The last month has been a bit of a ride. 4th quarter is always my favorite because we are learning about different continents, which is the most interesting material we teach, and I know the kids so well and everyone's anticipating summer and feeling sentimental and happy. I loved our class so much this year and it was hard to let them go. We had a great project share with the kids' "commercials" for their continent, which were so cute, and this year we did a superlative ceremony and talked about each kid in front of their families, which was so sweet.
The last day came and went, starting with the kids going around and answering the question, "What was your favorite thing about kindergarten", with a few saying it was making the videos, one saying it was staring at a bolt on the wall during quiet time, and the rest adorably saying it was having the best teachers in the whole wide world or getting hugs from us or learning from us. So, so sweet. It ended with tons of hugs and just like that, it was the end of kindergarten and, though I'll see most of them in the hall next year, it won't ever be the same. After the kids left, we had our traditional staff assembly to recap the year, give special thanks/shout outs to each other, and celebrate things. This year I got a special pin for being there 5 years, along with the folks in the photo above. Then there were lots more hugs as most of us said goodbye for the summer and I had to say goodbye for much longer to my teacher Jeanine (second from the left above) who has now moved to Florida. I loved working with Jeanine so much and it was really sad to see her go. She taught me a lot about how to have good class management and how to go a little easier on myself, and we just had a lot of fun. I think we could have been even better friends had she stuck around longer, but I haven't had much social time this year and I thought we had many years. Next month, I'll go back to school for the first two teacher workdays before leaving for Kenya, and I'll have to work on getting to know the new teacher, who is a sub I have worked with a few times.
We had been spending so much time working that we felt like we needed to do some fun things with the kids, so we took almost everyone (Julia wasn't feeling great) to ParTee Shack and had a great time, then took everyone to Outback and Barnes & Noble the next night.
Allie has made friends with the dogs in the neighborhood and their owners (mostly grandparent types) and over the last couple months has gotten to know some visiting grandkids of neighbors. She has a great time with June when she comes and even went to a goat farm with her one weekend.
This was a fun comparison of Joshua and Allie's omelet making abilities. A few nights we have had to have the kids cook, due to too much going on with meetings, the house, even Joshua having trouble with his truck one night on the way home from Raleigh.
Matt and I had a day of being away from home one Saturday, visiting a church friend in the hospital and going to a sweet vow renewal ceremony of another church couple. It was a real blessing to hear how God has been their help and hope in their 25 years of marriage.
All of us but Joshua got to run up to Asheville for the day and meet my cousin Clarke's new twin babies and visit with Aunt Cheryl and Kyung Mi and Jude. The twins are so adorable and a lot of work! So glad to get to be a part of their rare visit.
We officially had the last Orange lacrosse event- the end of year awards dinner. This year there was fishing and barbecue and of course just socializing. Gray was given the sportsmanship award, which was very nice for him.
Gray had another last- the last meeting of FCA- combined with a first- the first time he spoke at FCA. He shared briefly about when Jesus washed the disciples' feet. I was surprised and proud he was brave enough to do that!
Our family (minus Joshua at work), plus the grands (GrandGene in his Wolfpack gear) headed to Gray's graduation at the Dean Dome on Friday the 13th...almost more than Daddy could handle. It was pretty short like Joshua's ceremony. We took a few quick pictures and headed home to finish getting ready for the party.
The graduate!
Cheering crew
We had a triple graduation party for Gray, Peter, and Will, which was so fun. Gray liked the corn hole tournament we did for Joshua last year and the Mussers graciously agreed to host. We had a lot of family and friends and great food and some really exciting rounds of corn hole.
Joshua and Alden were runners up and Gray and Will won, after a particularly hard fought semi final game against one of Gray's Younglife leaders and a friend of Will's. It went back and forth many times before they won!
Hunter and Matt with their 3rd place prizes- puffed corn and corn nuts.
Gray and Will with their 1st place prizes- strawberry banana rings and actual ears of corn.
The day after graduation, we did some work on the house and packed up for our family vacation to Shenandoah National Park. Julia drove several hours of the way there and back and we were so glad it was a smooth ride with hardly any traffic. (Not pictures, but just below Joshua is Rum!)
The day we arrived, it was cloudy and rainy. We went through the park on the way to our airbnb and had a picnic lunch at an overlook-- which wasn't much to look at!
Then we did a rainy walk to a waterfall, which we weren't quite sure if we found or if this was just a smaller one on the way to a big one. It was a looong way back up, though, so we were fine with calling it good enough, except for Gray, who would have gone on a lot further and loved exploring on his own, popping up around the corner on a rock or in a tree when we caught up to him.
After the hike, we drove on and found a few overlooks that had a little more of a view. Then we headed to the airbnb, which was situated between farms and the river. Rum was thrilled to be able to run around "like a real dog" and Joshua loved being able to fish right out the back yard. They had a basement with ping pong, pop a shot, corn hole, and nerf guns, and we had fun playing down there too- especially Allie, who would often ask Joshua to go do "basement stuff".
Also at the caverns was a hedge maze that was much harder than it looked. The kids especially liked this activity.
The actual caverns were HUGE. Very cool to see and almost like clouds, the way you could imagine the formations as different objects. My favorite was the "lake", which was so clear that you'd swear there were formations coming up from the ground, but it was only a reflection.
That afternoon, some tried out the part of the river right behind our house. We dropped off Gray, Julia, and Matt in tubes down the road and Joshua with his fishing stuff and kayak. Then Allie and I went back to the house to flag them over as they came down the river. Matt and Gray made it out just fine, but Julia couldn't paddle to the edge because the current was too strong and Matt had to rescue her and help her get out. It was a little touch and go there for a minute! Meanwhile, Matt sent me back to alert Joshua not to come down on the kayak and lose his fishing stuff in the current. I had to get passersby to intercept Joshua a little downriver and send him back, which was difficult for him to do even in the seemingly calm part of the river. He eventually left his fishing stuff with me and went down in the just the kayak.
The next day, we had a raft trip booked. The company was only a few miles away by river, but to get there by car it took 25 minutes or so. We headed out on a pretty morning and it was so nice to be on the river just taking in the views and mostly being carried along by the water, which they said was really high and fast. This part of the river doesn't have white water, but we enjoyed pretending the ripples were big rapids and trying to steer into the whitest part. The most exciting part was when Joshua had pulled out his fishing gear and was reeling in a fish as we were trying to coordinate paddling over some big ripples.
Our crew was a little split on feelings about this trip. One was worried about safety and getting us to paddle well and in sync, some were concerned with having the most fun by going through the wildest parts, one just wanted to catch a fish, one just wanted to catch a tan, and some were just along for the ride. We had a 12 mile section of the river to cover till we would be picked up and thought it was so cool to pass our airbnb at mile 5! We also enjoyed getting out at mile 8 for a picnic lunch. Not as cool (but pretty cold), was the downpour that came upon us at the last section. By the end, we were all ready for a warm shower (though some of us only got a cold one) and some quiet time apart!
Discontent with our sunset views the night before and wanting an actual sunset hike, Gray picked out this "rock scramble" called Bearfence for us to do. It was another short hike so no one complained about the being tired and it was fun to climb up several series of rocks. First we thought we found the top and took "falling off mountain pictures" and everything. But then Gray noticed people across the way and higher up on a rock, so we followed him to an even bigger rock scramble with the most amazing 360 degree views. We took more pics...and even more pics. We sat and took it all in. We chatted and ate M&M's. It was beautiful and we loved it...though Matt was a little nervous about climbing back down in the dark and didn't want to sit all that time. We made it down without even needing the flashlights we brought or seeing any snakes or bears, and made the drive back to the aribnb, happy and tired.
It was a great trip, with so much beautiful nature to take in everywhere we went. As always, the hardest part is coming back to reality- to unpack, clean up, go to the grocery store, and for this trip, we came back to more little things to do on the new house, though we are getting very close to being done! Not pictured, but after being home a day, I headed to Mars Hill with Gray for his orientation day. It's a beautiful location and I was happy to get to see where he will be the next 4 years. Everyone's really friendly and ready to support the students well, so I'm really thankful for that and hope he will love it. Next up this summer will be our move and then our Kenya trip. It's going to be eventful!
No comments:
Post a Comment