Lacrosse, School Activities, REPEAT

That's how our last weeks went.  The boys are now in a travel league, which had a tournament at UNC the weekend before school got out plus practices. and a "play league", which just gathers to play a game and met twice the week school got out.  We were constantly packing up smelling boys and backpacks of stuff to occupy the girls that week.

During the day, there were all sorts of special events to attend and we ended up at one school or another more often than home during the day. Joshua's school does an end of year "Olympics" of all sorts of games (relays, frisbee, escape room, improv contest, American Idol, etc.).  It was complete with an opening ceremonies to rival the real deal--parade of nations (or teams with names such as "Nichol's Pickles" and "That Blue Team"), national anthem, and torch lighting.  Allie and I spent quite a bit of time hanging with Joshua's team and taking it all in.  He just really wanted me to be there...and who can say no to your nearly teenage son wanting to be with you?!

In the art room

Torch lighting

American Idol

Kona Ice truck with Joshua

Cleaning up after lunch.  Allie sat and ate with Joshua and about 8 other boys.  

Somewhere in there, I managed to tackle a project I'd been thinking of doing but dreading for years...painting our dark brown shelves, chair, and ottoman white.  Turned out to be a one afternoon/evening plus next morning project and I love the results!  The kids immediately told me they looked better brown and concurred that I had missed some spots... they clearly don't understand the distressed look.

Thursday was "Gray day".  He had his very official 5th grade graduation ceremony, which I still feel a bit cynical about because really?  He's 10.  It's elementary school.  But whatever.  At least it's not preschool graduation.  That really cracks me up.  After the ceremony they have a big party in the gym.  This year had a much different feel than last year.  I think each group of kids are just different.  These kids did a ton of beach ball playing (more like see who you can hit with the beach balls), which Gray did not tire of, and not a lot of dancing like Joshua's group.  Robyn and I managed to get the boys into the photo booth.  The last one cracks me up because Peter was yelling at Gray, "We're not doing any props!!!!!" while Gray stubbornly pulled on the llama.  So typical.  It was a fun party and a good end to the year.

The last day of school, Matt and I split forces and he attended the elementary school awards ceremonies while Allie and I supported Joshua at his awards ceremony.  By this point, Allie had been drug around to so many events, including the loooong graduation the day before in which she gave me flashbacks to our plane ride home from China, so I pulled out all the stops and let her cover herself and me with tinted sparkly lip gloss she found in my purse.  It kept her busy and quiet, so whatever!

We closed down the school year with trips to the pool and movie nights this weekend.  Sunday we also made some summer goals, which we wrote out and posted.  (I won't share them all, but Julia and I are trying to do a split by the end of summer.  Allie stretches with us and it's hilarious.  We have a LONG way to go.)  We got right to work on our goals Sunday and I was feeling good about our first real day of summer vacation today...until I got finished with work about 8:45 this morning and was thrown a reality check in the form of constantly bickering/yelling children.  I was ready to throw in the towel on summer vacation by 9:30.  Thankfully, some good chore therapy relaxed everyone and the two bickering-est kids are even planning a puppet show together.  My big check off of the day-- Allie's 2 year old photo shoot!  I started this for my mom when Joshua was 2.  I had seen professional black and white pics of the oldest grandchild Abby at 2 and thought I'd try my hand at similar poses.  Now my mom has pics of everyone but Allie so had to get hers done too.  Gosh she's cute.  Here are a few....

Anyway, I'm feeling much better now and I think we're going to make it though summer after all.  Happy Summer!

Feeling Like Summer

We just finished up a fun long weekend with the Moores and we are definitely seeing that light at the end of the school year tunnel!  We went to the pool a few times in spite of the rain, got in a hike at Occoneechee Mountain, ate ice cream downtown at Whitt's, played some cards, and did a lot of trampoline jumping.  We are ready to get these last two weeks of school down and go into summer mode!

 The last few weeks flew by...

 Our first venture into politics, led by Julia, as we manned a polling place to support her friend's mom running for school board.  Julia gave her typical range of emotions from urgent desire to know if each person that passed would actually vote for Sarah Smylie to desperate bemoaning of our lack of seating during this one hour stent.

Matt, Allie, and I spent the morning at the elementary school helping with field day.  Allie was pretty uncomfortable the first hour or so, which surprised me.  I think there was just too much activity and too many people coming in and out of our station.  But she settled in and we made it through.  Another major end of year milestone to signal that summer is coming!

 The boys had a HOT last day of lacrosse, in which they played 4 games in a row and wore themselves out.  The sisters had a great time gathering honeysuckle and playing together and- as Julia  dramatically put it- "getting through 4 whole lacrosse games".  Nevermind the hot, sweating, exhausted brothers actually playing out in the sun.  Gray took it all in stride and actually chose to stay in the sun and toss the lacrosse ball between games.  Joshua was kind of beat from the beginning, but did have some shining moments where he showed he does have the moves when he chooses to show them.

 Pool, pool, and more pool.  We have now gone quite a few times over the last couple of weeks and Allie has made it into the water in short bursts.  She still prefers snacking and lounging.

 She and I had our last week of preschool and I must say she is looking so much more grown up these days.  She had a wonderful year of school and I think it's been a great way to still give her that environment she was used to with lots of kids her age, but also keep her close to me and our days not too full.

 She loved water day, especially the shaving cream mat.  Anything that's a sensory experience and/or crafty is always right up her alley.  (Oops, no pun intended!)

Last day with my wonderful assistant Mary.  We had a great time getting to know each other over the last several months and she was an excellent assistant.  But all good things must come to an end and for preschool assistant positions, they come to an end rather quickly in my experience!  She's moving on to a full time job and new career path, so I'll be looking for another teacher for fall.

And here are more pics from our Memorial Day weekend....  Kids have more testing this week, plus a lot of extra fun stuff at school next week- competitions, parties, ceremonies, etc.  Then just like that, summer will be here!

Finishing Strong (or trying to)

The last month of school is always crazy, exciting, fun, overwhelming.  Everyone's trying to fit in last minute this and that, I'm trying to go out with a bang our last weeks of preschool, we've got sports, the pool opens, there are field trips and field day, and so on.  This year is no exception.  It's been a lot of fun and we have so much to be thankful for.  In May I am often feeling gratitude for the new/closer relationships I've developed throughout the school year with the students in my preschool class, the kids' friends, the students in whichever class I've volunteered in that year, my coworkers, teachers, friends, other parents, and this year, the Chinese kids I teach as well.  I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know so many new faces and there is a bittersweetness, as I won't see some once school/work ends.

Happenings since I last posted…

Pretty weather= flying your homemade kite

 Getting passionate about our new school board candidates.  Julia insisted on writing her vote for her friend's mom on the postcard.  She thought she was running for president and then said, "Oh yeah, I guess Lucinda would have told me sooner."

Sleepovers are the constant yearning of our kids these days…our weekends often revolve around their social time these days!

Lacrosse, lacrosse, and more lacrosse.  We are finishing up a spring league and starting a summer league at the same time.  Loving watching the boys and thankful for friends joining them to cut down on the driving and make it more fun too!

End of year means the little ones at preschool visit the big playground so I get to see Allie here and there.

Loving our yard and all the blooms.  Julia loves picking the flowers and putting them in her and Allie’s hair.

 Science night at Cameron Park!  Just me and the girls while the rest went to lacrosse, but we had a good time and enjoyed seeing some friends too.

 Mile Run Showdown for Gray.  He was in the top 15 boys in the school so he got to run in this final race.  Speedy.  Love seeing his friends by his side to cheer him on!

 Eno River visit and even Raven got to come and try to drag Matt around when she spotted a fellow canine.  Meanwhile, Joshua was enjoying two birthday parties in one day!

 Allie and a friend at church playing the piano.  We also had a nice potluck lunch and enjoyed being out in the beautiful weather and catching up with friends.  

 This past week, Gray and I got to go on his 3 day 4H camp field trip.  I was mostly looking forward to this because Matt had a good time last year and because I was tired of getting up so early and managing everything at home.  It did not let me down!  We had such a good time and were sad to see it end.  It was really interesting going to all of the classes.  I learned how to measure the height of really tall trees, how to use leaves and a classification book to identify trees, how to use a compass, classification of bugs, and more.  I think as a preschool teacher I have grow to love learning even more and I was often thinking, "I'm going to teach that to my students!"  I had time to chat with parents a good bit too on this trip.  It was good to catch up with friends I've known a few years but don't see for more than a few minutes at a time these days.  I met a few new parents and got to know Gray's teacher as well, as we shared a cabin and lots of laughs this trip.  

Our cabin held girls who were mostly from Gray's class, some of which I knew and some I didn't.  They were characters and I loved hanging out with them and watching their little personalities come out.  One brought three hairbrushes and spray that the girls insisted had made their hair grow after the first night there!  There was A LOT of hair doing in our cabin.  One was so calm and collected that she expertly squeezed out and extracted a huge and deeply buried splinter from her friend's foot that I couldn't get out.  One was always making little jokes and making everyone laugh.  A couple would get scared at night and end up sharing a tiny bed.  One girl I knew from Kids’ Night Out but haven’t seen as much lately.  She came quite often when she was in kindergarten/1st grade so it was neat to be with her and see her all grown up.

I didn't sleep too well with all the snoring, coughing, metal water bottle dropping on the concrete floor, but it was still nice to not have to wake up so early.

During the day, I was with a group of 17 boys and girls from Gray's class.  Gray loved the classes, especially the bug one and ones that required math.  The kids were pretty good and I got to know a few boys that enjoyed walking with me from place to place and talking my ears off.  I also met some new kids at meal time, when we were encouraged to sit with a variety of children.  There are some stinkers in the group, but they are still pretty nice and fun kids...just can't stop talking/moving/making chaos wherever they go.  It was nice to hear from the counselors how much they enjoyed our school's visit and that even the troublemakers were pretty respectful kids.  

The counselors also often mentioned how fortunate our school is to have so much parent support because other schools would like to do overnight trips but don’t have enough parents to come.  This reinforces my belief that using our resources well includes supporting our public schools so all kids can get a good education and have a bright future.  Should those of us parents that are better connected with more financial resources pull out of Cameron Park for schools we think are better for our kids, the school would not be able to do things like send the kids on these experiences, not to mention the stress the teachers would be under for lack of support.  It is hard to be a parent and hard to know what is right.  I am thankful things have gone relatively well for my kids so far, so that it’s not too difficult a decision to stick with our public schools.  

Gray mostly stuck with his best buddies in the group, though it was funny that towards the end he would say he didn’t want to be partners with these two because they argue too much.  Ahem.  Hopefully he was implicating himself as part of the issue!  Anyway, I convinced him to give it a try the last class and they should all just try to control their emotions a bit better.  They managed just fine as we went tearing through the woods trying to find the words to a quote taped on various trees that we had to find with our compasses.  I’m not the “tearing through the woods” kind of girl, so it was good for me to get outside my comfort zone this trip.  Truly, in spite of the bugs and snake worries and lack of sleep, I was just so happy to be there, having little to focus on but nature, relationships, and eating!  What a nice break from the day-to-day stuff.  Big thanks to Matt’s parents for keeping the other kids since Matt had to work.  Everyone seemed to manage just fine!

 And to finish off the weekend, the pool opened so we checked it out.  Some of us from farther away than others.  :)  Allie did warm up to dipping her cup in but it was much too cold for her!  

Next up, I finish my last two weeks of teaching.  Dr. Seuss, Wacky Wednesday, Water Day, FUN!  Going to miss my sweet kiddos.  Gray, Joshua, and Julia have 5 more weeks of school, filled with review, testing, field day, lacrosse, graduation (Gray), choosing next year classes (Gray's doing BAND and CHORUS!), end of school parties and award ceremonies and I'm sure lots of friend time.  We also look forward to a Memorial Day weekend visit from the Moores!!  Good times ahead.