The End of an Era (8th Grade Graduation)

Our family has been at Northshore Christian Academy since September 2009 when A started first grade. On Tuesday June 11th, C graduated from 8th Grade and we said goodbye to NCA. The first graduation event was Commissioning Breakfast. We had a continental breakfast and mingled for a while. The posters made by the students (to represent their past, their present, and their future) were on display. Here is a portion of C's poster.

This next photo was taken by someone from the school during the Commissioning Breakfast. You can see us in the middle if you click on the photo.

Two NCA alumni spoke. A boy who went to a Christian high school and a girl who went to a public high school. They are both graduating from high school now and moving on to college. They gave words of advice for life in high school. We also had a special speaker. He is a pastor and a dad of one of the graduates. At the end the teachers, the principal, and the superintendent each prayed for the kids and we laid hands on them.

I'm in the middle of the photo above in the white cardigan. Afterwards, some of the boys posed.

In the evening there was the Graduation Ceremony.  Here's a breakdown of events.

1. Pomp and Circumstance was played on the piano and the graduates came in, alphabetical order by last name.

2. Special Awards were given out: Valedictorian, salutatorian, the President's Awards for Academic Excellence (C received one). J and I were pleased that both the valedictorian and salutatorian were boys, because of the boy crisis. The salutatorian is one of C's friends.

3. Student speaker selected by the faculty. This was a surprise to the kids. It was an outgoing boy who had a key role in the musical. He prayed at the beginning because he said he was nervous.

4. The advanced choir sang.

5. Commencement Address from guest speaker.

6. Presentation of certificates. Mr. W. (C's history teacher in the photo below) was great at announcing names.

7. Girls Choir and Boys Choir sang The Prayer.

8. Slide show of all the graduates of Then and Now photos. A baby/toddler photo followed by a current photo. It was fun to try to guess them from the old photos which weren't labeled. The current photo was labeled.

Here is C's then and now:

9. Benediction and Introduction of the Graduates.

There was a dessert reception in the lobby. It was extremely crowded and warm.

We got a family photo in front of the school. I took a few photos of C and his friends.

I wish I could have gotten photos of C with more of his teachers. This is C with his band and physics teacher:

This is the band that C plays with.

Some of C's friends went to Red Robin so I took him there. J and A went home. I had a very nice chat with two other moms. We didn't have a chance to eat supper that day since C had to be at the school by 5:15 pm for the group photo. Our group stayed at Red Robin  until almost 11 pm.

The following day there was a graduation party off site planned by a group of moms. I helped a bit with planning and chaperoning. They started with bowling and arcade games at 2:30 pm until 4:30 pm at a bowling alley in Lynnwood. Then they were driven (in various cars by moms and dads) to a large church north of Snohomish for a whole bunch of activities including dinner. J and I arrived for dessert and send off at 8:30 pm. They had a short time of open mike for the kids to say something to everyone. As you can imagine, some are better at that than others. The girls would most likely start crying. To end the evening one of the pastors of the church (a dad of a student) spoke briefly about leaving childhood behind. Each student received a helium balloon and they went out to the large field and released the balloons.

Then all the parents gave their child a sparkler.

It was difficult to get C to leave. We were being attacked by mosquitoes. One of C's really good friends was crying at the end. He told his mom a few days before that there were three friends he'd miss most and one of them was C. That was special to hear.

C will miss his many friends from NCA. I pray that he makes good friends at his high school.




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Selfie Scavenger Hunt for C's Birthday

Well, we did it again. We had an elaborate birthday party for C. It was held on Friday May 31st. This was his 14th birthday.

We started after dismissal at school, where J and I picked up the boys and their stuff which included musical instruments. The boys didn't all fit in my car since I don't have a van anymore.

J gave them instructions for the Selfie Scavenger Hunt. The above photo was taken in the lobby of C's school.

Some items were worth 25 points and the hardest one was 175. There were twenty four "missions."

Here are almost all of the missions.

1. Vending machine
2.  lying on a mattress
3.  life size mini figure (Lego) 
4. with a store manager
5. with a Chick Fil A manager
6. with a teddy bear 
7. with a doll 
8. holding a chain saw (this was just to get them to Lowe's)
9.  shaking hands with a mannequin 
10. with a mall cop 
11. inside a tent 
12. with a a girl with a name beginning with A 
13. with a guy with a name starting with D 
14. holding something with a price tag of $999.99 
15. getting a massage 
16. helping a lady try on a shoe
17. video of singing a love song  
18. with a girl wearing pink. 

Based on the points they got, there were 5 tiers of the food we would buy them at the end.

C told us ahead of time which fast food places are more popular with his friends.

Trash - Jack in the Box
Above Trash - McDonalds
Middle Tier - Little Caesars Pizza, KFC
Next Tier - Wendy's
Top Tier - Chick Fil A.

We dropped the boys off at the mall. They were without any adult supervision for about 4 hours.

We used this great app called GooseChase which we heard about from J's colleague's wife. J was able to monitor them from his laptop while he sat at home!

Here they are at the spice store with the manager.

On the top floor of a parking lot at the mall:

Their point total was just over 2000 so they made it into the top tier. They walked to Chick Fil A when they were done. This is what I saw when I came to pick them up.

One of C's friends plays the viola, as you can see.

When they arrived at our house, they got out their instruments and played in the gazebo, which works very well since it is covered and has built in seats. We did birthday cake pretty late.

The ice cream cake started to melt before we got to present it. It was yummy, though.

The boys were playing their instruments until 10:30 pm.They stayed up talking, yes talking, until after midnight. We told them to go to bed at 12:30 am but I don't think they did that. They didn't play any video games!

In the morning we fed them bacon, eggs, and pancakes. The latest sleeper was lying right next to the screen door in the hallway so that was a challenge. The guests were all gone by 10:30 am.



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