Some Greenhalgh Family Antics.

Let me tell you two seemingly unrelated stories and then tell you the story of how they do, in fact, relate.

Story #1


On the drive back from our vacation in Alabama, we encountered this pick up truck:

Unfortunately, I didn't whip my camera out soon enough and so you can't really see the writing on the window. It says: "My son dun gradiated." Now, anytime the subject of graduation comes up in conversation, we reference "gradiation (pronounced Gra-jee-ay-shun) instead.

Story #2


My little brothers' high school offered a P.E. course this summer so that students could get the credit out of the way and have more room for electives. My biggest-little brother (he calls me his little-big sister because he's taller than me), Simon, chose to participate in this course. Basically it entailed him going to the school every day from 8-12 for three weeks. Naturally, my family decided to use this as an opportunity to mock him mercilessly. I mean...he was going to school. In the summer. How could we not making summer school jokes? Every time his class would come up, we'd make references to how he failed gym the first time and had to go to summer school to make up for it. This was all a complete lie. But we carried on anyway, because we just thought we were so funny.

On a semi-related note, "real" summer school, or should I say, Credit Camp (the school uses that euphemism to detract from the negative stigma attached to the term "summer school." Ridiculous, if you ask me.) began about a week into Simon's summer school. He came home from the first day of sharing the building with the Credit Campers and announced that they were a "rough crowd." I thought he was exaggerating in true Simon fashion, but was proven incorrect when I dropped him off the next morning and saw a line of disheveled, tattooed and pierced kids with a distinct air of apathy waiting to enter the building.

Bringing it all together:

Friday was Simon's last day of "Summer School." I woke up with the urge to bake that day and so I decided to fulfill my desire for baked goods in a way that would be a grand finale to the teasing we'd made Simon endure. So, I made this cake and presented it to him after a long, drawn out speech about how proud we were that he'd tried and tried again and finally gradiated gym class.

Please don't judge my decorating skills.
They don't exist
But the cake tasted good! 

My little buddy, all gradiated!