Shae's High School Graduation - June 2016

Shae's Sweet Sixteen

Yes, I'm now the mother of a sixteen-year old. How did that happen?? Shae had a birthday weekend-long celebration. She started out by having three of her closest friends over for cake and a movie on Friday night, as well as a sleepover. The next afternoon, she met up with over a dozen other friends at the mall and they watched her current favourite movie together: Big Hero Six. After that they all went out for dinner together. Then on Sunday, my Mom & Sandy, my sister's family, and Spencer & Hannah came over for a big family birthday dinner. We had her requested meal: spaghetti and meatballs with caesar salad and apple caramel cake for dessert. She had a great time all weekend.

And no, she doesn't have her license yet but hopefully she'll feel ready to take the test within the next couple of months. I'm excited for her to be able to drive herself places soon. Sort of. And no she doesn't have any boyfriends yet either (yay!). Hannah and I keep telling her she should definitely wait until she's at least 25 before she starts dating...

She did get her braces off a couple days before her birthday so that may well have been her favourite birthday present of all. Her teeth are perfectly straight now but she has a gap where she's missing a tooth so for now she wears a retainer with a fake tooth to fill the gap until she's old enough for an implant.

Cheerleading 2013

Shae's junior high cheer team competed in three competitions this year.  The first was City Finals.  They did great but had a few deductions that cost them a lot of points and the difficulty of their routine wasn't high enough to get them the points they needed to place top three.  They had a month before the next competition and so their coach changed their routine to make it harder and they practised really hard and really polished their performance.

Here they are at the 2nd performance, at the Ross Shep cheer competition:

They performed really well and were awarded significantly more points than they were at the Cities.  I was so proud of Shae and her team for working so hard to improve.  There was some stiff competition in their division so they didn't quite make top three which was a little disappointing.

A week later was their final competition.  This was at the ice palace at WEM.

Their coach put them in a different category this time, one that was much more appropriate to the size of their team.  (Previously they were competing in the large squad division and this time she put them in the small squad division).

They gave a fantastic performance and they were awarded FIRST PLACE!!!  This was probably Shae's last cheer competition so I'm so pleased she could end on a high note.  We're so proud of you Shae, good work!