Week in Review: It's Gonna Be May

 Happy Friday!  Happy May 1!

I still have one or two Bermuda posts to put together for the blog book's sake, but life marches on and there's plenty of other things happening that I don't want to forget.

At Phil's high school, they had a department dress-alike day, so his theology department suggested dressing as The Cottage Crew:

Cottage Crew for Christ

JP has been very busy out in Pittsburgh, between wrapping up his first year of studies, his med school formal...

Handsome and young future docs

... and all of his volunteering opportunities, like giving eye exams through Eyes on Wheels (a free mobile health clinic) and at the Special Olympics:

He also has spent time helping at Red Door Ministries, which provides meals to the homeless and at the Neighborhood Resilience Project, which is a free primary care clinic.  Plus he got to spend a day volunteering with Envision Blind Sports, which he said was so cool and was thoroughly impressed with the athletes!

JP in light gray shirt

Andrew and Eamon are finishing their Junior and Freshman years at Franciscan, both as biology majors who wish they had more free time for all of the fun things they want to do.  But they still have lots of fun (too much fun?) going golfing, to concerts, retreats, the Spring Formal and winning the intramural soccer championship:

Eamon's team also won the Intramural Volleyball championship!

Luke Combs

Maggie has been stressing out about upcoming AP exams and ALL THINGS SENIOR.  The other day she said to me "I just wish I didn't care so much about my grades" because she's still grinding even though fourth quarter grades don't matter to class rank anymore.  I understand the feeling as I was the same exact kind of student, and it's so stressful, but you can't just turn it off and be okay with getting a C.  

I mean, normal people probably can :)

Her Student Council won a Gold Medal of Excellence, and that's her prom date "we're just friends" in the middle:

I had to make her Senior collage which caused my eyes to moisten as I mentally walked through 18 years of memories of my favorite girl:

Along with prom dress fittings-hair/nail appointment making-accessories buying, Maggie is still working two afternoons a week at the after school program at the boys' elementary school and helping to get the Cottage ready to open next week.  It's been on everybody's minds, as evidenced by Brendan's prayer board request:

The sun staying out after dinner has been so nice, and the boys can be found chasing and wrestling each other on the trampoline most evenings:

The little boys had their Easter Celebration at school, where each class performs a song and it's just a silly and fun way to party after a long Lent.  Declan looks absolutely miniscule in the blue shirt:

Brendan was pretty upset on the days leading up to the performance because "Nobody knows the dance and it's going to be so embarrassing for them, but I won't be embarrassed because I'm only holding the sign."

I didn't know it was literally THE sign - haha!

On Wednesday afternoon, Brendan asked me if he could see the Mario movie this weekend with his gift card, and I was like hmmmm, it's actually 50% off movie tickets today.  I checked the movie times and figured out that the boys could watch Mario at 6:15 while Phil, Maggie and I saw Michael at 6:00 and have them all end within 15 minutes of each other.  Perfect!  The boys reported that Mario was great, and they especially loved that they saw it in 3D.  And as for Michael?  SO GOOD!!  

I will be listening to all of his music on repeat until further notice.  Growing up, I always thought MJ was a weirdo with talent, but the more I've learned about him, I really feel like he was a sweet soul with genius talent who was mistreated and misunderstood (and also weird in the way many geniuses are).  The actors were amazing in this movie, and I rarely love a movie but the past two we've seen - Project Hail Mary and Michael - have been wonderful.

And that's this week's (and April's) wrap!  Have a great weekend everyone :)