May 25 - 2026 Grad!

May has been non-stop for all the kids but Julia has been going full force with senior activities and work. 

Senior Walk! The graduating seniors have the opportunity to go to their elementary schools and walk through the hallways. Jillian was so excited to see Kendall and Julia! 

Senior Reception! The elementary school had a reception for graduating seniors and they got to talk to their fellow graduates and their elementary school teachers. Julia was excited to see her old friend Reem.

Senior Sunset! The seniors started the year with 'Senior Sunrise' and ended the year with 'Senior Sunset' the night before graduation.

Graduation 2026! Graduation was Friday night from 8pm-10pm. Approx. 650 graduates in a 2h ceremony at our football stadium. We had a gorgeous evening and it wasn't even that hot. Congrats class of 2026!

After graduation, Candice and I drove directly to Main Event for Project Graduation. I'm the treasurer for PG and had to check-in students and then Candice and I were also responsible for prizes. PG has been an insane amount of time over the last 9 months but we raised over $50k and it was a great night. Julia even won one of the prizes, new Apple Air Pods! Julia and I got home at 5.45am Saturday, just as JD, Luke and Jillian were leaving for a swim meet. What a weekend!

May 20 - Comedic Clowns

The NPE talent show was last week. There were some great performances including singers, dancers, gymasts, cheerleaders and even some kids playing instruments. But my favorite act? The fabulous trio of Jillian, Adelyn and Guinevere doing a comedic clown routine with balloon animals! They were so cute and funny! Jillian was slipping all over the stage-I'm still not sure if it was acting or not-but they were hilarious!

Love these girls 

May 14 - GT Showcase

The GT Showcase was last week and Jillian showed us her third grade project-sphero robots! The kids learned to code and she had fun showing us a few different programs, including clapping to make lights disappear and a Magic 8-Ball program. She was so proud of her hard work and she reminded me a little bit of a mini-Luke. Congrats Jillian!

 

 

May 12 - Is It Normally this Busy?

The 3rd grade field trip was last Friday at Space Center Houston. SCH opens at 10am and I was shocked to see a crowd of close to 500 (my estimate) waiting in line around 9.45am when I arrived. It's been awhile since I've been to SCH but I don't recall it resembling rope drop at Disney. When I bought my ticket I asked the customer service rep if it's normally that busy and she was "I've never seen this many people here before." The kids arrived and we waited in a huge line of field trippers and eventually made it in. Jennifer and I were paired with Jillian, Adelyn and another girl from their class. It was crowded but the girls had so much fun. Jillian was really into reading the map (the whole time). The girls did a rocket activity where they colored rockets, scanned it in a machine and then their unique rocket appeared on a huge screen launching. After that, we took a tram to Rocket Park to see the Saturn V rocket. 

After Rocket Park, lunchtime! There were two pavillions outside and it was so packed, the 3rd grade teachers had been standing by for hours with coolers trying to reserve space for our kids to eat. After lunch, we headed back inside. The girls tried space food (ice cream, reactions were mixed), walked through a mock shuttle and watched part of a space documentary. It was a crazy busy day (activity and people wise) but Jillian has already asked to go back. And in terms of the volume of people-turns out SCH was closed Tuesday and Thursday due to a water issue so all of those field trips were moved to Friday. They had over 2.7k field trippers not including teachers, parent chaperones and regular visitors. Crazy!

Field Trip Fun

May 10 - FIRST World Championship

FIRST Robotics 2026

Total teams worldwide: 3,724

Total teams qualified for worlds: 600 (top 16%)

The world championships were held in Houston last week. This was a true world competition with teams from all over the US, Turkey, China, Australia, Mexico, Switzerland, Canada, Israel, Brazil, India and more. The teams were divided into 8 different divisions:

*Archimedes

*Curie

*Daly

*Galileo

*Hopper

*Johnson

*Milstein

*Newton

Each division had 75 teams competiting.

The event was held at the George R Brown Convention Center and they had 8 fields set up down the center in a row with bleachers surrounding the fields. Day 1 (Wednesday) was practice matches. Days 2 and 3 (Thursday and Friday) were qualfication matches. And day 4 (Saturday) were division finals and the grand finale: Einstein. The goal? Make it to Einstein. 

The Robonauts were in the Johnson division and the competition started off very rough. During practice matches, the intake broke twice. Each team has a "pit" (similar to a mechanic shop) to fix things and the pit was BUSY during this competition in between matches. On Thursday, during qualification matches, the robot had various issues. Match 1: the zip tie holding the battery pack snapped and the battery fell out. Match 2: intake broke again. Match 3: belt broke. Match 4: instake was clogged.

The robot had no issues at the Denver regional or states so worlds was a bad time to start having issues but the team stepped up to the challenge and finished the qualification rounds strong. They made it to divisions and won the quarterfinal and semifinals as the underdogs in those matches. The lost in the Johnson division final but considering their robot, I think they did fantastic and should be very proud! Top 8% at this competition and top 1% in the world is pretty awesome. They also won the Industrial Design Award for the Johnson division. The Industrial Design Award celebrates the team whose robot best demonstrates industrial design principles, striking a balance between form, function, and aesthetics.

I am so proud of Luke and all the Robonauts. 

Robot Reveal

May 2 - Senior Awards & Choir Concert

Our months of craziness officially kicked off last week with senior awards, Orcas, choir concert, field day and robotics world champships. For this blog post we'll focus on the award ceremony and concert. 

The senior awards were held at the high school last Monday. Julia received the summa cum laude award. To receive this award students must have an average of 5.0 or higher. This is essentially a straight A average in honors/AP classes and approx. 12% of the graduating class received the award and cords. Congratulations Jules!!!

Thursday was the end of year choir concert. We started the morning at 7.30am with Jillian asking me "Where is my choir shirt?" and..I think I accidentally donated it during spring cleaning but she was able to borrow a shirt from Adelyn's older sister and made it work. The kids sang several songs and were so cute up there. She had so much fun and went out for ice cream afterwards with Adelyn's family. 

Choir Fun