid everything out. Sam also brought back a couple of real nice shells from his dive too… unfortunately one of them was still inhabited even after Sam gave it a good shake in the sea.

This weekend he has a dive at the quarry lake in Raleigh. The quarry dives are obviously a lot easier since there is no waves to contend with and it is good time to practice on techniques. Sam is going to take the Go Pro camera and start practicing with it so that hopefully when he goes on the ocean dives he can bring back some good photos/videos. Later on in the summer he will be heading to Wilmington, NC with Rum Runners for his first dive in that area.

Sam got some new red fins and a new regulator last year, so it’s pretty easy spotting him in the photos.

Nana came down for a visit (Gung, Gung is still in the UK) this weekend and it was full of celebration. First off we celebrated Cinco de Mayo on Friday night – granted it was a couple of days late but we made the best of it with some Coronas, tacos, beans, rice and chips with lots of guacamole.

On Saturday, we celebrated two Graduations! Sam finished the last year of high school home schooled due to the pandemic – not to worry though as Mom and Dad didn’t have to do any of the teaching. Sam took all of his classes online at Pitt Community college and technically finished in December as he had all the requirements finished for high school a that time. He did go ahead and take some more welding classes in the spring and is taking a couple more welding classes over the summer as well. Sam finished his classes at JPII his Junior year with a 3.73 GPA (this was the weighted score as many of his classes were AP – Advanced Placement) and then finished his Senior year at PCCC with a 3.61 GPA and 31 credit hours of college under his belt! Sam opted out of a big party with friends, but we still had a nice small family dinner at home – burgers, hot dogs and all the fixings. The second graduation we were celebrating was for Alex as we didn’t really have a big celebration for him when he finished his Associates degree back in December of 2019. We had planned on having a nice dinner later in the spring of 2020, but the pandemic threw a wrinkle in those plans. Alex did take the last year off in 2020 as the next round of classes are going to be a little harder and he would rather take those in person than online. Alex plans on going back to get another certificate this fall and then hopefully move on to complete his 4 year degree at some point. Post pandemic his first degree/certificates aren’t quite as needed as before the pandemic – in fact, the local hospital actually disbanded that program entirely. Not to worry though as that will just give him a leg up on everyone else once he gets these new certificates.

Finally on Sunday, we celebrated Mother’s Day with a nice Salmon and shrimp dinner. Mom got some more flowers (she actually planted those on Saturday) and some garden tools while Nana got a gift card and the mother of all gifts…..vaseline lip balm. Apparently this is a ‘chick’ thing as Mom bought herself some too. Between the two of them they should now have enough to last until the next pandemic.