Here are some pictures from the end of our school year last year (June). Summer has come and gone and a new year has begun but I am a bit behind on blogging about it, so here goes. John had an end of the year project and presentation about how to do something (a how to type thing). He chose to teach the class how to make breakfast cookies, a fun treat we make at home sometimes.
John worked hard learning the process of making cookies, taking pictures of the process, making a poster and practicing his presentation.
His teacher sent me this pictures of him doing his presentation in class.
Way to go, John!
Here's Grant participating in the 5th grade end of year track meet. His class nominated him to be one of two team captains for the class. Grant was all over the track area with a clipboard helping his classmates know where to go for their events. He was pretty stressed about being team captain but he did a good job and it worked out. Here he is long jumping!
Emma and Grant played in a spring soccer league that finished up at the end of the year. Emma is pretty new to soccer so it was just figuring out how to kick the ball for her. Good job, Emma!!
Grant is standing in the goal here with the hoodie jacket on.
He played goalie a lot this season and did a good job.
Here is John helping to mow the lawn. Scott and I struggled with our lawn a lot this year. We had weird weeds, lots of heat, overly acidic soil and burrowing creatures to deal with.
We also have a strong raspberry patch going this year. Our strawberries didn't do too well and neither did my tomatoes. Our apple tree produced a bunch of apples and our pumpkin and zucchini patch is going strong.
Emma, John and I planted some peas, pepper and other things. We harvested several peas, a few peppers and then I didn't really do a good job taking care of it after that. I think I got too ambitious.
Matthew is going to get braces - he doesn't have them yet but has some brackets in to space his teeth out enough to prepare for braces.
We roasted marshmallows in our new fire pit for Memorial Day
Anna likes them very burned as do I.
We went to Scott's parents 50th anniversary party.
All the cousins were there
Here is Anna with her cousin, Karlee.
It was fun to see everyone.
We got to go to a carnival in downtown Portland for the Rose Festival, courtesy of Pa2.
John wanted to go on a lot of the big, scary rides but then looked so nervous.
We all had lots of fun!
We got a lot of rain this year - here is some flooding near the Columbia River. Cottonwood Beach was underwater for most of the spring and early summer.
And as you can imagine, there were a ton of mosquitos in all the standing water. One day while running near the river a swarm of mosquitos literally followed me for about a quarter mile. I was swatting like crazy but to no avail. I got a bunch of bites and didn't go that way for a while.
The flooding has since gone down but it was pretty amazing!
Another day walking on the levee near the Columbia in Washougal.
It started out great and we walked down about a mile to see some bird houses for wild birds along the river. Emma loves birds right now and says she wants to be a "bird scientist" but all she wants to do is help baby birds that fall out of their nests. Recently she angrily told me that she hadn't found any baby birds in need of help getting back in their nests this summer (as if it was my fault) so she may rethink her career choices.
When we got to the bird feeders it started raining so we had to walk back a mile in the rain.
Anna had an end of year science project to design a rocket that can hold an egg and safely land it back down without breaking after being launched. She and I sat down together one day and talked through her ideas for her team's rocket. I guess she was the lead on the rocket design portion. In the end their egg and parachute deployed successfully and the egg touched down again unbroken. I was relieved it worked since I kind of helped - I would feel really bad if it totally failed. But that's part of engineering too.
And then the real end of school arrived. And Grant graduated from 5th grade and elementary school!!
Here he is receiving his certificate.
Hooray Grant!
They had some celebratory cake for the kids.
So Grant is on to middle school next year (now).
And Anna graduated from 8th grade and middle school.
The principal actually mentioned Anna by name at their graduation ceremony as being the only student ever to receive two Lion Pride awards (their school mascot is a lion). Maybe 40 kids from her graduating class had gotten this special award over the three years out of 250 kids (for doing something extra special). And you aren't supposed to be eligible for it again if you already got it, or so we thought. You get your picture up in the school permanently for receiving the award so Anna had her picture up for winning it last year. And then we were notified that she was receiving it again this year. So the principal mentioned it and I think Anna felt embarrassed. She thinks it was just an oversight - she thinks they didn't realize they already gave it to her last year. But she did go above and beyond tutoring a couple 6th graders that were behind in math this year, so I thought maybe it was because of that extra help. Anyway, we think she is extra special so she deserves it.
Congratulations Anna!! It was a weird middle school journey for her. She did 6th grade in Utah, which was part of the elementary school there. Then started 7th grade here in Washington in the middle of Covid shut downs - mostly learning from home. But 8th grade was kind of normal. She ran on the cross country team last year (didn't like it) and then played on the 8th grade soccer team this last year (liked it better except they played in the winter so there was lots of rain, hail and COLD games). She won a DECA competition at the school, was chosen as a WEB leader (8th grade leadership group that helps the 6th graders all year), she helped pioneer the Dungeons and Dragons club at the school that is now wildly popular, she volunteer provided weekly tutoring to some girls who were struggling in math and recruited a friend to help her, got good grades, made many good friends, sang in the school choir (and the regional honor choir) and got TWO Lion Pride awards, against all odds. She doesn't like it when I say things like this, but she is pretty amazing!! And now on to high school!!
And Scott and I are just surviving. Work is hard, school is hard, parenting is hard. Sometimes we go running together. Looking forward to some sunny summer fun.
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