The End of the School Year

or Limping Across the Finish Line

We always start out so strong in August but by May I'm usually just barely holding it together as we finish up big projects.  This year I'm counting down to summer vacation and feel a little like I'm coasting in on fumes.  This summer, like many in the past, we are moving, so things are extra crazy right now as we try to prepare our house to sell.  We've only been in this house two years and we really like Northern California except for one thing: the very high cost of living in the Bay Area.  Scott's office wanted a finance manager to move out to their Salt Lake office to oversee things and they asked Scott.  We thought about it for a while.  We'd been thinking of trying to move somewhere more affordable but Utah was not one of my top choices.  No offense Utah friends.  But, just like any move, it is what you make it.  So I'm trying to focus on the positive.  We are moving out of our house this week and staying in a hotel for the last two weeks of school while we prep the house and get it on the market.  It is going to be a little crazy.  We need to sell our house here first (and the market is hot so fingers crossed) but we are hoping to buy a home in Kaysville or Farmington, Utah.  So we'll see how things work out.

So school is wrapping up and here are a few of our school adventures.  This is Grant (above) working on some homework.  He was supposed to write a little paragraph about a special place he has been to.  I was amazed that he actually tried to convince me to write it for him.  He just laughed when I told him he had to write it himself.  He thought it was worth a try.  Always trying to get away with something. He eventually wrote a spare paragraph about Legoland.

The kid's school had their open house a few weeks ago.  Scott was out of town for reserve duty that week so I went and visited all the classrooms.   The kids' school is an historic site.  The school was originally built around 1896.  The original building was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and then rebuilt and burned down twice the following year.  But they kept rebuilding and its been a school ever since.  In the 1960s it became part of the Gilroy district.  The only original thing that remains at the school is this bell.  Matthew's teacher is near retirement and she also went to this school as a kid.  There's a lot of cool history.  This school is small and modest, the campus is not impressive looking - its literally in the middle of a bunch of farm fields (we say hi to the neighboring goats each morning).  But its a great school with a lot of heart - kind kids, kind parents.  Lots of love.  We are going to miss it.  :(

First on open house day we had food.  Their school has a longstanding tradition of having a mini "strawberry festival" for open house.  We had dinner and little strawberry shortcakes.  Then we visited Grant's class.  Here is Grant (making a Grant-pa Reeve face) and showing me a rocket he made in class.

Grant climbing to the moon

This is a picture Grant made of what he would look like at age 100

A self portrait and story about going to the moon

Grant's been having a great time in 1st grade.

Anna has had a lot of big projects that all came due at the end of the year.  Her class this year was a lot more challenging than last year and I think (and hope) that she has learned a few things about time management this year.  Here she is working on a project about Amelia Earhart.  We also went to visit Anna's classroom but it did not go that well.  Anna got mad about the other siblings being there.  So not many pictures.  Maybe we'll do better next year.

Here is one of the only pictures from Anna's classroom on open house night.  She's showing me her classroom chrome book.  Anna also had a big California mission project and several other large projects come due recently.  She can do a lot of her work on google classroom so she can work on it at home and then log in at school and pick up where she left off.  They can turn their completed projects in online and prepare power point type presentations (google slides) to present in class.  It's so convenient.  Google has donated a computer (chrome book) per kid in the higher grades.  It's a far cry from when we were in school and went to the computer lab once a week or so to play Oregon Trail from a floppy disc.  :)

Anna and Matthew are both on safety patrol this year, helping kids get in (and out) of their cars at the beginning (and ending) of the day.  Here's Anna, on duty, helping Grant.  We have to wait a few extra minutes for them when its their safety patrol day.

Anna and a few of her friends are doing a little skit in class about the Three Sisters mountains in Oregon.  Anna is Mt. Charity.  We made little costume ponchos hoping to make them look more mountain like.

Matthew is in 5th grade this year and graduating from elementary school.  The funny thing is the district we are hoping to move into has elementary school go until 6th grade, so he'll get to graduate next year too.  He was looking forward to middle school but will now have to wait a little longer.  He has had several big projects that recently finished up (and a few still going).  Here he is in his classroom on open house day showing us a snap circuits project.

The kids in his class were supposed to write a letter to a college to get information.    He chose Stanford, a popular choice around here.  They did another letter later on and he chose BYU and got a bunch of info from them.

He did a large project and presentation about a state.  He wanted to choose Utah but someone else picked it and he ended up with Oklahoma.  He worked hard on his project and learned a lot.  Here is his completed paper.

The 5th graders got to go on a field trip to UC Santa Cruz.  It's part of a program to try and get the kids to plan for college.  Everyone's favorite part of the trip was the dorm dining facility where they got to have lunch.  So many choices!!  They got these orange shirts (we think to keep eyes on them all while on campus).  They had fun.  Go Banana Slugs!!

Matthew is currently working on a science fair project about water filtration.  We got some water from the creek to filter, but the moving water was too clean.  Next time we need gross, standing water.

Collecting gravel

and leaves

Working with activated charcoal is messy

Making some homemade filters

Scott, spreadsheet genius, helped Matthew get some nice charts from his data.

Here is Matthew finishing up his science fair project board.  

He's going to present it in class this week.  He made homemade water filters with different materials and tested to see which material filtered the best.

UPDATE:  Matthew got an A on his science fair project and 3rd place in his class for best project.  Yay Matthew!

I had some craft and school supplies that we wanted to get rid of pre-move.  I was pretty bashful about asking the teachers if they wanted some of our supplies (here, take my garbage) but they were actually really happy to get it and snatched it all up.  I brought it in a wagon.  There were a lot of things.  Here's Matthew helping me bring back the "empty" wagon.

And here are my two not-yet-in-school kids.  It feels like we are waiting around a lot in the car.

A few nights ago the kids participated in their school talent show.

Here's Matthew singing a solo - this was actually part of a name that tune game they did during intermission.   Matthew won a can of root beer for guessing the song right and then singing it.

Anna wrote a skit and performed it with her friends.  It was about summer.

And Matthew was also in it as the strict father who makes the kids go to summer school

Anna with some of her friends

And one more friend

Her skit buddies (without Matthew)

The kids have lots of great friends they are going to say goodbye to  :(

New adventures to come (and just a few more weeks of school).