AHS Homecoming - September 2024

I'd sort of kept myself in denial about A being in high school through the start of the school year. Most of her activities hadn't really begun yet, so it didn't really hit me that she was catching the high school bus, not the middle school bus. I'm even on the school board for our town, and even though we would talk about the high school, there was still some weird logical/emotional disconnect about it. What changed all of that, though, was Homecoming. Woof, I was not prepared for the emotional toll it took realizing that we were prepping for Homecoming, going Homecoming dress shopping, making plans with her friends for events before and after Homecoming. High school Homecoming. It looked me in the eye at every turn, and it hit like a ton of bricks that my baby is going to be going to college in a few short years.

Below are some photos I took of her group of friends from that day - I offered to do photos for the group at Prairie Moon Winery to thank the parent who was holding a get-together where they could all get ready, and then another for taking them all to Perkins after the dance. At the high school. Where they attend school.

Here are just a very few of the photos. One thing that I find notable - when A was born, her name was pretty rare. According to the Social Security data for the state of Iowa, she was one of only four girls with her name born that year, so the odds of her getting to ever meet one of the others was pretty low... except it turns out that one of them is in her class, and has become a good friend of hers, and is in the photos below. I like statistically unlikely events like that.

We were to meet at the winery at a certain time, and everyone else was late. I'm obsessively early and I always try to be chill about it, but people being late is one of my biggest pet peeves. I try to not be a jerk, but inwardly it sort of makes me seethe. To try and be calm and not upset the girls during their day, I took some photos around the winery. This wasp and fly scavenging grapes were pretty awesome.

This might be a little underexposed, I may need to edit further.

I was pretty insistent on sunset - and it worked out perfectly for photos.

There's a wasp in this photo, too. I have a bit of a wasp phobia, but have been trying to master it by taking photos of them.

We had a bunch of wasps get into our siding after the hail storm a couple of springs ago, and I called three different exterminators before they were gone. One of them came into our garage and somehow died mid-flight and perfectly preserved, so I learned how to taxidermy him and now he is hanging on the wall in my bathroom. I gloat over him every day. Here is one of his kinsmen on that same bundle of grapes.

A, her bestie H, and their friend L.

I can't believe how beautiful she looks here. So grown up. Almost like a high schooler.

When A was little, she used to get mad at us about us passing down curly hair when everyone else straightens it. We've discussed a ton over the years how to embrace yourself, be a curly girl in a straight hair world - and she has grown into that. And look at that gorgeous curl.

A and her best friend H.