Hey, look! It's June!

Huh. Well, I'd have sworn I posted more recently. I Thought about it, and then imagined that I had, I guess. Anyway....

My college roommate, Darcy, and her husband Paul (also an old college buddy) stopped by a couple weeks ago! It was the first time I'd seen them in nearly thirty years, and seeing them was really lovely. They've been sending wonderful gifts every Christmas for years, so the kids already had a deep affection for them, but meeting them in person was even better! Both of them are now college professors (in Ohio), and they travel the world giving workshops and lectures on mental health (and we now have the t-shirts to prove this!), and they are both really clever, funny people, so they kept us entertained through lunch with marvelous stories. It was a real treat.

We had a nest of robins in the tree by the kitchen, and Katie took lots of pictures. Poor ugly little things. Their parents fed them and took proper care of them anyway, and now I'm sure they are quite presentable! (I haven't seen them in a bit.)

And the kids had their piano recital! Katie played "Under the Sea," which, I think, is from The Little Mermaid. Very jaunty. Travis played Sonatina Op. 56, No. 3, by Muzio Clementi. He got a bit rattled and didn't play as excellently as he's been doing at home, but it is still quite nice.

And he got a haircut! It's a lot shorter and looks very nice. I got one too, but mine doesn't look nearly so good. Still, the girl was very nice and did what she could. And I think we've talked Katie out of dying her hair purple, which has been a thing she's wanted for a while. I talked with the hairdresser about it, and she said the same thing everyone else has, which is that Katie's hair would require bleaching first, and that she'd be sorry. The weight of opinion finally seems to have convinced her. Now she wants a tattoo! (But I think she's kidding about it!)

In other news...
Both kids have finished math for the year! Travis got an "A" in Algebra II, so is set for Precalculus next year. Katie... well, she will do Algebra next year, and we'll hope for the best. We can see the finish line for literature/writing/history -- five more weeks, I believe (though I haven't figured in camp), Latin is going okay, and chemistry is going pretty well. We really will have a few weeks off this summer, which will be fantastic. Frankly, when I finish the last two chapters of Paradise Lost, I am going to consider myself On Holiday -- I am That tired of Milton.