Salmon started their school year two weeks late due to an outbreak of COVID at the end of the summer last year, and as a result, they extended their schoolyear two weeks into June this year to make up that time in the classroom! We all knew it was coming, and we all dreaded it--we wished they'd converted those days into virtual learning days on Fridays throughout the year to make it up, but alas that didn't happen. Kanyon and I were out of school in Mud Lake for the Memorial Day weekend, so after we moved back home to Salmon for the summer, it was hard for Josh and the boys because it felt like summer should already be starting, but they still had to go to school (and drive school bus) for two more weeks. It made for a much shorter summer!
The one nice thing was that since I was home, I could go to all their end-of-year banquets and activities. Wednesday June 2 was the track banquet and the awards assembly. Thankfully, they did the format of the awards assembly the same way they did it last year--they read all the award recipients over the radio! Josh and I really dislike the way they hold the end-of-year awards assemblies in Salmon. They are SO long, and such a waste of time, due to the way they make the kids enter the award area from one side only. Seriously, every time we've gone in the past, the event is 3+ hours!!! We were so grateful they changed its format due to COVID, and kept it that way this year, too! They handed out all the awards at school the next day, and I meant to take a picture of the boys with their awards, but I never got around to doing it! I seriously just finally put the stack of awards away a few days ago!
Anyhoo...I did make it to Micah's track banquet that evening. It was held at the city park, and they had a burger bbq and then gave out awards. I sat with Craig & Wendy Oswald, and I was having a good time...until the awards were given out. They completely forgot to give Micah an award. As soon as all the kids were recognized, and had received the awards, and the coach was doing his final announcement, I yelled out to the coach about the oversight. He said it was all Coach Burgess' fault, because he was in charge of the awards, but he'd left the banquet early to go read the academic awards at the radio station, and had left the banquet early. Anyway, Coach Garrett had Micah come up and shook his hand and gave him a pin for his Letter for participating in the sport.
The high school music department didn't have an end-of-year concert and awards night like usual; instead, they hosted their Swing Night on Friday, June 4 as their year-end event. Due to COVID, they didn't have a Christmas concert this year, or a play, or have their Swing Night in February like usual, so they just postponed that event until the end of the schoolyear and it replaced the concert instead. The choir sang a few songs, and then the dance floor opened up, and dinner began, and then the band played several songs, and there were tons of individual performing musical numbers, too, while people danced. I was irritated because during the choir songs at the beginning, there was a family sitting behind us whose kids kept playing with balloons and making noises, and since we were all sitting in the gym, it was already hard to hear the music. It was the first live concert the students had had all year, and all I could hear was the kids messing with the balloons behind me! I even asked them to please hold the balloons still during the song so everyone could hear, but the mom never made the kids stop, so they didn't, and it was bugging me! So when the dance began and the band started playing, we moved to sit at a corner table away from that family, but it didn't matter because those same kids ran around the gym, and my table, all night popping balloons and continuing to have no respect for the performers! The teacher inside me just kept wanting to tell those kids what to do, but it wasn't my place, and eventually Josh and I just left early because I wasn't enjoying myself like I should've been.
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| My boys look so handsome! |
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| those dang balloons... |
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| Jonah was in the choir this year AND the band. He played trumpet again. |
The last week of school (the 2nd week of June), Jonah and Micah missed completely because they both attended Boys State in Boise. The year that Josh attended, it was held at Gowan Field. It hasn't been held there in 20+ years, but surprisingly, it was held there again this year since the college campuses were not open to rent due to COVID regulations. Boys State wasn't held last year, also due to COVID, so there were boys who would've attended last year that actually came this year, as well as boys who were invited to attend this year: so there were both high school Junior and Senior attendees. There was a large amount of boys from Salmon who attended this year: Jonah, Micah, Nathan D, Tyler H, Wyatt P, Garrett R, Erik O, Riley B, and Carson M. That's a whopping 9 in all--I don't think Salmon has ever sent so many in a single year before! Josh and I drove the twins to get on the Boys State Bus in the wee hours of the morning on Sunday, June 6. We left at 4am, so they could get on the bus at Pocatello at 7am.
I picked them up in Boise at the end of the week, and watched their graduation ceremonies on Friday, June 11 (the same day as Salmon High School graduation). We spent the night in a hotel in Boise afterwards, had breakfast with their Boise cousins on Saturday morning, and then drove back to Salmon. The Boys State Bus wasn't scheduled to leave Boise until 10pm, and we would've had to pick them up in Idaho Falls at 3am or something, and there was no way I was pulling an early morning like that twice in one week!
Boys State was a good experience for them, but neither one of them truly loved it. They liked meeting new people, and they loved the opportunity to go to lunch with Uncle Gideon and see his office one of the days they were visiting the capital, but it was a LONG week with late nights and early mornings and lots of expectations and meetings! Micah's job was County Sanitation Manager, and Jonah's job was House of Reps.
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| Jonah and Micah's cities were in the same county |
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| Breakfast at IHop with Lexi & Maddie |
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