We are relieved to have made it through last week. We were hit by a blizzard on Tuesday that left a foot of snow on the ground. Our son works at a movie theater and had to work the midnight showing for Star Wars. He had 2 finals on Thursday, went to work at 10 pm, arrived home a little after 1 (he worked concessions only), asleep by 1:30, up at 6 to drive on icy roads, 7:30 AM final, 11 AM final, home to rest, back to theater at 5 for official opening day, worked until 11, Saturday & Monday worked from 3-10:30, and is now done with work until Saturday. He had been worried about his Friday finals because he was so tired and felt like he couldn't focus. Final grades were posted last night and we are happy to announce that he is maintaining a 4.0. He made it through a week of blizzard, more snow, icy roads, finals, and opening weekend for Star Wars. He has earned a bit of a break.

My in-laws always pay when we go out to eat- ever if we invited them. They really want to pay and we have learned not to argue. With my side of the family everyone is responsible for their own family. My parents pay for themselves and each of us siblings pay for our families separately.

I found a new Lane rocker recliner for $10. They were selling it because it was not the right color (it was a tan color). The owners had it for less than a month and it retailed for around $500.

My son is living at home but is an ambassador at his college. His activities started Tuesday with a meet and greet for student staff (he has been working there all summer but this was when he met school year only student staff). Wednesday was training and preparations for student move in days. Thursday was new student move in day, Friday was orientation, Saturday was filled with activities, and today is move in day for returning students followed by a bonfire tonight. He has been putting in 8-14 hour days on campus on top of working an off campus job and getting his own school stuff in order. Classes start tomorrow and this entire week is filled with evening activities where the student staff must be present. He is exhausted but enjoying this busy time. He says that he is glad that he is living at home- especially after being in charge of two move in days and seeing all that they entail.

Congratulations, athomeontheprairie! My boys were on the county robotics team last year and I could not believe all the work that they had to put into it.

Here are some pictures. I still need to get her with the clothing displays.

I was trying to find the 4H check in and brag thread from a few weeks ago but can't seem to find it. This was my daughter's 4th year in 4H and her first year in the intermediate division. It has been her best year yet. On Friday, we had the Fashion Revue and she won reserve grand in the intermediate division and grand champion in the encore division. Today we had judging and she received 5 blue ribbons and 5 champion ribbons for artistic clothing, creative sewing, home environment, scrapbooking, and coffeecakes. In addition, she won reserve grand for scrapbooking and grand champion for home environment and artistic clothing. Everything is going to state and she is so excited. She worked really hard this year and her hard work is paying off.

Our second son is a senior and our first son just graduated. Must of our curriculum is in but there are a few electives that he is still considering. He runs for the public high school cross country team so we usually add additional subjects when the season is wrapping up. Final ACTs will be taken in the fall and he is going to start some classes at the local college in January. We are starting to get his portfolio in order and will begin applying for scholarships in the fall. Senior pictures are scheduled for November. We will also be taking a few college tours in the fall and spring. In addition to having a senior in high school, we also have a freshman in college, a freshman in high school, and a seventh grader.

Ours is a regular club that offers both projects and livestock. We have officers and monthly meetings. A really exciting thing for our club is that our club president was elected state 4H president for Colorado last month. Our club also elects 2 delegates to represent our club on the county 4H council- my daughter is one of the two this year. Each project and livestock category has a leader in charge of it. Leaders are supposed to make sure that youth know what they are doing, get the assistance they need, are made aware of classes offered, and stay on track with their projects. We are also responsible to sign off on the final reports, make sure interviews are set up, and pack projects for state. I am the scrapbooking and home environment leader but I also help with artistic clothing, sewing, and baking. Our head leader is in charge of those but I help her since it can be overwhelming at times. In our club, you can do a project that we do not have a specific leader for. If that is the case, we either find a leader from another club to assist the youth or find a community member to mentor them. We encourage them to try new projects and to be open to all 4H offerings. I teach and assist youth from other clubs who either do not have a project specific leader or the leader is not active. The members of our club are required to attend 10 meetings a year and give at least one club demonstration, other than that they do not have to attend any classes, workshops, and projects. We encourage them to attend all that they can but it is up to individuals and their families as to how active they are.

Our fair starts July 31st with the fashion revue. My daughter will be modeling her Decorate Your Duds outfit and will also model an outfit in the encore division. We should finish up her Home Environment project today. Scrapbooking is almost done, all she needs is for her photo enlargements to come in and to finish up her journaling. I am the leader for home environment and scrapbooking so I also work with other kids to complete their projects. We had our last formal work session yesterday and now it is up to the kids to finish up. Decorate Your Duds is done and her Creative Sewing project is coming along. She has a few more hours of work but then she should be done. Coffeecakes will be baked the night before interview judging but she knows the recipe that she is using. Interview judging is August 4th and we find out results on the evening of the 5th. My daughter is also on 4H council so she has a few group competitions that she has to be involved in. We are nearing the end on all of the projects but we have to get to work on record books.

I voted other. I think trick or treating should be based on wearing a costume or dressing up. We have seen little kids trick or treating with their parents and no one was in costume or even making an effort to look anything other than how they look everyday. On the other hand, there are adults who put lots of effort into costumes and I enjoy seeing them out trick or treating. It really does depend on where you live. I live in a farming town on the plains of Colorado. Everyone seems to really enjoy seeing people of all ages dressed up and they are encouraged to visit businesses to show costumes as well as to trick or treat. My son turned 18 last year and dressed up as a female fox. He went to the country club area and received hoots of laughter, lots of candy, he posed for pictures, and they requested that he come back this year to show them his costume. The year before he dressed as Buddy the Elf and had the same reception. Many people ask him to make sure and stop at their house every year so they can get pictures. He does not know these people other than from trick or treating but they sure seem to enjoy him. He also visited several community events (as he does every year) and received lots of laughter and pleas to continue to dress up. As long as he puts forth effort and brings joy to others, I think he should continue to trick or treat. Here he is in his costume and there is also a picture from the year before when he dressed up as Buddy the Elf and my then 15 year old son dressed as Ralphie from A Christmas Story.

We have this from Ikea. It fits perfectly behind the opening of our door. Our door opens onto a landing where you have to go up or down so it is very small. It holds a variety of shoes and boots and has space on top for a nice basket to gather other items.

It is public but is called a junior college. It also offers advanced degree options where you can take courses online or on campus to achieve a bachelor's degree issued by a four year university here in Colorado. There are also certificate programs for wind turbine maintenance, equine management, agriculture, cosmetology, nursing, and early childhood development in addition to the associates programs offered. From what I understand, it is on the top tier of community colleges because of the degree transfer options and that is what makes it a junior college. There are also multiple sports teams and other things that make it a junior college while still being public. There is talk of turning it into a four year college because of the amount of programs offered and the high level of interest shown to attend there.

Our kids have always known that we will pay for any concurrent enrollment costs while they are in high school. However, we could not offer any guaranteed assistance after that. I promised to help with finding and applying for scholarships and financial aid. There is a great junior college in our town and all of our kids can live at home while attending if they want. My son, who just graduated from public high school last month, really wanted to go to an out of state engineering school and we visited it. He fell in love with the campus but we felt that he needed to visit several other campuses for comparison purposes and/or to reaffirm his school choice. He visited several four year state universities and he really liked the campus and offerings at one of them but the school did not offer his engineering specialty so he felt like his best choice was still his first choice. He came to us shortly after the start of his senior year and told us that he really felt that he should apply to our local junior college (where he attended concurrent enrollment classes) because he wanted to limit his expenses for the first two years of college. His goal was to finish his first two years of college with no debt and work on scholarships to help with the expense of the 2-3 years at engineering school. He spoke with advisers from both the junior college and the engineering school to make sure that the classes he took would transfer and that he could receive an associates degree and start at the engineering school as a junior. He and I worked hard to find scholarships and financial aid and he composed many essays for scholarships. He ended up with enough in scholarships and financial aid that he now has his first two years paid for and money to cover books. He received a good amount of money for graduation that he is putting towards his third year of schooling. To top it off, the junior college hired him to be an ambassador and he will be making $11 an hour working at the college. His current goal is to have his third year paid for before he starts it. He is going to continue to look for scholarships and apply for any and all that he can. We are very proud of him for the sound financial decisions he is making. He told us that, as much as he wanted freedom and to be on his own, he did not feel like it was worth it since it would mean giving up freedom in the future because he would be tied down to loans. He did apply to multiple schools (Colorado School of Mines, Colorado State University, and more) and was accepted but never paid any application fees. He wanted schools to recruit him so he would wait to be contacted by schools and all but one recruitment letter waived the application fee. He did not apply to the school that did not offer to wave the fee.

I would talk to the financial aid department at the school she wants to go to. I know that we would not get any approval for financial aid until we provided several additional documents. I went in to talk to the financial aid and they pulled up my son's FAFSA file and told me what we needed to do to get approval. We did and, a few weeks later, finally got our approval letter but it wasn't for much. Every bit helps so go in and see what they can do for you.

We went through a similar problem with our son. We went into the financial aid office at the local college and they pulled up his FAFSA file. They had me go to the IRS page there and request a transcript. It then stated that the transcript was not available so they took a screen shot, printed it out, and had me sign it. The IRS stated that it would take 10 weeks for a transcript to be available. It ended up only taking 2 weeks. This was mid-May of this year and it did not take near as long as stated. Once FAFSA had the transcript, it took about 10 days for us to get the letter with the financial aid listed. It was a big headache and they required so much additional paperwork but we did not have to wait as long as we were expecting for an answer. I hope you get your answer sooner than expected as well.

We also had a hectic week leading up to graduation. My son's last day of school was May 13th but he left early on the 14th to go to state track and got back late on the 16th. My daughter and I drove 6 hours each way over the weekend to attend my nephew's high school graduation. We got back around 2 pm on Monday and did a couple loads of laundry and then headed off to the athletic banquet. We spent Tuesday and Wednesday cleaning, wrapping gifts, finishing up picture displays and decorating. On Thursday, I had to take my daughter 2 hours away for oral surgery. We left a little after 6 in the morning and got back around 3. While she rested, I worked on cutting up vegetables and getting all of the food in order. Friday was last minute cleaning before guests arrived (our overnight guests arrived early afternoon), frosting 150 cupcakes and topping 150 cheesecakes, filling coolers, attending graduation parties, and holding a cap decorating party for my son and his friends. Saturday morning my husband and I were up at 6 to start setting up canopies since it was supposed to rain all day (and it did plus hail). We were at the school a little before 9, graduation was at 10, we had quick pictures, and ran home to turn on crockpots. We then took separate cars so we could hit all of the graduation parties that we needed to. We were home a little after 1 and got last minute things done. Guests started arriving a little before 2 and did not leave until 9. Our overnight guests left at noon on Sunday. It was a whirlwind week with lots of driving but it all worked out. Here is the Pinterest board from the graduation party. We had over 150 guests and we all had a great time. It was well worth the chaos leading up to it.

We just had graduation on Saturday. I was going on overdrive and am now in recovery mode. I still have photos, papers, and decorations to put away. Now I have to tend to everything that was neglected leading up to graduation.

My son graduates on the 23rd and we have been putting together several outdoor games. We have tether ball and a large outdoor Jenga set that we made last year. Teens are always coming over to play it so we decided to find something else along that line as well. I found an idea for making a large outdoor Kerplunk game on Pinterest and we are making that this week. To finish off the outdoor activities we are painting a giant Twister board on the lawn and making a Koob game to play as well. Look for outdoor games and activities on Pinterest.

My 12 year old daughter is currently in her room making a fleece tie blanket. She enjoys repurposing items throughout the house, sewing, painting, scrapbooking, making jewelry, stamping cards, decorating clothing, and almost anything else that is creative. She made me a beautiful pain of earrings for Mother's Day. She has also started trying to make a rag rug. Pinterest is where she goes for ideas and she looks up how-to videos to learn how do whatever she cannot figure out on her own.

We are setting up a nacho bar with nacho cheese, refried beans, and taco meat as the only things needing to be heated up. I am using a crockpot server that holds three crockpots for those. The nacho cheese and refried beans come in a can from Sam's. Shredded cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, jalapenos, onions, and olives will require minimal prep and most do not need refrigeration. We will have tortilla chips and Fritos for the chip options. This way everyone can take as little or as much as they want and it can be a meal option if they want it to be. We are also having a vegetable tray, fruit tray, peanuts, popcorn, candy, cupcakes, and cheesecakes. Drinks are bottled water and cans of pop that I will have stacked in coolers before graduation. I am also serving iced tea and ice cream punch. There are options that require minimal work and refrigeration.

I had braces as a teenager and again in my early thirties. I hated the process of braces because I had to have lots off additional work done. I only had two teeth that contacted and I had to have a tongue fence and teeth spurs which were very painful. I am glad that I went with braces even though it was painful. My bite has been greatly improved.

My SIL had a baby girl on Saturday and named her Charlotte Grace. I actually suggested Charlotte and our only concern with the name was that it might be the name of the princess. When our Charlotte was born we knew that the princess was born on the same day but no name was released. Our Charlotte shares the same birthday and name as the princess so we will be calling her our little princess as well.

Last week was our prom. We had plans but everything had to be changed last minute. Over an inch of rain fell in the 2 hours leading up to prom and an additional 1.5 inches fell during prom. Everyone was drenched and there was flooding everywhere. We had to improvise and it all worked out. Pictures were done indoors and a group of them ate at our house. The kids all brought a change of clothes so they could go directly to after prom instead of changing at friend's houses. There was also lots of carpooling or parents driving since low profile vehicles had a hard time getting around. I am sure that they kids will have a great time.

In Colorado you have to be sponsored by a master plumber in good standing and be their designated apprentice. You must be 18 before applying to be a journeyman. We thought it was 18 to be an apprentice but contacted the state plumbing board and found out that they handle apprenticeships in a different way and don't really publish the information. We had to contact them to find out what the rules and regulations were.