Alyssa's Graduation from Avenue Five Institute

A Month Overdue...

Alyssa chose to graduate early, a couple of months after she turned 18, so she could go straight into a Cosmetology Program. After looking around, she chose Avenue Five: A Vidal Sassoon School.  Only about 12 exist in the USA, so it's a fairly prestigious school.  She learned so much there over the 10 month program. The way it works, time wise, is that you have to complete certain tasks, and 1500 hours of work. She quickly learned that keeping lunches to 30 minutes, and coming in a little early, would help click the time off more quickly. And, in spite of being really tired some days, she didn't want to take a hit with regard to her hours. She pressed on. I was so impressed! It was such a different experience from when she went to high school and was leaving early, sleeping late - I think her attendance rate (according to those nasty truancy notes) was about 65%. But juxtapose that with THIS experience - her attendance rate was 104%!!!

Because of this attitude, she was able to shave some time off. She and several of her friends graduated early from this program too. She was in the first week/wave of graduates from the people who started at the end of June 2011.

Graduation Pre-Parties

Happy Hour before the Graduations start

with Paige

Britney & Alyssa

The soon-to-be graduates went out to Hula Hut at Lake Austin. It would be one of the last times for them all to hang out together. Some were going to finish school and get a job in Austin, others would be moving away as soon as they graduated.  Even though some of the months felt like the program was never going to end, when it started winding down to the final weeks, everyone was feeling the bittersweetness of graduating.

Graduations Begin!

On the week of April 23-27, Alyssa's friend Roxy would step up to be the first to graduate. Each day after her, Callie, Robin and then Alyssa would reach their 1500 hours and the graduation would start. Sabrina graduated a week or so later, and Alyssa ran up there to be sure that she could bear witness to her friend's success! 

Callie, Robin, Roxy, Sabrina, Alyssa

Roxy's Graduation

Roxy's Graduation...hugging Alyssa goodbye

Her Little Group: Callie, Robin, Roxy, Alyssa, Sabrina

Alyssa's Graduation Day: 
April 27, 2012!

Sabrina working on Alyssa's hair

At Avenue Five, as the student approaches their final day in the program, they're able to have take advantage of all kinds of services there for free: Facials, hair treatments, final hurrah's before they're done with school.

Sabrina working on Alyssa's curls

Alyssa went up to school around 10 a.m. She only needed to be logged in a couple of hours to complete her 1500 hours. She had spent her days earlier in the week having facials, etc.. Today, Graduation Day, Sabrina agreed to do her hair.
I had gone over to the Party Store to get a big balloon, a small graduation cap/hair band, and some vinyl letters to go on her car saying, "Congrats!" and "#1 Graduate". I needed Sabrina's help to get Alyssa's car keys since these stickers had to be done from the inside. Alyssa had brought coffee for her friends that morning and parked in the back. Sabrina handed me her keys and the twoof us started putting the decals on the car. We were almost done when Alyssa came out to the back where people were gathered at the picnic tables. Glancing over at her car, I could hear her saying, "Who's in my car?" BUSTED. Oh well, we finished the job anyway and she just shook her head.

After I was done with my botched nearly stealth car decorating, I went back to pick up Grandma and Josh to join us for the Graduation.  Sabrina was just taking down Alyssa's hair when we arrived. Ron met us there and we were all ready.

Josh & the Graduate

with Grandma

With Grandma (Redo!)

We brought Tres Leches Cake into the break room, and spoke briefly to several of Alyssa's teachers. They all talked about how impressed they were with her. She was the 2nd to the youngest in the entire program. And here she was graduating a month early! She had a 104% attendance rate (compare that to her 64% attendance rate when she went to High School). Clearly, she wanted this.  Her grade average was 94. The teachers said she learned quickly, was great with customers, and they really enjoyed working with her.  They all predicted that she would do great in the industry.

By all standards, she was wildly successful at this.

Unbelievably comfortable in front of everyone :)

Giving her speech to the student body

So the time came and it was Alyssa's turn to graduate.  It's interesting how they "do" graduations at Avenue Five. When the graduate has crossed the 1500 hours mark, one of the head teacher/administrators rings a giant bell and shouts, "We HAVE a GRADUATE!" At that point, all of the students and faculty stop what their doing, begin clapping, and head the to the hallway. Once everyone has arrived, including the family, and lined both sides of the hall, the graduate makes the final walk toward the time clock to "clock out" for the last time. Usually, they run! When Alyssa did, the other students threw confetti on her as she did. Then there's this pause, and everyone applauds as the Graduate returns down the hallway to make her speech. And, in Alyssa's case, more confetti. She thanked her family - and got a little teary with us. Then she moved on to her friends who had come back to watch her graduate as well as her friends from the other classes. She spoke to each teacher, thanking them and reminding them of some little shared experience. I was completely shocked at her ability to do this. All week long I kept nudging her, asking her if she needed to prepare something to say. I had flashbacks of when *I* had to speak at various functions as I was growing up - times when I froze or just couldn't do very well. She kept brushing me off, saying she'd just wing it.  I had been there for several speeches in the past. Most were very brief and the graduate was clearly uncomfortable speaking in front of a group.  Not Alyssa!  She did go to the store to get some Thank You notes - she wanted to write to each teacher that she really liked. That might have helped her bring some ideas to the front of her head, but she did great! She was so comfortable and just talked - to the entire student body. She was a Natural public speaker.

And, here's Alyssa's Graduation Speech. She told Josh she didn't want him to record it, so he quickly handed the phone off to me. It was just aimed in her general direction, but turned out good.

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*Be forewarned that this starts out LOUD! It's the students throwing confetti 

and cheering for her as she runs for the time clock!

Lots of Hugs...

After the speech, everyone hangs out to hug the graduate. It's very sweet. I'm sorry so many of these were blurry, because they were so nice to Alyssa. I'm going to include them anyway!

   

Little Reception after the Speech...

Tres Leches Cake after the Speech

Tres Leches Cake - "Happy Graduation Alyssa!
                          YOU DID IT!"

Roses from Josh




               Alyssa's friends came in for cake and we hung out there for a little bit. 


       Afterwards, we went to Hyde Park Bar and      Grill for  dinner. From there, Alyssa met Roxy 
and Sabrina for Happy Hour...somewhere. 


What a great day!! I'm so proud of her!

Like her Graduation Cap?

The 2 youngest students! Alyssa and LaurenV

Robin, Ms. Linda, and Alyssa

SCHOOL FRIENDS

Callie joking around with Alyssa

Dinner at Hyde Park Bar & Grill with Our Graduate

Friday Family Update

even though I'm not getting around to it until the weekend!


Alyssa
Tonight was a Fashion Show at Avenue Five. Alyssa did one when she first started as an "Avenue 1", and now as she's finishing up "Avenue 3", she's did another. Ron, Josh, Grandma and I all went. It was loud and fun and the stylists did great work. At the end, the stylists walked the runway with their models.  Fun evening!
Another biggie for Alyssa this week is that her school held a Mock State Board Test.  They all had to go through various procedures with no assistance from teachers or communicating with each other. They worked on a mannequin for most of it, but had to use each other to be checked off on "Nails". They did a manicure, a facial, a chemical, a color, a cut. She was really nervous because they tried to make it as similar to the real State Boards as possible. All serious. No talking. She doesn't really like the First Run of anything. She prefers to sit back, take it all in, THEN take her turn. She didn't get to do it like that this week though.  But...she passed with a 90!! I'm impressed! And by the end of the week, she received a card in the mail saying she's eligible to go take her State Boards.

Katie

Katie's been super busy with classes this week. And she added in rehearsals for her show next week (Feb. 17th).  It sounds like it's going to be wonderful.
She learned how to make her first Pork Chops in the Crock Pot recipe! Success! I think she's going to try Spaghetti next.
We've decided that she can come home for Spring Break. All of her friends are going to be gone, so it will be better. She wants Alyssa to trim her hair, so that will work out too. We're going to postpone taking the trip to LA over spring break. We'll just wait to do it in May. Pam's friends have been checking out various places that Katie finds online. Then they give the Thumbs Up or Thumbs down signal.

Michael
Michael is learning why Nicaragua needs Peace Corps volunteers to help them teach English - the teachers there have a lot of resistance to it. They just don't think anything will work. The Peace Corps is starting to lean toward the concept of focusing on the Learner instead of the Teacher...so that's a good start. He is really enjoying his new living arrangements though. They stay up late asking questions about the program, his life, etc. All in Spanish - so he's going to get really good. The other house had several English speakers, so the others would often defer to them, and Michael wouldn't get much Spanish practice. Not here though! The only pitfall is that there is no meat in this house, they simply don't have the money for it. Nor is there much in the way of fruits and veggies - just rice and beans. So Michael is going to use his weekly money to help subsidize the food there.  He also told me that he and Kathya are getting very serious about each other. They are going to work on getting her Visa so she can come with him for Alyssa's wedding in April 2013.

Ron
The Sonogram showed no mass, no real structural problem to note. But why he's at 40% on his kidney function...? He has an appt. with the nephrologist on Monday. He's having no pain now. He's also thinking it could be from that really hard fall he had in a hockey game a month or so ago. Possible.

Sue
Nothing new this week for me other than the big Police Operation in our neighborhood on Friday night. Helicopters overhead shaking the walls. Police cars everywhere, talking over their loudspeakers - not that I could understand them. And then as quickly as they arrived, they left for the next neighborhood over. And within the hour, it was all silent again. A weird night in Suburbia!

Out and About

I was asked if we used the community much with regards to how the kids learned.
. Short answer: Yes. Long answer (and I mean LONG)...read this: 

One of the BEST reasons to homeschool is the ability to get out into the community with your children during the daytime.  Lines are shorter. There are way less crowds to deal with.  Plus, you and the kids will have so much more energy to go off exploring in the daytime, instead of waiting until they've already done 8 hours of school and trying to wedge it in those oh-so-short after school hours.

But maybe you're wondering just what community outings I'm talking about. With three very different kids, we’ve had a lot of different experiences.  And, since the Air Force moved us several times, we had the opportunity to discover more cool activities in new communities. Now that my kids are grown, we can wander back down memory lane and see some if any of these ideas might inspire you!

We started homeschooling in Alaska. The kids played in a hockey league and a Coaches Pitch baseball league. They tried Indian Princess and started in Girl Scouts and Cub Scouts.  Each of the scout troops took them out into the community, especially for service. All three joined the Sunshine Generation, a group that sang and performed in parades, malls, nursing homes. We went to the start of the Iditarod, and followed our neighbor who was mushing. We helped our friends with their 14 sled dogs and went on the trails with them mushing. We ice skated at the mall, took monthly classes at the Eagle River Nature Center, the Anchorage Museum, and the Imaginarium (a hands-on Science museum). AND, we got to stay as long as we wanted instead of being hustled back into the bus after just dipping our toes in those different explorations. Our veterinarian let us watch our cats be spayed and declawed. We learned about how the cat's body works, including how quickly their pads pink up when the oxygen level is increased. We went to the Earthquake Museum and talked to people who lived through the Quake of '62. We saw baby polar bears at the Zoo, bald eagles at Homer Spit, and penguins at Seward. We swam at the indoor pool during the daytime, took ceramics class, went to the Opera, and listened to a Symphony. We spotted belugas and 20 foot tides in Turnagain Arm, salmon jumping in the air from the Russian River, and Native Alaskan history in Ketchikan. We picked berries in the mountains, talked to artisans in Girdwood, and pet a baby octopus who was living in a tank the Cordova Visitor Center, We went on a whale watching excursion and we survived a drunk ferry captain in Valdez. We camped and hiked and ice fished and built snow-caves. We went to Denali and saw grizzly bears. We saw black bears in our campground there! We gasped for air when we dipped our feet in the icy Chena River in Fairbanks and stopped off to hear elves working in Santa's workshop in North Pole.

 When we moved to California from Alaska, we took the Ferry, a 3 day ride. We went to the Fish Market in Seattle and hiked around Mt. St. Helen's volcano. We drove through redwoods – yes,  the forests, but also some of the trees that were big enough that cars drove through their trunks!  We picked apples in Sebastapol, saw where The Birds was filmed in Bodega Bay - and watched people's tents blow into the ocean when they couldn't withstand the wind. We got carsick on Hwy 1, touched stingrays at the aquarium and saw sea lions in Monterrey Bay.  We went to park days that lasted all day and astronomy outings that lasted all night. We camped on the beach in Santa Barbara and drank Fig Shakes on Seal Beach. We took Mad Science classes at the Library and more classes at various science and art museums nearby. A "museum pass" could get us into any museum in California – including the big ones down in San Francisco, so we went there too!  We saw Alcatraz and walked on the Golden Gate Bridge. We took a 108 foot Square Rigger named the Gaslight on the San Francisco Bay, and Michael and Ron spent the night with a group at Angel Island, reliving history. We ran the spotlight and the Tinkerbell light when Katie first started in community theatre, and often drove to Sacramento to watch Improv. We hung out at Barnes and Noble and Jamba Juice and we never missed the monthly farmer's market in Davis. We watched sheep be sheared at the county fair and took hay rides in pumpkin patches and apple orchards. We ate peaches that fell off the tree after the "shakers" came by to harvest. We smelled the almond and plum trees in bloom. We took horseback riding lessons and helped at ManMar ranch, an A & M veterinary training ranch. The kids learned about race horses, and in vitro insemination, and "crazy mares." They watched foals be born and old horses die. We helped build a barn and bought a horse. They rescued an injured Barn Owl, and saw the Raptor Center in action.  Weeks later, we went to a park and watched them release our little owl, ready to go back to the wild. We held unique birthday parties, including a “Bring Your Pet” party – even Alyssa’s Dentist and Hygienist came with their turtle and kitten! We watched Harry Potter premieres and hosted birthday parties that were totally Hogwart themed. We went to Rennaissance Faires and held Halloween parties with dry ice experiments. We hosted a Japanese Exchange student and took him to San Francisco to eat at the Bay, to ride roller coasters in Santa Cruz, and to a homeschool conference in Sacramento. We camped and hiked and learned to sail on Folsom Lake. We learned how the locks work in Lodi. We made the local news with our support group's Civil War Reenactment and we starred in a homeschool documentary.

Then we moved to a ranch in north Texas where we had horses, cows, goats, chickens, dogs, cats, birds, guinea pigs and a donkey. We had a lot of veterinary excursions with those! We participated in Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts. Alyssa even delivered Girl Scout Cookies by horseback! We saw hydroponic farming with live fish, worked in pecan orchards, ate fresh  peach ice cream in the Peach Festival in Charlie. We had air soft wars in neighboring fields, took cattle to auctions, and talked with the people on a real covered wagon train that had pulled over at the edge of our pasture. We participated in 4H which exposed us to SO many people in the community. The kids participated in elections, held offices, and met so many different people.  We bought a calf and started a cockatiel business. We birthed a calf with our neighbors. We met local news people,  were interviewed a few times for the community service projects we did, and participated in a film school offered by the public television service out of Dallas . Michael got his first job at Target and Katie got her first lead role at the community theatre. We spent a lot of time in various community theatre projects. We visited with a woman who had no running water, but collected rainwater in buckets. She was nearly 90 and could tell us about what it was like when Burkburnett was really a Boom Town and how rough the oil field workers were living in tents nearby. We handed out toys every year with the Toys for Tots program through the Salvation Army, and we organized huge blanket drives for the Linus Project. We built houses with Habitat for Humanity and worked the soup kitchens on New Year’s Eve. We went on camping trips, and rock climbed, and zip lined. We walked through emu farms, prairie dog mounds and participated in small town Christmas parties. The girls took tap and jazz and ballet and hip hop. Michael took a girl to her prom and started community college classes.

When we moved to the Austin area, we went to concerts, large and small. We continued with dance classes and theatre classes. We learned to use the bus system. We watched high wire acts at Cirque du Soleil and watched the Ringling Brothers unload elephants in the middle of town. We talked to legislators and worked on political campaigns. We learned about bats and watched them fly out from under the Congress Avenue bridge. We traveled with Alyssa's competitive cheerleading team, got involved with the SCA, and joined writing groups with NaNoWriMo.   We saw WW2 
re-enactments in Fredericksburg and we watched how fast the sun sets from the top of Enchanted Rock. We spent a lot of time hanging out with friends and their families.

Vacations were always filled with learning, whether we meant it to or not! We watched bison and geysers at Yellowstone, Revolutionary history in Alexandria, and national monuments in D.C. We explored New York City with its rich immigrant history and fascinating architecture.  We messed with the fish at a hatchery in Arkansas and danced with the jazz culture in a rebuilding New Orleans.

Their teen employment took them out in the community with jobs as cashiers  and instructors (dance, make-up, swimming lessons), baby-sitting and pet-sitting, bookstores and movie theatres,  life-guarding, house-cleaning  house-sitting, and even radio D.J.-ing.

Alyssa took on an internship with an organic make-up company. She learned to run the store, work with customers and teach Girl Scout troops. She learned to do make-up on fashion shows, walked the runway herself (once!), and assisted photographers. Her love of eyeliners and color combinations led her to a Vidal Sassoon cosmetology program where she will be paid to play with all that.

Opening up our home to the exchange student when Michael was 12, led him on a path of cultural and foreign travel. He started with his own exchange student program – 3 months in Japan at 16. He took Archaeology/Anthropology classes in Belize, and is now on an assignment for the Peace Corps. Ironically, the boy who never stepped foot in an American high school now teaches English in a Nicaraguan high school!

Katie’s love of “putting on a show!” started with backyard theatre productions with our support group kids in Davis and Dixon, Califronia.  From there, she moved  to community theatre, then to local films and commercials and now she's enrolled in a conservatory in NYC.

The point is simply that involving your kids in the community helps them discover what THEY would like to do. What adventure interests them? There’s no telling what it will grow into. While you may not have lived in as many places as we did, you could. We chose the military so I could be a stay-at-home mom. And that enabled me to get out and about and become the best tour guide around! 

Sure, when someone says, “Do you do things in the community?” or “What do you do all day with kids?”,  I just smile. My days are only limited by my stamina!   If you will just look around and be willing to drive a bit, involving your child in your community (and your neighboring communities) will be the best homeschooling choice you make.