Friday, May 8, Saturday, May 9, Sunday, May 10, and Monday, May 11, 2026

Friday night was the Awards Ceremony, followed by the dance at Chase's school. When everybody first got there, Chase and his friend Brady had Mama take pictures of them in front of the balloon picture display. One picture was a normal one, and in the other one, Brady was pretending to be choking Chase. Chase said he had a good time at the dance hanging out with his great group of friends, and he said he danced once with Amelie, the girl that invited Chase to the dance. In the third picture below, Amelie is the dark-haired girl in the dark blue dress. Chase and Nanaw were surprised that she had so many activities recognized in the awards presentations. They were especially impressed that she received a perfect score in a public speaking competition. Chase's friend Joey (the one dressed in a suit and tie) also received a perfect score. On Saturday, all of Chase's tournament baseball games were rained out so he had a free day to do whatever he wanted. He played hockey in the morning in the garage, and then for lunch, he ate leftover Chinese. Then, his friend Brady came over to see him about 2:30 and stayed till 8:30, the longest a friend has ever stayed, except for sleepovers. They played hockey and ping pong and on the computer.  Mama picked up Arby's for dinner for everybody. Brady's Mom and sister Emma came over in the evening to visit for a while and to pick up Brady and his bike. The baseball tournament on Sunday was rained out so Chase, Mama and Daddy were able to go to Uncle Mike's for the Mother's Day dinner. They came to Nanaw's house to pick her up for the trip up to Uncle Mike's and brought her Mother's Day presents -- two $25 Amazon gift cards, a cedar balsam Yankee candle, and a bag of bubble gum for the bubble gum machine Uncle Mike and Aunt Becky made for her birthday. Dinner was delicious, filled with Nanaw's favorites: ribs, pork steaks, fruit salad, and Caesar salad. Uncle Mike had told Nanaw there would be green beans with bacon and onion but Nanaw never found them. For dessert, there was a huge selection of cheesecake, another of Nanaw's favorites.  Cousin Lindsey and Dylan gave Nanaw a rug they made with flowers representing her grandkids, with their initials by the flowers. They also gave her wonderful, great-smelling soap dispensers and a candle. Monday was Chase's last day of school. The third to last picture is of the table in the cafeteria that the cafeteria ladies decorated for the departing 8th graders. Chase had a science test today that he didn't study for but he didn't seem to worry or care about it because school is over! The last picture is his graduation picture the school took last week. He looks very grown-up and mature.

Thursday, May 7, 2026

Daddy brought Chase over to Nanaw’s house on Thursday morning because Mama took her car to George Weber last night to have some sealant applied. After school, after Chase finished filling out his religion study guide, Chase and Nanaw studied for tomorrow’s religion test. They only had to go through it once because Chase knew all the answers. They’ll go through it again tomorrow morning before school. Nanaw forgot to go through the material for the clam test this morning but she’ll remember religion tomorrow. Tonight was Chase’s last band concert, and the whole evening was wonderful. The second picture below is of Chase’s art project. The 8th grade students did their impression of the famous Scream painting. Chase’s looks like a ghost, and Nanaw really likes it. The rest of the pictures are Chase in the concert band and with his group of friends. One of his best friends Drew was awarded one of the awards for the best musician in the concert band. Nanaw was sad to think Chase wasn’t going to play the clarinet anymore. She remembered how he played the recorder in third grade, then moved to the clarinet in the fourth grade. The band director said that the eight graders had been great, and he was really going to miss them.

Wednesday, May 6, 2026

On Wednesday morning, Chase took his history project poster to school. He held onto it in the front seat and then carefully carried it into school. It was about the 1950s and 1960s and had a picture of a 1957 Chevy and information about Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court Justice. That’s all Nanaw can remember about what‘s on the poster but she’ll provide an update when Chase brings it home. It will go into the Chase museum downstairs in the schoolroom. However, he may not get a good grade on it because he put it in the wrong place in the classroom. The teacher told them to put their posters in a pile but Chase put his on top of a cabinet. The teacher sent an email to Chase telling him to move it but he didn’t see the email. Mama told him about it. So the teacher may lower his grade if she thinks he turned it in late. After school Chase and Nanaw studied for the clam test in science class. When he and Nanaw did the first pass through the terms, he didn’t know a lot of answers so Nanaw had him study the review guide. Then they went through the terms again and he knew most of them. They did another pass, and he knew all of them. So hopefully he’ll do well on the test. 

Tuesday, May 5, 2026

Today's dress-down theme was to dress as a celebrity. Mama came up with the idea of Chase dressing like a sports celebrity. He wore a baseball jersey, a baseball hat and an oversized necklace of yellow circles -- very cool. He said he thought the principal liked his outfit. Nanaw forgot to report in yesterday's Days of Chase post that his class finished The Hobbit, and Chase took the AR test on it and earned 16 points. His goal was 22 points, and he only had 21 so he took one of the article tests for 1 point and made his goal. He was really happy about that. After school, Chase did more work on his poster, then played games on the computer and pencil hockey in his room. Nanaw came into his room with him and read The Hobbit, trying to finish the book. She only had a few more pages to read, and she finished it in the evening. Chase doesn't think they do any reading at Gibault like he did at ICS, and Nanaw is going to miss reading books along with him. Tomorrow Chase's class is supposed to take a break from dress-down week and dress in their uniforms so they can have pictures taken for graduation. Thursday evening is the last band concert that Chase will be in. He doesn't want to be in the band at Gibault, even though Mama and Nanaw tried to persuade him to do it. It turns out that several of his friends quit band, and he just doesn't want to do it without them. Today was Daddy's birthday, and Mama baked a birthday cake for him when she got home from work. After Chase's workout, Mama was going to KFC (or Kentucky Fried Chicken as Nanaw still calls it) to get his birthday dinner. Mama was really happy about today's picture. It has Tee Ted in it with Chase instead of Truman. Most of the pictures lately have been all about Truman -- they used to be all about Tee Tee.

Monday, May 4, 2026

When Mama brought Chase over to Nanaw's house on Monday morning, she also brought along two baby photos of Chase but neither of them was really any good: one was reddish and the other was whitish. It was for a special project at school where all the 8th graders were supposed to bring in a baby picture. Mama doesn't know what they're going to do with them but as soon as she finds out, she'll tell Nanaw. Nanaw got out a big bag of photos of Chase as a baby -- hundreds and hundreds of photos Nanaw took and had printed out at Walmart. Back then, after a while, Nanaw stopped getting the photos printed out but used them in the Days of Chase posts. The first picture below shows a group of photos Nanaw selected for Chase to choose from. The second photo is the one Chase chose that he turned in. The third photo is one Nanaw found in the batch of photos of Mama, Aunt Becky from Mama's work and baby Chase. The fourth photo is Truman with his Elmo backpack, which belonged to Chase when he was little. The fifth and sixth photos are Chase and Truman with Chase's championship ring from this past weekend's Bears baseball tournament. After school. Chase worked on his poster project for history. Nanaw is not quite sure what the project is but she saw some pages with biographical material about Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice. So Nanaw needs to ask Chase what it's about. He printed out a lot of text pages and used Nanaw's paper cutter to cut them into the right size for his poster. The kids have all kinds of special projects and tests this last week of school. 

Sunday, May 3, 2026

Sunday was all about baseball for Chase, Mama and Daddy. Chase played two games in Fenton on Sunday; the first one was the qualifying game for the championship and the second was the championship game. Chase’s Bears A Team won both of the games. The game recap mentioned Chase’s performance in the third inning: “The biggest blow in the third inning was a fielder’s choice by Chase Southerland that drove in two.” The first photo below is Chase out on the field. The second photo is the championship team with Chase in the top row third from the left next to the two coaches. The third photo is Chase showing off his championship ring. He has a lot of rings and trophies from all his sports activities. He also has a lot of schoolwork ahead of him next week. It’s the last full week of 8th grade and his last full week at ICS. Homework Central says he’ll finish up The Hobbit book; have a chapter 13 test in religion; in History his WWII poster is due Monday, and his final exam project is due Wednesday; in geography, his New Zealand map is due Monday; and the slides for his English invention project are due Monday. There’s lots of work ahead for him!

Saturday, May 2, 2026

The first photo below is one that Mama texted to Nanaw about ducks. There are ducks (at least seven) in Nanaw’s neighborhood, and Mama, Chase and Nanaw are always on the lookout for them. Chase had an exciting baseball day on Saturday. He and his friend Tucker got to play on the Bears A team rather than their usual B team. And they played the team that Uncle Joe coaches and Jackson plays on, which was the most exciting thing of the day, except for the results of the two games the Bears A team played. More on that later. Mama got to visit with Aunt Jen during the game, which was fun for Mama. Aunt Jen told Mama that she was sorry that Mama would see how cranky Coach Joe got at Jackson’s baseball games. Chase’s Bears A team won both games – 13 to 6 and 12 to 1. Mama says the A team wins a lot of their games but the B team did win one of their games today so that was good.