Summer living

This is the first year where I am completely down (in a good way) with the long school summer breaks. It has helped that Luca’s summer camps got paid off in April and that our teens are self sufficient when it comes to keeping themselves entertained/earning money during the break. Ulrik is working full time at McDonalds saving up every penny for spending money in college. Some days he has to be there at 5 in the morning and some days he is not home until late at night, but since he can walk there and has a good alarm to wake him up we are not involved much.

Teresa has snatched up some swim coaching of kids at the YMCA and at Georgetown country club. For now it is volunteering but soon she will get paid. And despite not having her drivers license yet she is also able to get to and from those places by bus/bike. Yay.

And then there’s this kiddo:

Who will be having a blast (a somewhat expensive blast - ahem) going to all sorts of summer camps. The highlight will no doubt be Blue Lake - a music academy camp up north close to Traverse City, where he will be on music camp for....... wait for it......... 10 DAYS STRAIGHT!!!! It will be amazing. He is super excited about going and he should be. We have only heard good things.

We are one week into summer right now and we have comfortably settled into “summer mode” = no homework, late dinners (because camp ends late, and sometimes we bike, and make stops for icecream at blank slate), and a somewhat less stressful vibe. And as a reminder of what is to happen soon - strange stuff has started to arrive:

Yes. My sister is coming next week. (Surprisingly we have not received any yarn or other knitting supplies yet......). We are not going camping this year though as Kristian and I only will have a few days of overlapping vacation and as “staycation” is a necessary evil when trying to put a kid through college while saving up money for a down payment. Sigh. #willweevernothavetoworryaboutmoney😬But the weather forecast looks awesome and we already have plenty of things planned that mostly includes swim suits and icecream (and G&T on the patio at night). And some dog cuddling obviously:

Do squirrels swim?

This is a really unusual weekend as Kristian and Luca has gone camping. And they did not bring the dog, who was quite disappointed:

But off they went, leaving bailey and I behind with the teens. Teresa was supposed to go to a sleepover, but it got cancelled and instead one of her friend came here to stay overnight. Since Luca was not home we decided to step up the movie and watch something in the horror genre. Which ended up being Se7en! I watched it when it came out in theaters back in the day (waaaaaayyyy back in the day.....) and remembered it as being quite surprising at the end. I did not remember how freakin’ creepy it was. The girls were not excited about going to bed after this

But everyone eventually fell asleep.

However more death was to follow Saturday. I went tot the pool for a quick swim in the heat and just as I was about to enter I spotted something at the bottom. A drowned squirrel. It looked surreal. Like it was standing at the bottom reaching up towards the surface and I guess this answers the question of whether squirrels know how to swim.....

Graduation

The school year is coming close to an end. For some of the kids in the Frikke household - but not Ulrik, who has been done for a few weeks. And finally it was time for graduation. I have to admit that it is such a relief to finish off 4 years of a bumpy ride through high school with Ulrik graduating with honors and an excited anticipation for what is to come.It is no surprise that we only know of American graduations from movies and it is quite different from the Danish version. Anyways - it took place in the convention center at EMU (East Michigan University) a few miles away. And with 430 kids graduating it needed to be big! And here they are walking in to “pomp and circumstance”:

Ulrik on the big screen:

And then there were speeches (which were short and entertaining!), and music. The high school symphony orchestra played symphony number 4 by Tchaikovsky! And they played well. I was super impressed by it:

And here they are. All 430 seniors:

Who all had to walk across the stage one by one:

By the time it was done, Ulrik had a hefty headache but he still patiently put up with his excited family members: