Last day/first day

We just finished our first full week of summer break. Here are excerpts from my journal regarding the last day of school and the first day of summer:

Wednesday, June 13, 2018: Today was the last day of school!! About time! The kids and I decided that we must be the last school district in the country to get out for the summer. I will not miss the dread morning routine in the slightest–adios daily shoe-tying ordeal, hello summer and sandals! Although I do still hope to have the kids do a daily chore, exercise, and practice piano at least 4 days a week this summer. I hope we can make it happen… This afternoon I went outside and waited for the school bus and welcomed Jay and Rose home for summer.

Jay has faced so much this year. He battled recess injustice with a well-written letter, met with the principal, and saw changes made as a result. He had a tough third grade class, full of kids who swear, bully, and act unkindly. The teacher put Jay’s desk in the middle of the rough crowd in hopes that Jay would be a good influence on them. He was good, but they were not influenced.

My sweet sensitive Jay had to deal with all of that unpleasantness every day, and he never backed down. He always had a calm reply to the rude kids. He never punched the bullies back. He firmly resisted picking up the habit of swearing. The boy was a shining light in his classroom. He refused to be dimmed no matter what those kids did. I am humbled by his goodness and courage. Jay is relieved that third grade is over! He had friends at school, but it was tough dealing with all of the other negative kids. I wish it was better, but I am glad that he has begun to learn how take a stand and stay true in the middle of a rowdy rude crowd. During the last quarter of school, he finally started remembering to turn in his homework too!

Rose loved first grade. She loves learning and activities and spending time with people, people, people, soaking in their energy with her insatiable appetite for life. She had a wonderful teacher and a positive classroom environment. She had to deal with on-again-off-again fickle first grade girl friendships, but she handled it all in her no-nonsense irrepressible Rose way. She even admitted to having her first crush on a boy in her class She mentioned her crush in passing, nonchalantly, no big deal, like “of course I have a crush, everyone has a crush. Don’t you have a crush too?”

She improved her reading till she was literally off of the charts, and started reading the Book of Mormon on her own before bed each night at the beginning of June. Grama Meri gave her a spiral bound “Book of Mormon for Young Readers” that is full of pictures and explanations. It has a lot of the verbatim verses, but totally skips the Isaiah chapters. She got glasses in April and may be the cutest little bespectacled scholar I’ve ever seen. She picked out the brightest, most colorful frames she could find and is learning how to be responsible with her glasses (no glasses on the trampoline, don’t let Amber play with them, etc.).

Rose began to master her perfectionism this year, and her meltdowns decreased in number (though the ones she does have seem to have increased in intensity…). Rose is such a fierce, vivacious, bright, determined little dear. She has a loving heart and would hug and snuggle her family all day if she could.

I love my sweet strong kids!

Bring on summer!!

Thursday, June 14, 2018: It feels way later than 9pm because today was busy and I’m all tuckered out. Jeff took Jay to swim team practice this morning at 7:30am (swim practice is from 7:30-8:30am Mon-Fri till the end of July). When they got home, I went out on a pleasant 5 mile run and when I got back, Jay was already off playing with the two neighbor boys on our street. They paused at noon to make some quesadillas at our house, and ate them on the front porch. Then it was off to play some more, digging in the dirt and playing with army men. They worked for an hour on an elaborate battlefield with the army men and trenches and even made a small river with the hose, rocks, and plastic bags. I was so happy that they were doing the GOOD kind of playing, I kind of hovered by the window peeking out every now and then for a while before sitting down to read. While the boys did army stuff in the dirt, Amber filled her blue wading pool with hose water, then scooped dirt into it over and over until she had a massively muddy vat of witch’s brew. She grabbed two big sticks and stirred it up, then spent the remainder of the time playing with a plastic grocery bag in the water. Who needs toys when you have mud and trash? Haha!

After the army men, the boys attended Rose’s Flag Day party that she prepared in the playroom (she made a pin the tail on the donkey game and a catapult game and liberally handed out her own stash of candy as prizes). Eventually some sort of battle royale erupted in the playroom, and at 3pm everyone came trooping out to play Super Smash Bros on the Wii. It was an excellent first day of summer break. Summer, summer, SUMMER! Bring on the dirt, rocks, army men, neighbor friends, muddy water, sticks, quesadillas, front porch picnics, and rope swings. Overheard while the boys dug trenches for battle: “this is going to be an awesome summer.”

Tonight was Jay’s first swim meet! This morning at swim practice, he swam the entire 50 meter pool without stopping, so we signed him up for the meet, which started at 6:30pm. I took Rose and Amber over to play on the playground near the pool while we waited for Jay’s event to be announced. While we were at the playground, Jay swam the freestyle in the 200m medley relay! And I missed it! I was so bummed because I still have not seen Jay swim. We signed him up for the 50 meter freestyle, but his coach tossed him into the relay too and I didn’t know about it. Around 7:30pm, I talked to Jay through the chain link pool fence. He was exhausted and hungry, and very discouraged that his last event wasn’t till the very end of the long meet. He started crying in his tragic lip-wobbling Jay way and I realized that he was ready to go home. I snuck into the fence to talk with Jeff (Jeff was helping with timing the races, and only vounteers and swimmers are allowed inside the pool fence), and after telling the coach that Jay was going home early, we left. Jay perked up a lot on the way home and revived even further over a nice bowl of cereal at home. Then we cycled through teeth-potty-prayer and got the kids into bed. Jeff didn’t get home from the swim meet until 10:45pm!

Tonight was my first time EVER at a swim meet and I was so lost and unprepared! I had no clue what to expect and I did not bring any snacks or blankets or books or games or ANYTHING to help pass the time. Consequently, Amber kept escaping and Jay was overwhelmed and EVERYONE was HANGRY. When we got home, Jay ate his bowl of cereal and the girls each had a steaming bowl of oatmeal before bed. All three kids were in bed by 8:30pm. That does not sound very late, but it is LATE to our kids. Amber did not even take a nap today. I fear tomorrow.

[end journal entries]

[begin: SUMMER]

Last day of school pictures! They were too crazy to take this picture seriously.

The last shoe-tying ordeal of the school year. These look like two humans, but really that’s a snail and a turtle. Or possibly two senile sloths.

Adios, third grade.

Adios, first grade.

Post-school-dropoff chores: sweeping the garage. Country life in eastern WA can be summed up in one word: DUST. I have never swept a garage as regularly as I do this one. The sheer volume of dirty dust that sneaks into the garage (and house) is staggering. Pictured here is about one month’s dust accumulation. I want a leaf blower, but I wonder if it would actually blow the dust OUT of the garage or just poof it up in choking clouds before re-settling on the garage floor again. Even the push broom creates quite the billowing dust-clouds.

Photo captions:

• My Ambuddy enjoying her last few hours of daytime alone time with the sidewalk chalk.
• That view makes me feel artistic too.
• Our little skinny house with Amby on the driveway.
• Flying away on the balloons I drew for her.
• Country life in eastern WA can be summed up in one word: DUST. I have never swept a garage as regularly as I do this one. The sheer volume of dirt and dust that sneak into the garage is staggering. Pictured here is about one month’s dust accumulation.
• Amber reached for the Nutella jar and said “I need to smell it!” [nose in the jar, deep sniff] “Mmm, it’s a-licious.”
• Moving on to the first day of summer break:
• Quesadillas on the front porch: the first lunch of summer.
• Angel-Rose on the trampoline.
• BRIGHT sunshine
• The battle preparations begin! I know that when the British refer to the “garden,” they mean the yard, but I still like how these boys were literally playing in our garden, with my tomato plants to the left. Normally I reduce the shadows and bump up the brightness on pictures like this, but it’s summer so this is it for now.
• Amber, stirring her witch’s brew
• Rosie swingin’ high in the front yard.
• Super Smash Bros is the perfect group Wii game (as long as I am not in the group, hah, I do not enjoy video games)
• Jay was so tired after his first swim meet, he fell asleep with the light on in his room.
• School pages, front side. We fill the front side out at the beginning of the school year. I probably explain this every year, but here’s a refresher: I made these pages in trusty ole Microsoft Word, the only computer program I know my way around–hah. When I was growing up, my mom bought and kept a school book for each of her kids, and I love having that record. I could not find any school books that I liked enough to buy for my own kids, though, so I made my own when Jay started kindergarten. Each kid has a big binder-o-life (I use the Project Life system and add sheet protectors for other papers like these school pages and our birthday interviews) and we keep these pages in the binder along with pictures, certificates, and papers for each year. I am over a year behind on the picture side of the books (typical), but since it’s easy to shove a few papers into sheet protectors every now and then, the school record is up to date at least!
• School pages, back side. We fill this side out at the end of the school year. Clearly Jay was in a hurry when I finally pinned him down and made him fill out his school book sheet. Basically, he wrote P.E. everywhere. I have not printed the last day of school pictures yet. Rose said her favorite part of first grade was “my techer” and Jay’s favorite part of third grade was recess.