The Graduate

It's the last day of 1st Grade at The Davies School For The Exceptionally Gifted and the results of the survey are in! They are as follows:

• Most popular teacher: Mr Davies
• Best principal: Mr Davies
• Most talented maths/english/science/music/etc teacher: Mr Davies
• Mejor profesor de espanol: Señor Davies

I could go on, but to say I'm surprised and humbled would not be entirely accurate.

Luckily Pete's real teacher, Mr Botello, was on hand to wish him a virtual "all the best" and to helpfully remind him to read every day and listen to his parents. He also told us how honoured he was to have Pete in his class and what great parents we were. I blushed and agreed.

After that it was all about the celebrations, which included cakes made by Hannah and some chicken nuggets passed over the garden fence by Levi, followed by a Zoom call with many of Pete's class. Moving to 2nd Grade doesn't usually involve the fantastic American movie graduation ceremonies and proms, but it was still a little wistful to see all the kids together who have been apart for so long.

And as for The Davies School? Well, despite the teaching accolades, there are whispers it is not going to pass its forthcoming inspection so we're closing down and making all former pupils sign non-disclosure agreements before any legal challenges crop up. Constant prayer will be uttered for the safe reopening of real school in August. Until then, it's the summer holidays! And if I had no clue what I was doing up to now, just wait until you see the next twelve weeks...

Virtual graduation.

You've got to start educating the Champagne palate from a young age.

Hannah's cake. No artificial colours or flavours.

Suddenly a second grader.

Class reunion (with the added benefit of being able to turn down the volume).

To recycle? To burn? To bury somewhere deep and dark where I never see them again? Such choices!

One season in one day

It has been determined that the 2020 hurricane season will be worse than normal. Given that four of the past five years have been "worse than normal", and that no one can remember what normal is anyway, it's not much of a surprise. But it did bring some excitement to homeschool today when we got our first storm warning, especially because we had to clear out the drains (yes, going outside to clear drains now counts as exciting, especially to dad-the-teacher).

Some years ago Houston began letting people adopt their nearby storm drains, so we hilariously gave two to Ellen and Meg for Christmas. Imagine my surprise when I received an email about the incoming storm and the fact it's now our responsibility to clean the aforementioned conduits! Turns out a drain is for life, not just for Christmas, so Pete and I ventured into the scorching sun and smothering humidity to keep our neighbourhood safe from flooding.

We found our drains to be clean as a whistle - naturally - so rolled our wheelie bin down to some others, clearing rotting leaves and generally sprucing things up until, having been thanked by various passers-by, we retreated from our own dripping sweat for some well earned iced drinks.

The storm indeed arrived a few hours later, though was distinctly not worse than normal and did little to challenge our drains, especially in their shiny new expurgated state. I guess we'll see if the rest of the season delivers the foretold cataclysm; our governor has decided he's bored with Coronavirus and everyone should get out again regardless of, oh I don't know, science and death, so perhaps the universe is considering sending him a message.

Sentenced to community service.

Retrieving an annoying Pabst Blue Ribbon can (not mine).

The rain came down...

...but the floods didn't come up because we'd cleared the drains!

On days like this, there's only one thing to do.