Reflections on the Week

Once upon a time there was a mom.

She didn't really dislike summers,

but recognized that there's
always a bit of an adjustment period.

And this year, for many reasons,
summer seemed to creep up faster
than in past years.

Perhaps it was because her youngest was graduating from Pre-K.

Perhaps it was because her oldest is filling out applications for exchange programs (to India!).

Perhaps it was because her second is getting ready for middle school

and she wanted to take pictures of all
her elementary school teachers on the last day

because she will miss them.

(Even though she spent the night before throwing up.)

She's not a sentimental person, really.

But maybe she's affected (or is it effected?) by the changes in her life

more than she thinks,

Because summer, this year, came with a bang and a crash

(which led to much yelling and screaming and crying)

that she wasn't ready for.

Thankfully, she has friends, and a standing playgroup date

(and thankfully, the rain and storms and lightning and thunder
led to a gorgeous summer day)

which allowed the kids to run and play with their friends

outside at a park.

Thankfully, she has friends who will take some of her girls for an hour or two,

so that she can snuggle with the one who always seems to fall through the cracks

and watch Harry Potter 4,

while the oldest helps out at a library carnival to celebrate

the arrival of the summer reading program.

(She met an Indian girl, Lalita, and said she had to try to not be too fangirly.)

After they got chocolate covered nuts at the Nifty Nuthouse, of course.

Thankfully, she had volunteered to go play laser tag with the girl scouts,

and she channeled Beckett (from Castle) for one game,

coming in with the third highest score overall.

Even though she banged into a corner and cut/bruised the top of her ear.

Then she and her second daughter teamed up as Lord of the Rings characters,

but never found their groove.

That's okay, she was told by her daughter,
Eowyn probably doesn't know how to handle a gun.

It didn't really matter; she was too busy laughing

with the girls and other adults.

Thankfully, she has a husband
who looked at the rough week

(and knew she was slightly depressed after watching MacBeth, even if it was an excellent production)

and suggested that they go out to eat
at a new barbecue place.

Which was good, even if they didn't have anything for the vegetarian in the family.

(It didn't really matter, because she ate bread and butter, which makes her happy.)

Or ketchup.

(What kind of barbecue place
doesn't carry ketchup?)

Then he took everyone to see Rango at the cheap theater --

the vegetarian ate two buckets of popcorn. That counts as a vegetable, right? --

It was an excellent end to a rough week;

it made everyone laugh.
We all thought it was a good movie,

even if the scary parts were a bit intense,

and want to see it again so we can get more of the lines down.

Thankfully, she has a church to go to,

where people smile and hug and she is touched by words that are said,

that give her the strength to get through the next week.

She has hope, now,

that she'll figure out a good summer schedule,

so there are fewer bumpy days

and more happy ones.

Because We Adore Harry at Our House, That's Why

The Last Day of School

Tuesday was the last day of school. As per tradition, Peterson Elementary has a grand party -- games, inflatables, carnival rides... and also, as per tradition, I try to snap pictures of the girls and their friends.

I managed to get Alison with a group of her friends waiting in line -- from left, Sophia, Elijah, Kendra, and Collin.

The fifth graders, every year, do an art project around the school. This year, it was a mural on the outside. Caitlyn drew the stop sign, but painted the ruler.

Unfortunately, Caitlyn caught a 24 hour stomach flu bug right on the last day of school. She was so very sad about that, we made a compromise: I'd take her in to get pictures, and then we'd come home. Her friends begged me to let her stay, but as you can tell, she looks a bit queasy in these....

With all the teachers she's had at Person (Top left to right: 5th grade, Mrs. Graber; 4th grade, Mrs. Harman. Bottom left to right: Mrs. Beck, 3rd grade; Mrs. Wagers, 2nd grade)

And her friends:

Top left: with Tara and Merry; top right, with Madeline; bottom left: with Carly and Emily; bottom right, classroom friends: Maddie, Justin and Averie.

We've heard about Nick for four years; they've been in the same class ever since we started at Peterson. He and Caitlyn go through ups and downs of friendship: sometimes they like each other well enough, other times, Caitlyn comes home saying he's an absolute jerk and why does she even like him?!? But, their friendship is limited to the classroom and lunchroom; they never talk outside of school. So, when I told Caitlyn that we needed to get a picture of Nick, she was a little weireded out. (Why? He's just a boy.) He wasn't terribly happy about it, either. But I figure they may never talk again -- who knows what middle school and beyond will bring -- and he's been a decent sort of friend to have through elementary school.


And finally, Megan, whose last day was last Friday. I'm glad for friends who take pictures and then put them up on Facebook where I can find them.

It's her history class, with the infamous Mr. Alldaffer there in the background.

And now: summer!

Pre-K Graduation

It was the last week of school, and Kristen's pre-K did a little graduation ceremony for all the parents.

First, the class sang a few songs that they really liked. (Kristen was the most enthusiastic, the most animated -- and this is a sedate picture. Then again, she's our girl!)

Then Miss Holmes called them up and gave them a gift bag (they all wanted to see what was inside)

And a hug (I know, it looks like Kristen's barreling into her teacher. In a way she was.)

And we got cake afterward. I wanted to get a picture of Kristen with her teachers, but she wouldn't slow down afterward enough for me to catch her.

I did get one of her with her "best school friend", Ava, though.


Next stop: kindergarten!

Deep Cleansing Breaths

My favorite yoga teacher ever, Cindy, facebooked (I know, I know: it's not a verb) me on Thursday saying she was going to be at the rec center during her old time (she's moved to a Tuesday time slot, which means I can't go to her class anymore. So sad.). I was so excited, I was giddy: there is nothing better for a stressful week than one of Cindy's yoga classes.

Deep cleansing breaths, indeed.

We're in the final countdown to summer: only two more days. *double take* What? Seriously?? Yep.

Megan's officially done, having made straight A's again this semester thereby being excused from finals, getting out of the last two days of school. And now that seminary's over, she's planning to sleep. Preferably all day. (And then stay up all night watching Bollywood?) The other three girls have two more days. It's hard to believe that it's summer. (Well, today it's not, being sunny and on the hot side. It was last week, when it was cold and rainy for three days.)

Caitlyn had her fifth grade graduation on Monday. For whatever reason, tradition developed that they did the graduation at the last skating party, and Caitlyn was more than eager to go, get her "diploma" and (best part) chocolate bar. I took Alison as well, because she loves to roller skate, and I sat on the sidelines and watched the girls have fun with their friends. Monday was also Kristen's school's field day (being postponed from last Friday), and she decided she didn't want me to come help. She went around with her "best school friend" Ava and Ava's mom and had a grand time. Interestingly enough, the best part was the hammering game.

Tuesday was Alison's first piano lesson! She was bursting with excitement. And while I had crazy running around to do beforehand (getting Megan across town to the arena for graduation; seems the band plays at their graduations, too. But, Megan said it was long and boring and they didn't stop playing for an hour and a half, and because the senior class was more than twice the size of mine, it took us an hour to get out of the parking lot. Argh. Next year, we'll know better.) we were a little late to Alison's lesson. She was a bit stressed about that, but she really likes her teacher, Hannah, and is super excited to start piano. She's even diligently practiced every day this week.

The rest of the week was spent getting ready for the Young Women's campout that I was in charge of. Then Friday morning, we woke up to thunder, lightning and pouring rain. So, instead of canceling the campout outright, we just moved things to our backyard/house. The girls made dinner, a fire (we found a fire pit) and we had fajitas and s'mores and talked and played games. They stayed up until 1ish (I got to sleep in my bed!) and then for our "hike" the next morning, we went to an Angelman Syndrome walk that was organized by our backdoor neighbor whose twins have AS. It was a lot of fun to go to the walk, and the girls complained a lot less than if we had just been hiking around the lake we were supposed to go camping at. In all, even though the weather cleared out, it was a good choice.

Caitlyn hid from the young women, by going to a farewell party for a couple of friends whose family is moving out to their grandparent's farm to help out. And then she stayed over at Merry's house. It was probably for the best.

And today, I started filling out an application for an actual job. (Eeek!) Due to budget cuts, the school district has eliminated all their library positions, replacing them with library clerks. Which is, essentially, a librarian without the degree. I thought, heck, I can do that. So, I'm applying (since I'm not the sort to stay at home all by myself all day.). I probably won't get the job, but, as Megan pointed out, the worst they could say was no. And I know I could do the job. And possibly even like it.

Here's to changes!

(Photo All rights reserved by GO INTERACTIVE WELLNESS)

Last Skating Party of the Year

Sorry for the lousy quality of these; the rink was dark and... no other excuse. Sorry.

Both Caitlyn and Alison love going to the skating parties that the school sponsors at a local skate rink. In fact, much of Alison's motivation to learn to roller skate came last year after she went to her first party and realized she couldn't skate. She's gotten quite good now.

In fact, as Caitlyn put it: "It's official: Alison is better at the limbo than me."

The main event was the fifth grade graduation. They lined up by class, in ABC order. Caitlyn's been by Nick Cook and Maddie Fields for the past two years... and is pretty good friends with both.


Getting her diploma. Mr. Shelton (the yellow shirt) is an awesome principal. He knows all (or if not all, most) of the kids by name, and is more than willing to be silly for them. That said, he also knows how to command respect from the kids. Thankfully, we'll have several more years of him.

I meant to get a picture of Caitlyn with her friends, but thankfully, there's the last day of school for that. She's officially done with elementary school!

An Abundance of Talent

Caitlyn made it into the school talent show again this year (having taken last year off). I bummed a camera from some friends so I could actually get video of her singing Katy Perry's Firework.



There's more end-of-the year pictures on the way as soon as I get a moment to offload them and put them up. Promise.

Who Could Ask for Anything More?

or: trying to stay positive in the face of a melancholy couple of days.)

This song's been going through my mind today:

(This version is always good. Then again, it's Gene Kelly, who is always amazing.)

It's been a week of ups and downs... 100 degree weather (yes, you read that right) and sunny on Monday, 55 degrees and rainy on Friday. Excitement -- in the form of a couple of the Peterson Olympics for Caitlyn and Alison -- and tears, from Kristen both because she couldn't go to the Olympics, and because her school's Super Kids Day was postponed (due to the aforementioned Friday weather). Lots of tears from Kristen, actually, this week. We haven't been able to figure out why, though. There's been frustration -- Russell, in trying to get things caught up at work with writing, and because Blogger crashed on Thursday, leaving all of us stranded. On the upside, it gave us more time to read. There's been elation -- because we've figured out, and pretty much settled on (providing she can raise a good portion of the funds) to send Megan to India for her senior year. A friend asked me if I was feeling overwhelmed by this, and I do have to answer that I don't: my oldest child has had one foot out the door since she was old enough to understand what not being at home meant (say, around 2 1/2?). She wants this really quite badly, and she's working to get it. And I respect and admire that.

All the little things got done this week, though somehow our clarinet teacher has fallen through the cracks. We don't know what happened to her... And today we had a bonus Stake Conference; Elder Nelson and Elder Clayton (of the presidency of the seventy) happened to be in Kansas City for a meeting with the mission yesterday, and so someone decided that we needed a visit from a general authority. It was a nice couple of meetings (I drug Megan to the youth meeting because I was accompanying a violinist), and I, at least, got a few things to think about (Russell was busy wrangling Kristen, who needs wrangling still). We actually got cushy seats because I was playing for the choir... it's the little things.

It's not been a bad week, and I'm not complaining about anything, even if I do feel a bit down. I've got a good husband, good children, and a good life. Who can ask for anything more?

(The picture is of an old college friend of ours, Rick, who's been in Bali for the last little while. I've been enjoying his photos, and this one struck me as very, very happy.)

They're All Growing Up

Kristen came with to watch the opening ceremonies. She was very sad because she couldn't stay and participate in the field day. "I'm almost done with pre-K" she says. She's ready to be a kindergartener!

This is her "curtsey" (it looks more like tree pose, but hey, who am I to challenge a 5-year-old's knowledge?)


She's growing up.


Sometimes, it's amazing how fast time flies.

On Being a Torch Runner

Every year, our elementary school has a field day, which they call the Peterson Olympics. It's just fun and games, but they do it up big at the start, having an opening ceremony. All the classes march in behind their (kid- or teacher-designed) flags. Then they have a select few fifth graders run the (actual Olympic) torch (from the SLC Olympics) around the playground. This year, Caitlyn was chosen to be one of those runners.



She was very excited about that; only five were chosen out of the whole fifth grade.

As part of being a runner, they had to give a speech about Peterson and their feelings about leaving.

I wished I had my video camera (it's broken right now), but here's her speech:

"When I leave and go to Middle School I'll really miss all the teachers I had in previous years. I'll also miss the inflatables on the last day of school, and the Peterson Olympics. But I think the thing I'm going to miss the LEAST is the cafeteria food!"

It got a laugh.

Then the fifth grade sang a little song. (Again: stupid broken camera.)

It's wild to think that she's going to be in Middle School soon...

So, We're All Agreed:

Chocolate, Nathan Fillion and Moms make the world go 'round.

(What Caitlyn wrote on the inside of her Mother's Day card.)

It's been a nice day. Mother's Day must be nearly as exciting as Christmas, as Alison and Kristen got up at the crack of dawn to make sure I got breakfast in bed. Unfortunately, that meant (after we shooed them away a few times) that Russell had to get up too, and he hadn't exactly had the world's best night (allergies.Ugh.). They woke up Caitlyn early, but let Megan sleep, which also meant that both of them were cranky (Caitlyn because she got up early; Megan because she missed being a part of the fun). That said, I got a lovely breakfast of blueberry pancakes (my favorite), the laptop to myself for a couple hours (something that's hard to come by these days), and a surprise gift card to my favorite spa from Russell (I wasn't expecting it, honestly, but that said: I'm not complaining. I have a date with hot stone massage!). Church was nice, and I've got chocolate fondue (melting down the bunnies!) to look forward to tonight.

I can always tell when May hits: the calendar fills up amazingly quickly. We'll go for months and months without anything to do, just normal life, and then BOOM: May. So, aside from squeezing in all the normal stuff, we added May Day and Cinco de Mayo this week. Holidays with good food. I can't complain. I made myself dulce de leche this year, surprised at how ridiculously easy it was. And good. I've been eating it by the spoonful, though I have dreams of getting ice cream and using it as a spread. Or a dip for something. It doesn't really matter.

Megan's been doing projects (for PE! among other classes) and dissecting worms (up next: crabs and frogs) and trying very hard to get her one B up to an A. It's driving her bonkers, if only because if she can get it up to an A, she'll get out of school two days early because all her finals will be elective then. She'd love to start summer early... She has, however, had the time to spend Friday and Saturday rereading books she loved but we don't own. It's always good to read a good book.

Caitlyn spent the week working with her fourth grade teacher on a retirement party for her fifth grade teacher. I don't really know what motivated her to help out, but she wanted to, and she spent most days after school (and recesses) putting together a little skit, as well as helping with decorations and everything. I did pop by to say goodbye and thanks, and all that effort paid off: it turned out very nice.

Russell has survived the finals week from Hades... It's been nice having the extra money this semester, and I appreciate Russell's willingness to take on extra things to keep us from going (too much) into debt, but perhaps 5 classes this semester was a bit much? It just seemed that everything that could go wrong (from a cheating student to Russell giving a final with questions that he hadn't actually taught on it) did. On the other hand, graduation was yesterday, he's gone to two receptions for two different students, and we've survived yet another semester. He's looking forward to the break, even though he's teaching at least one (online) class this summer. I don't know if any of his summer workshop ideas will go...

Alison has spent the week obsessing about Percy Jackson; we finally finished The Lightning Thief. She loved it (as we knew she would). Now, she walks around asking people what god they'd be the son or daughter of. Most people just look at her crazy. She's been very tolerant of Caitlyn's desire to stay after school, and was even a bit bummed we didn't stay at the reception longer; she felt like she had a part in it all. Which, of course, she did. She was also responsible for making sure plants got planted yesterday; Russell, Alison and Kristen made a trip to Herb Day at the Farmer's Market (Caitlyn was at a sleepover, Megan was asleep, and I'm playing for the stake choir next week so I was at practice) and picked out a few plants to put in. She loves digging, and she's good at it. (Oh, and an update: I was at the consignment store getting shoes for Kristen and I noticed THE perfect baptism dress. For $30. Score. Alison loves it, and can't wait to be baptized now.)

Kristen was a good egg this week. She's been begging to go to the park for weeks now, and I finally had a morning where we could go. She has a really wonderful imagination: we went on adventure, ran from lava, were pirates, got through traps, and dug for buried treasure. And that was in the space of an hour! Oh, and she loves her new shoes (they're flip flops). She's even tried to wear them to bed. She's quite funny in shorts, flip flops and her red hat. (Though she did lose the red hat a couple days this week in order to wear a sparkly headband. I told her no one would recognize her at school!)

And we're all hiding in the basement, waiting for the air conditioning to work (at what point does the inconvenient freon leak in the air conditioner become bad enough for us to buy a new machine?), since it's a balmy 92 degrees outside. Spring didn't decide to stay for long this year.

Have a wonderful week!\

Elementary Music

Tuesday was the music program for Kindergarten through second grade. Our new music teacher has abandoned the elaborate grade music programs that the old one did, in favor of simpler ones combining several grades, and moved them outside. On the one hand, I really like this: it's less corny. On the other hand, it makes it hard for my daughters to find me in the crowd.

That doesn't bother Caitlyn (the show must go on!), but Alison really needs to see me in order to perform.

Before she saw me....

And then she turned and noticed:

What a ham.

They had to do a square dance. With boys. I heard about how embarrassing that was, for weeks. On the other hand, there's a kid with a pink mohawk. Alison says, "Mrs. Caporale told us not to touch it. But I still do."


The last song was the Hokey Pokey, and they invited everyone to pokey along.

So the fifth graders did.

It was a cute program.

(She's a cute kid.)

May Day Tradition

I've been asked, over the years, how our May Day came about. Mostly, it's because I believe Easter should be a religious holiday and, unlike Christmas, I work really hard to keep it so. I want to do all the fun Easter stuff with my kids, but I really don't want to have to squeeze it in around Easter. It also stems from my fascination with the Arthurian legends. In my reading, I discovered Beltane, and had an "ah-ha!" moment. Beltane -- May Day -- is a pagan holiday, why not put all the fun, secular Easter stuff on that day. It comes with an added bonus: all the chocolate on sale the day after Easter.

The girls still call them Easter eggs and an Easter egg hunt. Oh well. You can't win them all.




Russell's job is to hide the eggs. He gets an inordinate amount of pleasure from this, and is actually quite good at it. The downside is that we end up finding eggs hidden places for the next week or so.


There aren't any of Megan per her request: she had just showered when we did this, and wasn't quite feeling up to having pictures taken.


I'm sure they'll outgrow all this, eventually, but for now, we're still enjoying our tradition.

A Project

I don't exactly know how it started. But Kristen started bugging me about helping her put together the box house they (being herself, Alison and Caitlyn) designed. So she could paint it.

Monday, even though I was swamped with things I needed to do, we finally got things going so she could.



She hasn't really played with it. But she really enjoyed putting it together.

May Day is ALL About Chocolate Bunnies

Which is why I'm sitting here, eating Cadbury Mini-Eggs (which are not as good as the Cadbury Caramel Eggs) while I write this. (Though, actually, the girls haven't gotten their baskets yet because it was Fast Sunday, and as someone pointed out, getting baskets full of chocolate bunnies when you're fasting is NO fun.)

Monday, the girls were off school. Abe and Betsy left at o'dark thirty; the only ones to say goodbye were Megan and Russell; they were up for seminary. However, we did get a very nice note from Faith (as written by Bethany), which only served to make Kristen sad that she missed saying goodbye to her cousin. Thankfully, they are family and we know where they live. (Which reminds me: it's been four years since we've been too Utah. Maybe another trip is in order...)

Anyway, since Alison has been BUGGING me, we went shopping for baptism dresses. I figured they'd all be on sale after Easter anyway. I was WRONG. See, we live in a hugely Catholic town, and the white dresses are used for First Communion. Which happens all the time, not just around Easter. I let her try on a bunch of dresses, and she found one (and a sweater) she liked for $55. We got the sweater (it wasn't $55), and I'll keep an eye out at the consignment stores. Maybe we'll find one. If not, we still have 7 whole months to find a dress.

The rest of the week was normalish, except that it was FREEZING. Except Thursday and Friday which were WINDY. (Yeah, yeah, what do you expect?) Windy is an understatement: two sections of our fence blew down on Friday. That was a bit of a surprise when we went out to mow the lawn. The girls had their last piano class with their teacher (she's retiring, and Caitlyn's going with one of her assistants as a regular teacher, and Alison's starting with a different one -- two piano teachers, *sigh*), and they went to school. There was kindergarten pre-registration; it's actually interesting to have a child start at a school that her older sister actually went to kindergarten in. (That hasn't happened yet!) Kristen really really really really wants the teacher Alison had last year (though I'm not sure said teacher will survive Kristen...). Some of that may be brainwashing on Alison's part.

Russell took the car all day on Friday and took his students for his Politics of Food class. He left me stranded at home. If you want to know what he did, he says he'll eventually (after finals, probably) write a blog post about it. From what I got from what he said, it was a really good experience. And they had antelope for lunch.

We didn't get up for the Royal Wedding, though we did Tune In in time to see The Kiss. :-) The girls were laughing at me. I wasn't satisfied until I looked through all the videos (better than watching the TV coverage) and saw all the pictures. Especially the Cake. The cake looked good. (I wanted some; I hope it tasted as good as it looked.)

And yesterday, Russell, Megan, and Caitlyn were all gone various places in the morning, so it was just Alison, Kristen and me. We could have done lots and lots of cool things, but we ended up at Wal-Mart doing the grocery shopping. I've always said that I live on the edge. Anyway, we watched the Chavez kids for a couple hours, and then they watched Alison and Kristen so Caitlyn and I could go to the humane society. We took on a new job there, since our old job wasn't filling up the whole time. We get to clean out the rooms after a dog gets adopted. Caitlyn's excited: it involves using a huge power washer. Now, if we can get her to stop knocking out ceiling tiles...

And then Caitlyn and I went to Friends' Singing Quakers' Symphony of Spring that evening. It was fun going with Caitlyn -- she adored the singing (they were from musicals, mostly), and kept tabs on her favorite songs from the night. It was a good evening.

And today, aside from me remembering that the camp health forms were due a month ago (why didn't anyone remind me?) and running around like a chicken trying to get them to and from everyone, church was good.

Have a happy week!

It Hurts When

You fall off an electric scooter and fall face-first into the sidewalk.

(I don't know if you can tell, but her lip's pretty banged up. It's not as bad as it could be, though.)

Bridging

In Girl Scouts, to move from one level to the next, the girls "bridge". Which means, as far as I can tell (since I've bridged a girl from Daisies to Brownies -- Megan -- and Caitlyn from both Brownies to Juniors and now to Cadets), that they walk over a bridge. And get a pin.


Though, this probably means Caitlyn's going to do Girl Scouts for another year; she's interested as long as her friends are still doing it. Maybe she'll even talk me into continuing after she turns 12 and starts Young Women. However, with Alison interested in starting next year (I have issues with the Daisy program, so they can't start until they're Brownies), that means selling cookies might get a bit tricky around here...