Playing catch-up: Rhiannon's winter band concert!

Rhiannon's high school band winter concert was a blast!  We all wondered how the band would function with the new band director, Mark Hatter...and we are happy to see they are doing great!!

Playing catch-up: Homecoming 2017 for Rhiannon

Homecoming weekend was a blast for Rhiannon.  She was recognized for being a senior band member on the football field Friday night and had a blast with friends at her first high school dance.  Her friend Jacob Kelley, friends since kindergarten, asked Rhiannon to Homecoming and they had so much fun with a big group!!

Rhiannon and I searched out of town and in town and all around for a dress for this event and were not impressed, so she looked up dresses on eshakti online and found a beautiful dress that she was able to custom order to her size and preference, too.  She looked amazing and said she got many compliments for her pretty, unique, and modest dress.  Yay!

Back to school (already!)

This was taken very early on August 9th, the first day of 11th grade for Rhiannon and 7th for Wade!  We were all out the door by 6:15!

Jason takes Wade most days to zero period PE (which starts at 6:25), and Rhiannon has symphonic band early, too, which starts at 6:30.  She started a 5:25 am seminary class last week. 

Both kids are doing well and we are very proud of them!

Rhiannon's class schedule:

(early morning seminary, followed by:)

Symphonic Band

AP Biology

Honors English 11th grade

Spanish II

Anatomy/Zoology

Pre-Calculus

US History

Wade's class schedule:

zero period PE

World History

Honors Math

Life Science

Concert Band

Gateway to Technology class (ask him about this one!  challenging, but he loves it!)

English

Last Day of 10th and 6th grade!

There is a lot of blog catch-up to do from the last few weeks!  First, the kids finished up school on May 26th, their last day of 10th and 6th grade!

We are very proud of them!  Rhiannon tried some new things this year--especially drumline--and did very well with a full, busy class schedule, on top of early morning seminary, honor society service hours, time with friends and church activities.  Wade killed it in band and excelled in his classes.  He wasn't kidding around when he set a goal to keep a "higher-than-4.0" average for the year.  We're proud of his efforts to keep and make good friends, too.

Way to go, Cushing kids!  Enjoy the all-too-short summer so you're ready to get back on August 9th!

2016 BHS Spring Band Concert

Last night our family went to Rhiannon's spring band concert at the high school.  It was a long night, but well worth our time!  Those high schoolers are remarkable!!!  Rhiannon is standing, I think second from the left.  I didn't have enough room on my phone to record it all, but here are a couple:

Fun on a Friday night, plus fun random pictures from the last week

Hard to believe that 3 months have already gone by in 2016!!!

It's been a fun April Fool's Day!  Rhiannon has been the champion--she put stuff in Wade's shoes, colored the milk in the fridge blue, put salt in our water glasses, and faked injuries at school.  She has enjoyed every minute of it, haha!  Wade hid some of Rhiannon's books.  Jason tried to trick me into thinking he was drunk, hanging out with co-workers after work today, and I tricked Wade pretty great at 5:50 am when I told him that his teacher had emailed me and said he didn't have to do a large class project because his grade was so high...I felt a little guilty about that one!

Right now both kids have friends over.  Wade is playing video games with Tucker in one room, and Rhiannon and Sierra are watching Napoleon Dynamite in another.  It's fun to listen to them all laughing!

Tomorrow Rhiannon will be gone most of the day to a drum line competition, and the rest of us don't have much going on besides watching General Conference (which I am really looking forward to!).

Here are some other random pictures of goings-on the last couple weeks:

Rhiannon took a bunch of funny pictures on my phone--loved it!

Easter Sunday!

  

On Tuesday (after a VERY windy Monday) I joined friend Megan Hall and her son Daniel up at the new walking path up to the college.  We had a blast and got over 4 miles in!

Wade had a local band festival on Wednesday night.  He did a great job and had fun with it!

Rhiannon had SOOO much fun with the high school's Spirit Days this week.  Her favorite was the Comic-Con day!  Here she is with her friend Katie Johnson, who was a Dr. Who weeping angel!

We love The Flash!

  

Without pre-planning, Rhiannon and one of her really good buddies (friends since kindergarten!) Jacob Kelley both represented Flash that day.  Too funny!

The Insectasaurus hat is still around.  She wore this and a bunch of other crazy stuff for "What in the World?" Day!



Finally, here are some videos from Wade's band festival!  He's in the back, towards the right, playing on the mallets.

Rhiannon embraces Spirit Week

On Sunday night Rhiannon was up in her room planning out what she was going to wear each day for Spirit Week.  So far she has had a ton of fun!  I love this cute girl and her enthusiasm!

Partners in Crime, Dr. Who style

Yesterday Rhiannon went to her friend Tamara's home right after school and worked on a project with her.  Tamara asked her to be her "Partner in Crime" for one of the high school spirit days this week, and the girls had a great time decorating t-shirts together.  We're thankful for cute, kind friends like Tamara who are super fun, too!

First day of 10th and 6th grade!

The next school year has begun after a super-fast-and-fun summer!  10th and 6th grade, here we come!  Both Rhiannon and Wade did a great job getting up and were ready for the day by 6:00 am!  We rushed out to the backyard to take our traditional pictures before I took Rhiannon to the high school for her band class (which starts at 6:35 every day).

Cuties!

She loves that "Hello" shirt--super soft and comfy!

And if you're an Avengers fan, you can imagine how Wade felt about his Jarvis t-shirt!

Rhiannon and I saw the most beautiful sunrise on the drive.  As soon as I dropped her off, I zipped into a parking lot so I could capture it!  

After I got home from that, Wade and I killed a few minutes before we had to leave to get him on base to Murray Middle School.  Most days he will catch a ride with our neighbors, but I told him I wanted to take him on the first day!  Wade was so excited that we left 5 minutes earlier than we planned and got to the school so early we had to sit for a few minutes.  (Classes start at 7:20; students are allowed on campus at 7:00).

The rest of the day flew by while I waited for their school day to end.  I messed around on Facebook, got groceries, and went to a disaster preparedness class offered on the base.

Wade walked in the door happy and content at 2:30 pm; then I left to pick up Rhiannon and some friends at 2:40.  

Rhiannon already had Spanish, chemistry and history homework.  Wade's only homework was to get his mom to fill out school paperwork.  They both said it was a good, fast day, with no problems.   YAY!!!!!!!!!!!

Just for fun, here is something I made yesterday when I found myself with a bunch of extra time in the morning.  It was fun to see how much the kids have grown each year!  11 years of first-day-of-school photos! :)  We love these kids and know they will be successful and happy if they try their best, work hard, and show kindness!

The End of Freshman Year, and surviving Finals (barely)

Well, on May 28th, I, Rhiannon Cushing, barely finished my freshman year of high school. It's weird to say that, because at times it's hard to believe I actaully made it. Haha I make it sound terrible, but all in all I think I did alright. I finished 23rd of 371 people (not too shabby) and I hope to get even farther than that next year.

I have fantatsic friends. Seminary was a BLAST and even though waking up at 4:50 got tiring, I made it work. My teachers were great, it's a good way to start the morning, and I strengthened lots of friendships in church and strengthened my faith as well.

I made new friends of course, but my band of friends at lunch stuck together very well. There are about 10 or so of us and we've known each other since 6th grade. We all have good taste in music, love to play charades (and aren't embarrassed when people walking by stop walking just to stare at us) and share lots of things in common (i.e. all pretty smart, classes in common, and sense of humor)
I wouldn't say that we don't fight or anything because we debate about all kinds of stuff (sometimes too much, in my opinion) but we are usually very respectful of each other's opinions. I think that's a good way to be, and I hope next year we won't drift apart or anything.

My class (2018) is one of the worst Burroughs High School has ever seen. Because of the fact that there are two kinds of people in my class--A and B kids that care about school and know it matters, and D and F kids who couldn't care less. I know that's super harsh but that's just how it is.

This made it so that two of the easiest classes I've ever had in my life, World Geography and Health, also became the hardest to get through. If I didn't have some of my super good friends in there with me, I don't know what I would have done. Mrs. Barnes was my Geography teacher and she was awesome but the people in my class were INSANE! Health was a different story because both the teacher and most of my classmates were absolutely horrid. UGH. Enough said. Finals in these classes were fine but I just about cried from happiness when both of them were done.

I really liked Cadet Band. It was super small (15 kids) but we got along pretty well and Symphonic Band is going to be great next year. My teacher, Mr. Austin is cool and I got to help him with 8th Grade Auditions this year. It was really fun and made me look forward to Band next year even more.

P.E. got interesting about a month before Christmas break. I had a few good friends in there, a good teacher named Mr. Pearce, but a drama-loving manipulator "friend." If that isn't the definition of bad times waiting to happen, I don't know what is. (Maybe Health for three more years? mhaha Just kidding) My good friends helped me, and when I started having my bunion foot problems Mr. Pearce was AWESOME, but I'm glad to be free of my "friend." This year was the first time that sarcastic-mean Rhiannon got her claws out--I once left PE shaking I was so mad. I confronted this person multiple times and they just wouldn't give up trying to snare me in their traps. I think if this person tries again next year I'm just going to straight up ignore them. Which is harsh, but I am DONE.

Then on to my Honors classes. They were mostly stressful, but the pluses were good people in the class, having lots of my friends with me, making new friends, learning more than I would in a normal class, and a weighted GPA. Whoop whoop.
Honors Bio was the most stressful out of the three. My teacher didn't update our grades too often, I took the hardest tests I've ever had in my life in it (I got my first D on a final, that was "tons of fun") and the first semester stuff just wasn't interesting to me. Not my favorite, and I'm glad to be done with it, but the people in there were awesome.
Honors Geometry was better. I liked my teacher Mr. Menard and there were lots of sophomores in my class that I liked getting to know. Pretty much everyone in that class I ended up knowing/being friends with. Some of the tests were stressful, sure, and I had lots of HW but it was fun being in the class.
Honors English was AMAZING. I loved my teacher Mrs. Wilson, and I'm really not bad at English. I didn't enjoy reading Huck Finn, but that was really it. I'm a good essay writer and that class wasn't hard at all.

I MADE IT. YES. hahaha All in all, I didn't do too bad. I would like to move up in my class rank, and it's going to be very different next year because I'm taking way harder classes, which will cut down on my free time and add lots of unneeded stress. Symphonic Band, Spanish 1, Honors Modern World History, Chemistry, Honors English, Honors Algebra 2, and PE. Wow that's going to be interesting.

Yay Freshman Year!!!!

Rhiannon survives her first semester of high school...

WAY TO GO, RHIANNON!

We are so proud of her hard work and efforts during her first semester of high school.  She has a 4.1667 grade point average and is ranked #22 out of 404 freshmen.  We learned that even though she has solid B's in geometry and biology, those classes are weighted differently because they are honors classes and a lot harder.

Regardless, Rhiannon has worked her tail off, stayed on top of classwork and homework assignments, AND only missed two days of early-morning seminary due to sickness.

This girl is going places--we love her and are very happy for her!  Keep it up, girl!

Rhiannon's first high school band Christmas concert

I only got one good video during Rhiannon's Christmas band concert at the high school, mostly because I was too mesmerized by the rest of the music!  Here was one of their Christmas songs--you can see Rhiannon off to the left playing the mallets!!!

Rhiannon's first experience playing at a football game!

Last night we went to the first home football game for our local high school.  We got to watch the Burros beat the Warriors, 35-21, and we got to SEE RHIANNON PLAY WITH THE BAND on the field at half-time!  It was so fun!!!  In the video Rhiannon is on the far right on the mallets.  She said she had a really good time and was happy she got to see with the drumline people, the life of the party. :)

BHS Burros Symphonic and Cadet Band, 2014-2015

Fun panorama of the field

Can't forget Band Camp and freshman orientation!

 This is my blog fail for the summer--I didn't take any pictures of Rhiannon's two-week band camp experience before school started, or her freshman orientation the day before school.  All I can say is that she absolutely

LOVED, LOVED, LOVED, LOVED, LOVED

band camp! :)  She went for 9 days, from 7:00am to 12:00pm and really enjoyed it, mostly because it was for ALL band students, not just freshman, and she got to make friends with band kids in all grades.  She's playing the mallets again and says the percussion section is the biggest, craziest group--she loves it.  We are proud of her for having a good attitude about ending her sleeping-in-summer a little early!

She said the freshman orientation was great, too--a little fast and a lot of information, but she got her schedule and locker early and was able to walk around campus and get acquainted with it.  I carpooled 2 or 3 of her friends during this whole band camp/orientation thing, and that was fun, too.