Days 4 - 8: May 29 - June 2, 2016

The next few days were full of relaxation and much-needed family time.  I played Spades with Olivia, Mama, and Daddy, continuing the long game that has been going on for years.  I don't remember how old I was when Olivia and I were taught how to play Spades by our parents, but it has been at least eight years since we began our game.  It is pretty remarkable how close our scores have stayed.  Olivia and I are on one team and Mama and Daddy are on the other, and both of our teams have over 80,000 points and the scores are within 100 points of each other.  I have always enjoyed having this family time, because we always have fun playing as we listen to Lyle Lovett and/or Ray Charles, our go-to Spades music choices.

Along with Spades-playing, I watched some West Wing with my family.  Daddy has always loved the show, and Mama has, too, and they were excited to introduce it to us.  Olivia and I got hooked, enthralled with the well-rounded characters and political story line.  Now, it has become another family tradition to watch the show at the end of a long day.

Some important events to note:

IB Prank at Millbrook: The afternoon of May 31, I went to school to blow up balloons.  That sounds a bit ridiculous, and I suppose that it is.  My 20th Century Topics teacher organized an IB prank to flood Millbrook's IB Coordinator's office with balloons on the day of IB graduation.  So, for two hours on May 31, I was in my teacher's room blowing up balloons.  The following morning, I got to school at 6:15 and helped fill the office with balloons.  It was fun, hanging out with my IB peers and teacher as we laughed and joked while we pulled the prank.  We were lucky enough to be there when our IB coordinator arrived to his office and saw that he was surprised, overwhelmed, and had an expression on his face like he might laugh so hard he would fall over.  Most students left after talking with him a bit, but Olivia convinced me to stay along with some of our friends to clean up all of the balloons.

IB Graduation:  This wonderful event was a time of unity, glory, sadness, and joy.  My good friend Dawson gave a beautiful speech that almost made me cry, and after a formal ceremony there was time for many pictures, yearbook signings, and hugs.  One of my favorite parts of the graduation was the IB superlatives organized by some of my dedicated peers.  Many of the superlatives were inside jokes drawing laughs, others were more truthful and accompanied by nods of agreement.