May is certainly May-ing hard this year, and time allotted to blog writing is on the bottom of my priorities lately. I started this post a week ago but I have to remind myself that it's not me, it's May.
I just wrapped up another semester of online teaching at Franciscan University. I had three courses and I was very happy to finish grading and submit, knowing I would not have to think about that role again until the end of August. I also have been taking the steps to obtain my School Business Administrator license (similar to a public school Principal license, but for school Accounting/Finance) which included education requirements, passing two MTEL exams, 3 years of employment in my role, and 300 hours of an administrative apprenticeship. I finally received that license last week!
The Ice Cream Cottage opened on May 7th for Season 4 and it was a very busy weekend and we had our busiest day EVER on Mother's Day. Moms love their ice cream :)
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| Strawberry Cookie Crumble |
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| Cotton Candy Crunch |
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| Nutella and Strawberry parfait |
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| Biscoff Sundae |
My bestie (and sister-in-law) came up for a visit last weekend so that we could go on a retreat together, and we had an awesome time. I felt bad that my brain was a little scattered with everything happening, but she easily forgives my attention deficiency and understands it, being a mom of 8 (and grandma to 1). We walked a lot, ate a lot, talked a lot, and I miss her already. Why does PA have to be so far from MA?
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| She had to taste test (almost) every flavor, of course! |
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| On retreat with our friend and the retreat leader, Pam |
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| Walking around my town to the Fort (and ocean) |
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| Town Hall |
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| Church in center of our town |
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| Walking the bike path |
I know my town is beautiful, but it's nice to be reminded of that from someone else's fresh point of view :)
Andrew and Eamon both finished their finals, came home and immediately started working double shifts at the Cottage. They need the money and we need the workers - win win!
JP is in his week of finals and then will drive home from Duquesne this weekend. He will be working for us to make some money, but also starting an internship at Brown University in their Psych department, which will be an amazing opportunity for him.
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| Supporting the Cottage's Opening Day from afar |
Maggie has completed her AP exams and finishes classes this week (how?) and will be heading to the Cape with friends for a little pre-graduation getaway. May 1st was Decision Day, and she and Phil twinned at school:
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| The Maggies |
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| College Bound Cottage Scoopers! |
On Saturday, she hiked Mt. Monadnock with a group from school and said it was very hard (and slippery due to the weather) but they made it:
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| The Maggies |
Saturday night, Maggie's friend (and prom date) competed in Mr. Stang, a fun talent show for high school senior guys, and he chose Maggie to be his escort. They have been practicing for weeks, and it showed! She participated in the dance routines and skits and then unexpectedly in his talent portion of the evening, when he got too nervous to play the piano and sing, called out for Maggie's help, and she gracefully walked across the stage in her formal dress and sang his song with him. We couldn't believe our eyes - such confidence under pressure!
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| Maggie on right |
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| Riding dinos |
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| Zumba Class skit |
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| Posing with the (well deserved) winner who reenacted the lift from Dirty Dancing AND wrote/sang a song to his mom. |
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| The Maggies |
Declan and Brendan started their group tennis lessons, which we can walk to once a week, and is an easy enough activity to fit in to our schedules:
Mother's Day was so nice with 6/7 of my chickadees home. JP called from Pittsburgh to talk, Phil made a lovely brunch, the kids made sweet cards, Andrew made me a flower arrangement, and the bigs chipped in for a spring house cleaning (the gift I specifically asked for this year, because some years you just have to say exactly what you want).
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| Lemon Mascarpone pancakes - my fave! |
It was a nice relaxing day after a busy weekend, company visiting, a retreat, and the start of the Cottage season, and I appreciated it. I especially loved the "mom come take a picture of this!" from my little guys, as I know it won't last much longer.
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| A castle |
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| A motorcycle |
I hope you all had a lovely Mother's Day weekend, and if not, just know that God loves you and sees all of your hard work even when nobody else does!
Oh, wow, how busy you all are! Glad the Cottage had a gangbuster weekend. Great that JP gets to cone home for his internship .
ReplyDeleteMt Monadnock! I climbed that as a kid. ( I grew up in Hudson.) Maggie's really enjoying her senior year!
My grades are in ( only one class of seven, and I could have assigned the exact same grades before the final, but you never know, someone might get divine inspiration on the exam.) My senior is done classes tomorrow- ready to escape. I almost wish I didn't make him promise to do graduation- the dchool hold few happy memories for him- but I think he'll appreciate the milestone...eventually.