The Third Annual Youthies Ceremony

It was the Youth Awards night at FCY, and a chance for students to dress up again in their fanciest outfits.  Maddie was happy to wear her prom dress a third time, and as you'll see in photos below, it looked great!  The Youthie Awards were tonight, and it's an awards show format where students are honored for different achievements and accomplishments over the year.

Maddie always enjoys this night as a chance to dress up and have some fun, as there's somewhat of a gala afterwards.  But the first part of the service of course is the awards ceremony, and that has your typical hosts and greeters and it's all so formal and exciting for the kids.

And here's where the fun begins:  The "Comeback Award" was given "to two students that showed incredible dedication, and courage by stepping up to the plate and stepping out of their comfort zone.  These students have great hearts, lead by example, and are always willing to make a difference."  The announcers - Emma and Braeson - opened the envelope and called out Maddie's name!

It came as a complete surprise to her, and it took her a little while to get up to the podium as people were cheering for her.  It was a really sweet moment!

The rest of the night was a fun sort of night for her, with dancing and mingling and just having a great time with her friends as a senior.  They were at the photo wall for a lot of fun pictures too, as you can see below:

 The clock is winding down on the school year, all of high school just slipping away.  Today Maddie got home with some more of the artwork she was creating this year, this creation a print that she carved from a linoleum block.  It came out rather well!

The rest of the day was quiet. and we did get to bed a little earlier.  It's all catching up with us now, and we're sneaking in naps here or there.  Lots of stuff going on, just about every day on the calendar filled with some writing about this event or that.  The Plush Entourage got to hear a story though, as I did read some more from Discworld tonight, and we said our prayers after that.  It was a really nice day, and I'm starting to finally feel better.  We'll get a good night's rest tonight.

Revenge of the Sith

Tonight we were back in the theater, but not to watch a new movie - instead, to watch a movie that's twenty years old!  Maddie actually hasn't seen one of the original six Star Wars movies in a theater, so tonight was fun going to see "Revenge of the Sith," and as you can see, she invited a friend too.

 

There were a good number of people there to see the movie, and in fact the movie did extremely well this weekend at the box office, which is pretty wild.  Anyway, it was a fun night - we sat in the back row and got to hear the epic soundtrack and classic lines, watching over all these scenes we've memorized from watching time and again.

It was a fun day, the last Tuesday of school for Maddie - although not much happened there.  Things are sort of counting down until all the events afterwards, like honors night and graduation and so on.  So it was a quiet sort of day.  Maddie was with Mom ordering a white dress to wear under her graduation gown, and we're talking about people coming to the graduation too - Mom and I, plus Ye-Ye and Nana, and maybe Uncle George and Tip.  But beyond that, Nate (above) might be joining us too, and possibly some others.  We'll see.  Graduation is a loooong ceremony.  And... it'll be here before we know it.  

Speaking of which, here's a countdown:  midnight tonight.  It was another one of those midnight sign-ups tonight for the cruise, as I was there at midnight online to sign Maddie up for the Royal Gathering on the Disney Cruise.  The availability of this started at midnight tonight, and was completely full only a few minutes afterwards.  No joke - you have to be very fast to get this one.  Fortunately, I was just fast enough to reserve a spot for us during our day at sea, and with the photo pass, that'll be a nice moment.  It's just fifteen minutes or so, but we're all set for that.

We've been working at KidPak on these books, plugging away with stories of Hannah and Samuel.  Also, working a bit on set design for our new series.  I was all in this Excalibur mode for Sunday when I suddenly realized that Sunday is May the Fourth.  As in, May the Fourth Be With You.  So I think we'll have some Star Wars stuff on Sunday for fun!

It was another late tonight for Maddie with the movie and all, so we didn't have time to read.  But we said our prayers, and she went off to bed, and I raced to the laptop to wait for midnight.

Star Wars Potato Heads

We did a little bit of random decorating for the upcoming Star Wars Day by putting out a collection of Mr. Potato Heads that we've collected over the years.  I forgot that we had this many different Star Wars themed Potato Heads, but there's Artoo, Chewbacca, Darth Vader, Stormtroopers and a Boba Fett too!

In the spirit of things, we just got some tickets for "Revenge of the Sith" in theaters tomorrow night.  Should be fun to see a Star Wars movie in the theater again.  The movie is doing really well as a re-release from 20 years ago, and this one Maddie's never seen in theaters, and we're not sure if she's actually seen an original Star Wars movie in theaters, so this might be the first.  

Speaking of things in space, tonight we continued our Camelot-athon with a viewing of "The Unidentified Flying Oddball," which is the same story we've been watching a few times this week already where a modern person goes back to the year 508 to hang around the folks at Camelot.  This version had a few familiar faces, and Mom and I actually enjoyed this one more than we originally thought we would.  It had some humorous lines that sort of snuck up on you, and while it's still just campy Disney 70's fun, it was still a pleasant experience.  This movie started out with the usual "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" premise, but then took it into a completely different direction with no eclipse, no Swiss army knife, and no king disguising himself as a peasant.  It did feature a headless android joisting, a rocket powered chair, and a co-starring gander (not a goose).  It also featured the same actor playing Merlin who would go on to portray Merlin again in "A Kid in King Arthur's Court," which is kind of cool.

Anyway, it was a quiet day.  I got some work done towards the new booklet in June, and Maddie was of course at taekwondo.  She was doing a bit of instructing again.  Today was her last Monday of school.

     She brought home her box camera and negatives and some other items, as this week she's basically packing things up to move on from school.  It was a decent day, and she's bittersweet about the whole thing, missing the people but not all the work so much.

I was on the treadmill this morning, and I'm watching the original Star Trek movie series on glorious VHS down there.  I finished "Wrath of Khan" this morning, and forgot just how amazing that movie is.  We got the new canopy up out on the back deck, and it was so easy to put up.  Oh, and I got the car's emission test done and got it registered, getting new tags.  Speaking of new tags, we got our luggage tags from Disney Cruise Line, so we'll be ready for that when it comes.  I have to stay up until midnight again one day this week so that we'll hopefully get a reservation at the Royal Gathering onboard.  We'll see how that goes!

Maddie got home tonight from taekwondo, and afterwards she was doing some studying while Mom and I were getting medieval with our movie choice there.  But afterwards, it was time for some reading, and we were back at the Discworld with our currently book, "Carpe Jugulum."  I forgot to tell Maddie that today would have been the author Terry Pratchett's birthday.  And regular readers of this blog will know that we didn't read that book because it was his birthday, but rather we read the Discworld books all year round because they're so great.  New things are coming out of the Discworld soon, although nothing new in regards to his writing, of course.  But it's still exciting to see the fandom and the creativity still moving forward. 

We said our prayers tonight, and after that, it was time for some sleep. 

Outback

Maddie was at Outback tonight grabbing some wings, although not quite by herself - look who else was there:

We were there to celebrate a few birthdays, the whole family there for a nice meal together.  This was Maddie's first time at Outback, and it's one of our favorite places, but Maddie wasn't thrilled with the wings she got, so we might have to try something else next time.  The rest of us enjoyed our meals as usual, and as usual, it was quite a bit of food.  The company was nice too - we gave birthday gifts, some of them being a few more Cirque du Soleil tickets for an upcoming performance in August.  Yes, we're going back to see "Ovo," which Maddie first saw ages ago!  Just looked it up, and this was fifteen years ago.  Wow.  

Anyway, it was nice at the Outback.  I remember when this restaurant emerged into the scene here, popping up all over.  The second best steak I've ever had was at an Outback in Athens.  And there was an Outback in Chattanooga early on, one we always went to when visiting there for the day, back in the early 90's.  And there was that Outback in Lahaina that we went to on our honeymoon.  I remember going to Outback in Gwinnett for Valentine's Day a few years ago when we visited the Gwinnett campus for the first time.  The point is, we've been going here for ages, and the food was great again tonight.

This morning, Maddie had taken all kinds of great photos for our morning service, the last of our Exodus series this year.  It's been a good series, and a really thrilling game of trivia with boys versus girls.  There was a lot of off-the-charts energy this morning.

We got home afterwards, and Mom got us a nice little lunch together.  We ate together, rested a bit, and then got got ready later on for the birthday celebration.  Maddie was studying a good bit with one more week to go at school.  Tonight, Mom and I watched another Excalibur-themed movie, "The Kid Who Would Be King."  It was a fun movie to go with the them, a movie with a larger budget and even Patrick Stewart as Merlin.  We enjoyed it.  Maybe we get a sword in the stone for our upcoming skit series, who knows?

Tonight we read before going to bed, and I'm on some medication.  Head is pounding from pressure.  Might go see someone about it tomorrow.  Annoying.  Anyway, after finishing reading, we were ready for bed.  All in all it was a nice day.

Senior Prom, Part Two

Tonight was Maddie's next Senior Prom, and this one was obviously quite a bit different.  For one thing, she went with her friend Nate to an entirely different school's prom.  She did wear the same dress as last week, and she'll wear that dress one more time in a few days.  But tonight she got all dressed up, and we drove over to his place where he gave her a very nice wrist corsage, as the two got ready for the evening together.

Here's a funny picture from about an hour earlier...

Mom is seen ironing Maddie's dress while she's wearing it!  After leaving his house, it was determined that we should take a few pictures.  We found a spot in the neighborhood, and snapped a few photos there.

After taking a few pictures there, we also decided to head over to the church and take some pictures there too.  Fortunately, there was no wedding going on, and it did appear that many other happy prom-goers were going there for the same thing.  There are lots of really nice spots to take pictures here, of course, and we did a whole photo series for Homecoming with Maddie a few years ago here.  But this one is special as it's the last prom she's going to as a senior, even though it's at another school. 

First, a picture with Mom!  My two favorite girls!  And here below are a lot of pictures from our "photoshoot" at the church grounds.  I was surprised at how well these all turned out.  These two looked like they were going to have a great time tonight!

And that's where we said goodbye for now.  Maddie and Nate went off to eat first, heading to a Mexican restaurant to get some street tacos, Maddie's favorite item right now.  They dropped by a Starbuck's location within a grocery store and ran into Mary Shannon there, and then they were off to the prom.

I'm sure it was an unforgettable evening!  Mom and I were continuing our "Camelot-athon" by watching "A Kid in King Arthurt's Court" and "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" (with Bing Crosby).  Really getting into the Medieval spirit of things!

The night ended pretty late, of course, with me getting Maddie around 11:30, and everyone getting to bed super quickly.  We've got church tomorrow morning.  It's been a great day though. 

Earlier, we were all at Team Edge practice, including Nate and Maddie - so their day was pretty long!  But I don't think they'd trade it for anything.