JPII had their first ever Lacrosse scrimmage tonight against one of the area high schools and Sam was goalie!  In his first outing, he played very well and even had 2-3 pretty good saves in the box.

Below is Sam getting some extra practice with the coaches before the 2nd half begins.

It’s official! Sam was inducted into the John Paul II chapter of the National Honor Society this morning.

So back in December, Sam’s friend, Jackson, somehow convinced Sam to come act in a small community theatre play with him in downtown Greenville.  Sam, who had never really been in a play before, but always one to try anything of course said Yes.  Since then, Sam has been going to practice for at least 2-3 times each week (6pm -9pm) and he was given not one, but several characters to play.  The play is called Puffs and it takes place the same time Harry Potter is at Hogwarts School of Wizardry.  Of course, we do get to see some of Harry and his friends, but this play was told from the perspective of the Hufflepuffs House instead of focusing on Harry, Ron and Hermione. Sam’s friend, Jackson, who has been in several plays, gets more of a lead role playing both Cedric Digory (the boy who dies) and the Dark Lord himself.  Most of the other actors in the play are in college, with a couple even a little older.  The play has a short run of only 4 performances, Thursday through Sunday and we, along with Nana, Gung Gung and even Alex (he was forced to go) got a chance to see him on Friday night, Valentine’s Day.  Sam did a wonderful job in his actorial debut and even got a few moments on stage by himself being the Headmaster (waiting for Harry in heaven, but running into Wayne, the lead character).  Sam also played a foul mouthed jock who didn’t think anyone from Hufflepuffs was good enough to be on his team and this character got quite a few laughs from the crowd.

Once again, we are very proud of Sam for putting himself out there and trying new things.  Sam’s next new adventure will be Lacrosse – practice has already started.  In fact, todays agenda for Sam is Welding class in the morning (8a-12p), then straight to Lacrosse practice at school (12p-2p).  After that he comes home for a spaghetti ‘Linner’ with us (2:30p) and then has to be off to the Saturday performance of Puffs tonight (7p-9p), followed by a small after party for the cast.  Sam’s last performance will be on Sunday at 2pm.  We doubt Sam will be in another play because he had no idea it was that involved, but in the end he did have a lot of fun and we think enjoyed the spotlight although he will probably never admit it. 😉

So the first image we posted a few days ago, was actually Alex’s certificate not his degree.  We received his actual degree today – not sure why he needed both, but there is definitely a big difference between the two.  Alex, also went back in to meet with his counselor on Monday and then sent her his updated resume.  She is going to pass it around to see if she can find anything for him in Washington, NC.  The other certificate/degree that he is really interested in pursuing has a waiting list and he would not have been able to get in at this late stage.  He may try to get in for the Fall semester, but seemed a little unsure so we will see in a couple of months.

In other news Sam received his Voter Registration card and promptly filled it out and put in back in the mail.  Yes, Sam will be 18 in June. 😪

Finally, Dad had the day off today and spent most of the afternoon watching a parade on TV???  Go Chieeeeefs!

Alex finally received his certificate from Pitt this week and we are all very proud of him. We will probably go ahead and get it framed for his room at some point.  Unfortunately, Alex didn’t get a call back from the hospital on the job he applied for, but he is going in to see his counselor this week about taking a couple of more classes to get an additional certificate in the field he really like during his internship.  Hopefully, he will also go in and set up a couple of days to volunteer for the hospital as well… it seems that this is considered work experience and goes a long ways to getting an interview.  We are very proud of him for completing this degree and who knows, maybe there may still be another degree in his future. 😉

Normally this time of the year we would be sitting by the fire in the den and watching TV… probably a Jayhawks basketball game.  Well the Hawks did play today, but lost earlier in the day (a terrible loss at home).  On the bright side though, it was 74° outside today and instead of sitting by the fire we were sitting on the deck enjoying some chicken and burgers on the grill.   No climate change deniers here… 😄😄

Well the holidays have once again come and past and it all seems a blur as it didn’t last nearly long enough.  This Christmas seemed even shorter than normal since Thanksgiving was later in November this year.  Of course, that also meant we didn’t get our tree until about the 7th of December and then it was at least another week until we got it decorated and the rest of the decorations up.  Obviously everyone was quite busy with work, although Mom did get a couple of extra days off at Christmas and Dad managed to get home in time for lunch on Christmas Eve.  New Year’s Eve Dad and Alex had to work and New Year’s Day Mom had to work so it was just like any other night, except for Sam who got invited over to an all night party at a friends house.

Gone are the days when Alex and Sam would wake us up early, in fact, this year they both threatened to sleep until 12pm (their normal waking time 😉).  The boys however, with a little bit of encouragement did manage to pull it together by 9am, which is pretty good since none of the rest of us was up before 8am.  One thing didn’t change and that was we could still get a big smile on their faces when they opened up their presents and found their video games.  Both Alex and Sam received the same game system – a Switch Lite with a different Pokemon game so they can share?  Apparently Pokemon is timeless for this generation.

Picking out the tree

Impromptu Christmas Eve lunch on the deck

Over the last couple of years we have taken on a new family tradition – The Feast of 7 Fishes… an Italian tradition of having seafood on Christmas Eve

Of course we never make it past 3 or 4 fishes: this year our usual Salmon filet (we grill 2 for leftovers). We also had New England Clam Chowder and Lobster Mac N Cheese

For some reason Sam decided he wanted to go see the NC Zoo.  Of course his original idea was that he could drive there by himself or maybe with a friend – keep in mind it’s 3 hours away and you have to drive through Raleigh to get there.  We finally convinced him that wasn’t a good idea and said we would take him.  We had always wanted to take the boys when they were little, but 6 hours in the car seemed like a lot.  So on Saturday the three of us jumped in the car and drove to the zoo (Alex opted to stay at home and yell at the Playstation).  Since it was early on a Saturday morning (before 10am) we let Sam drive through part of Raleigh before Dad took over the rest of the way.  We don’t know if it was the yelling from Mom and Dad because he failed to listen to our instructions to slow down or the realization that it was more difficult than he imagined, but Sam did say later that night that he would not be driving to the zoo by himself in the future.

The NC Zoo is the world’s largest natural habitat zoo which means that there is quite a bit of walking – we put in a little over 5 miles on the day.  There are also quite a few hills and lots of trees for shade.  We are sure the shade would be quite helpful in the summer but unfortunately Saturday was one of the coldest days so far this fall as it only was in the mid-50’s and windy all day.  Overall we did have a great time and we got some good photos.  Sam apparently took over 700 photos, none of which we have yet seen.  Mom probably took at least 500 while Dad probably just a 100 or so.

Glass domed desert – warmest place at the zoo that day.

At this point we were thankful to see this sign, we were all tired, cold and pictured out. Thankful that we only had about 3/4 mile to get back to the parking lot.

Not the kind of sign you really want to see at a zoo.

Mom is still mad she didn’t get credit for this idea.

So what does Dad do on his weekend off.  Cook Dinner, Mow the lawn (just to pick up the leaves) and build a TV cart for the deck.  We had an old TV (probably about 8 years old from what we can remember) that had been sitting out in the garage for at least the last year and we had some left over 4×4 posts from the garden project earlier this year.  Throw in an old set of heavy duty wheels and the last of the roofing material from the firewood shed and you have a TV stand that we can wheel out onto the deck.  Of course there was a few more bits and pieces that had to come together, but today we got to watch the Chiefs play football and part of the NY marathon later on during dinner.

For dinner on Friday, we had breakfast dinner but of course none of the boys managed to make it in time for dinner – they ate later.  Saturday was hamburgers on the grill and then on Sunday Beef Stroganoff… of course the boys don’t really like mushrooms (Sam actually picked them all out) and Alex had to pasta noodles because he didn’t want the egg noodles and then we didn’t add in the sour cream because of Sam’s lactose problem.  You can’t imagine how hard it is to get everyone together for dinner, much less find something that everyone will eat.