The whole month of June is what I imagine its like when someone wakes up the morning after a night of binge drinking and says "what the heck happened last night?" Does that mean I was wasted the entire month of June? No. Don't be a dummy. It just means the entire last month was a blur, and it went by so fast that I don't even remember what happened.I start every blog post saying this it seems, but my memory is a turd.
Andi graduated from the 8th Grade. We never thought she would make it through middle school, what an accomplishment. Not. Congrats you can draw triangles and divide a fraction...whoopdie doo. This is how Andi and I felt about the whole ordeal, but the graduation ceremony was very cute nonethless, and a good way for Andi to say goodbye to her island school friends, all of which she will most likely never see again. So weird.
Getting Andi ready for the graduation was hilarious. Andi takes after me as far as daily prep time. If I have to be somewhere at 9am I'll probably wake up around 8:37, doddle around for fifteen minutes and jump in the shower by 8:52. 9/10 times I show up somewhere with sopping wet hair, and no make up. Sorry about it.Andi is similar. We hate mornings, mornings come straight from Satan himself. So neither of us approximated the correct amount of time it would take to get ready since its been so long. Blow drying your hair? Who does that while they're living on an island with this high percentage of humidity? Do we even own a blow dryer anymore?
Andi mentioned a lot of her classmates had been talking about waking up early so they could spend the whole day getting ready and we both replied with, "WHAT THE TRASH COULD THEY BE SPENDING THE WHOLE DAY DOING?" Even Mrs. Doubtfire could transform from an average looking old dude into a sweet old British woman in a bathroom stall in under two minutes. So what could be taking all day? Even on my prom day I think I left to get my hair and make up done about two hours before I needed to be at pictures, although, I was late for pictures...see, I'm not good at managing time to get ready. My wedding day is going to be a disaster. I should probably start getting ready the year before.
By the time we had finished curling her giant wolf mane of hair and done all her make up I was about ready to take a 78 hour nap. She had the reaction every girl has had when I worked in a salon that wasn't used to having their full make up done..."I look weird" After assuring her for about 35 minutes that she didn't look like a goblin, she hesitantly walked out the door and I waited with her for her ride.
Her ride was a little bit late so I decided to take some photos because she looked so darn cute, the wind was blowing her hair in pretty ways and based on the honks and hollers from gross men driving past, I wasn't the only one who thought so.
The graduation ceremony itself was so precious. They had a professional photographer set up in a back room behind the stage, with a backdrop and GIANT flash. Each time someone got their picture taken I felt like I was going to have a seizure. I had to leave the room and opt out of the family pic...which was to Andi's benefit, since she's sick of explaining she doesn't have "moms" just one mom and one Aunt.
The 8th grade teacher had instructed the kids on how to walk into the graduation room and up to the stage, i'm not kidding you when I say it was like watching a bunch of senior citizens with invisible walkers. They were walking so slowly. I had to try so hard not to keep myself from laughing while I was filming it. I'd put the video up but it's 8 minutes long (just their walking is 8 minutes long. Just their walking) and it would take twelve years to upload a video that large onto this blog with this caribbean internet sevice.
After Graduation we hit up Haagen Dazs for a delicious belgian chocolate milkshake. The lady initially told us they didn't have belgian chocolate ice cream, after seeing our pouty faces she decided she would take it out of the deep freezer and let it thaw for a few minutes so she'd be able to scoop it out. So word to the wise...anyone visiting the Haagen Dazs in Maho, "We don't have that" is code for "I don't want to get that out of the freezer" just keep persistent. They'll budge.
A week after Andi's graduation Casey came to spend his last week on the island, and to take Andi home. It was so fun. We went to beaches, out to eat at a lot of fun new places, and did some shopping for art, jewelry and clothes on the French side. The whole visit is very well documented and written about on Casey's blog. He's the photographer in the apartment. The highlight of his trip was the catamaran boat trip we took to Prickly Pear, Anguilla. The boat was so fun. Half of it was netting so you could lay on it and feel the water directly underneath you, then when you get to Anguilla they feed you lunch and you get to lay on their white sand beach and stare at the crystal clear water. I absolutely loved it. The boat trips I've taken here have all been so fun and very well worth the money.
Piper and I took a trip with the school to the St. Maarten Zoo. It was our second time there, and so fun again. Piper loves animals! Upon getting into the zoo they give you a paper bag of animal crackers which you can use to feed the animals. The zoo has tons of birds, monkeys, guinea pigs, iguanas, some pigs, hedgehogs, tortoises, snakes, fish, and flamingos. The whole time we were in the zoo Piper was running around in a frenzy chucking animal crackers at different animals faces. She was reminding me of Napolean Dynamite when he feeds his pet llama, Tina. EAT THE FOOD! Which reminds me of how much I love Napolean Dynamite. I don't understand people, like my mother, who don't think it's funny. When I showed the movie to my mom her face was like this the whole time, minus the Asian part. My mom's not Asian.
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| Nothin' like a little post zoo footsie action |
Since we can't have fireworks we bought some sparklers, the wind was so intense it took forever to light them, but in the end when they were lit, all the effort was worth it.
