First Banquet & Fireflies

 In the 8th grade, there is an etiquette curriculum (how to use your manners with the opposite gender, how to eat with the utensils properly etc) and at its conclusion, there is a banquet.  With Covid, we weren't sure if it would be allowed but they determined that with social distancing on the bus, masks etc that they would allow the banquet to move forward.

With that in mind, it was time for Zachary's first ever suit!  We went shopping with his lifetime friend Blake and daytime mom Jennifer to Nordstrom Rack.  Thankfully, Zachary is an off-the-rack size, so this was actually a very quick shopping experience - in fact, the mannequin was wearing the outfit that we ended up going with! :)

See what we mean about lifetime - jennifer found this picture from when Addison was under a year old - look how little Blake and Zachary are! And where did our little baby girl go - she is so big now!!

We really weren't even sure what size he was, so we had to do some on the spot fitting!

Behind their masks, the boys weren't super excited to be shopping - they aren't big shoppers but their Moms like to shop! :)

How can it be that he is so big and graduating from 8th grade this year and a very first banquet!  Too much!

After finding the suit, the next step in our process was to teach Zachary how to tie a tie.  Thankfully, he caught on very quickly and it turned out later to be a blessing (more pictures below) that he mastered it so easily.

After putting on his tie, Addison desperately begged him to dance with her seeing as he was "dressed up".

The day of the banquet, they ended school at noon in order to have time to get ready, so Jennifer picked up Zachary and Blake and they went out for lunch at PF Chang's and then over to Blake's house.  Zachary adamantly refused to ask a date to the banquet (much to Amy's chagrin) so he didn't have to get a corsage or anything, but Blake had asked a girl to go with him so they picked that up while out eating.

While spending the afternoon at Blake's, Blake's dad had to leave and Blake didn't know how to tie his tie, so Zachary came to the rescue!  So sweet!

And then he came home to get ready himself quickly.  As he didn't have a date, he didn't have to go take pictures with his date early so he had more time to get ready himself.

And voila, here is our handsome son (yes, we're biased) all dressed up!

We headed off to school where they did take pictures with his friends, which was really fun to see them all dressed up.

Aiden, Cristian, Zach, Luke and Blake

When Zach returned that night, he reported that he'd had a great time and really enjoyed himself with his table.  He said with Aiden, Adrian, Braelyn and another girl (there wasn't a 6th girl at the table) and he said they talked the whole time and laughed etc.  So it sounded like a positive experience!

In other news, we had a fun group outing to the Kelly Blue Springs park where we got to see fireflies.  They are only here about a month each spring, so it was fun to see a childhood memory - and the kids don't often see them, so that was really a special event - thanks to our friend Heather for organizing it!

Beautiful sunset on the water

What a nice picture of Lyle and Mom - they joined us

The white dots are the fireflies 😀

It was Js, Cs, Zs, Mom & Lyle, and the Senior Cochrans.  Hard to see in the picture.  Zach stayed at a friend's house - fireflies didn't compete with friends his own age! :)