Summer Break at Home

There are usually two speeds to our summer break: fast and slow.  The fast is the time we travel and the slow is the rest of the break.  This year, summer started relatively slowly.  With the exception of a few house projects and the occasional outing, we've pretty much spent the first part of summer at home.  This has probably been the best thing for us and especially our new addition, Millie the Golden.

Speaking of Millie, here's that goofball:

One of our summer break projects was painting Ashlynn's bedroom.  We painted the room green when I was pregnant with her, so it was time for our girl to pick the color of her walls and bedcover.  Since she's on her way to turning 12, we had her participate in as much of the process as possible.

 I helped too, but as the official photographer, there isn't much to show that.  Taping and cutting in were my jobs.

Ashlynn chose to have the walls painted gray, so that she could use brighter colors in the bedding and curtains and would be able to easily change the looks of her room as she grows.

Here's a fun collage that shows Ashlynn on her bed when she first got her big girl bed, a little before her third birthday, and then now.  Oh, how she's grown!

 She seems very pleased with the results.

One evening during break, Ashlynn and I attended the recital for the local dance studio, Center Stage Dance Academy.  We knew many of the girls who performed and were really impressed.

The kids got a little more involved with this year's Father's Day preparations.  Eric had requested a certain menu that included Brookies for dessert.  We were introduced to Brookies by our friends, the Mountains.  They are a delicious combination of brownies and chocolate chip cookies, so Carter prepared the brownie mix and Ashlynn made the cookie dough.

 We celebrated Father's Day with Eric, his dad, and my dad.

My dad is a silly and smart guy.  On Father's Day he shared the silly with Carter and some of his smarts with Ashlynn, as they looked at an old globe and discussed world history and geography.

Millie is adjusting to life with our family.  These next few photos suggest more of a bond between her and Pippa than actually exists, but in general, they are getting along fine.  Millie is a glutton for attention, so pretty much anytime you call Pippa, you also get Millie.

Millie's weight is getting more on track.  When she came to us, she weighed about 83 pounds, which was too much.  By controlling her eating and going on walks, she's now down to 71 pounds.  The vet said she could lose a few more pounds and that we're doing a good job of getting her to a healthy weight.

Life is hard when it's too hot outside for walks or even much backyard play.

 Ready for a walk!

Over these past few weeks we have been at home A LOT!  Like so much that we needed to get out or we might go crazy.  So, in addition to simple errands, we have gone out to dinner a few times and gone to places like IKEA and the mall.  As these next two photos suggest, mirrors are apparently very entertaining.

We also hosted our (not so) small group from church for an evening to send off our friends, the Ortlands, as they move to Chicago.  Hosting this group is no small task, as there were ten adults and 14 kids.  Yep, 14 kids and the oldest one is Ashlynn!  I think we all had a great evening.

You know what is not easy?  Trying to photograph 14 kids!  Here were two of the best shots:

Okay, because she's a pretty big deal, here's a little more of Millie.  She is a Golden Retriever, so she is a major shedder, especially with the hot weather we're having.  Fortunately, she LOVES being combed with the undercoat rake, which removes a lot of her hair so it doesn't all end up as dust bunnies around our house.  She cracks me up because she looks blissful or Zen-like when she's combed.

Carter is learning how to interact with Millie.  After many years of being super gentle with dogs, he's learning how to rub and hug and play with a big dog.  Carter is also the one who is most concerned about giving Pippa attention, since Millie is such an attention hog.

Being at home a lot has also meant that electronic devices are in high demand.  I'm always looking for things for the kids to do that don't involve a screen, which is hard when it's hot outside.  A trip to the library helped.

 Here's a random photo I took to document the difference in color of their eyes.  Carter's are blue, which is a lot like Eric and me, and Ashlynn's are more green, like my brother.  Sometimes I wish Ashlynn didn't wear glasses so we could see her pretty eyes and long eyelashes easier.

We made the last minute decision to send Ashlynn to summer camp with our church's youth group.  I'm glad we did.  I was nervous about the decision, but realized the cause of my nervousness was because the summer between my sixth and seventh grade year (like Ashlynn), my friend from church, David, died at a church summer day camp.  I realized that it was silly and didn't show faith if I kept her from going to ease my mind that something like that might somehow also happen to her.  I know, it's silly.  Since our church youth group is small, their youth pastor, Abel, creates their own camp experience by renting some cabins up at June Lake and then doing various activities and outings in that area.   They are there now, and I am looking forward to hearing all about the trip.

The most important thing for Ashlynn was that Lydia was going.  This with be their third camp together (first Forest Home before 5th grade and then Astro Camp in 5th grade).

And, that's where we're at with summer break.  We've got a couple of weeks until our big summer trip to Scandinavia, so switching gears from low to high is not long from now!

End of the School Year! Yay!

June is off to an exciting start because it is the end of the school year for all four of us and the start of SUMMER BREAK!!!!!

I tell ya, summer break is one of the best things about teaching.  We don't get paid for the time off and some people belittle our profession because of "all of the time off" (shame on them!), but summer break is necessary.   We teachers need the break to reflect on how we taught and how we're going to do things differently next year, we need it to recover from being patient with certain children (and parents) who worked our nerves for 180 days, and we need it so we can face the next year feeling refreshed and ready to guide another group of kids through a positive learning experience.  I've now been off (paid work) about 10 days and I have spent some part of nearly every day either packing my classroom or working on plans for my teaching or classroom for next year.

June 1st was my last day of teaching.  Since it was my last teaching day with Tracey, she allowed me to come late to school so that I could attend Carter's end of the year award ceremony.  He got awards for reading growth and being the most improved writer.

I was especially proud of his writing award.  While I don't think he's quite "there yet" he is more willing to write.  When he first started elementary school, he was on fire for writing.  He would go crazy sounding out words to write, but in kindergarten he (like many kids) got the idea that he needed to spell words "right" and started shutting down on writing because spelling is tricky for him.  He's pretty creative and has a great vocabulary, so I hope that he can get past his spelling anxiety and go for it.

I arrived on my last day of school to guide students through my favorite last day of school activity, class yearbooks, and our class party.  See that veggie dish?  I praised kids who picked food up from it.

After school ended for my students, some major work began.  As I mentioned in prior blog entries, after 11 years of job sharing, Tracey and I will both be going full time at our school.  We knew the day would come, but it's still bittersweet.  We've been joking about our "divorce" for years and probably had one of the most friendly division of property experiences of any "divorce."  Tracey will be staying in our classroom and moving up to a higher grade level (so she "keeps the house"), and I will be moving to a lower grade level and into a new classroom.  I'm pretty excited about the changes, both the grade level and the new room because it's in the new building being built at the school.  

I may have gotten a little nutty as I went through old things as I packed.  Check out these cool teacher pins from my first years of teaching.

The first thing I packed was the classroom library because Tracey was going to be leaving on a trip and we needed to decide who got which books.  Having a nice classroom library has always been a high priority for me, so it's good to see I'll have that for my next class too.

On the weekend, Ashlynn continued with the World Symphony Orchestra she's participating in at APU.  We arrived early so we walked around part of campus.  I made her take this photo, and while she protested, I think she liked it.

My parents were on a trip so there were many visits down to their house to visit their dogs.

On the first Saturday in June, Eric's Aunt Laurie came down for a belated celebration of Eric's and Brian's birthdays.  We had dinner at one of our favorite local places, Bella Sera.  We sat on the back patio and listened to live music, which made a place I like even better.

Since it was two days before Carter's birthday, the guy who was performing led everyone in a song of Happy Birthday to him.  He was embarrassed.

We've had some lazy mornings.  Well, when Millie lets us.  She whines for attention in the morning, so we sometimes let her come up on the bed.  Carter joined us one morning and we got some funny selfies.

Ashlynn and Carter have a cute relationship.

Monday the 5th was Carter's ninth birthday.  He had school but started the day with cinnamon rolls and fruit.

It was the last Monday morning announcements of the year (and my last one to be able to attend).  Since the principal is leaving the school and Carter's teacher and another teacher are retiring, the principal attempted to make the morning special.

The teachers were brought up front and everyone linked up and swayed to a song.

And then they headed to class.

But not without a final class photo (a few kids are missing because there are 20 in his class... which sounds like a dreamy number of students).

After that, I headed to my school to continue to pack.  I was fortunate to receive a bunch of lovely books, teaching materials, and games from a retiring teacher.  I am so excited to start a new grade with some things I'll need... and not have to spend a fortune to buy all of them.  

Since it was Carter's birthday and there was little chance for me to pack my classroom and pull off an amazing birthday party, we did the best thing I could think of: invite some friends over!  Yep, the day before his birthday I texted three of his school friends' moms and invited the boys over after school to play and have a birthday treat (and no presents).

So, despite the fact that it was a hot day, I walked the crew home to our house.  I am a rule follower, so I wasn't transporting four third grade boys in my car because that would require one in the front seat and that isn't really legal.  One complained for about two blocks about me following the rule, but I am sticking to the rule.  Even Ashlynn, who is nearly 12, has not sat in the front seat.  Anyway, I figured that the walk might wear them down a little.  :)

I really didn't plan anything fancy, other than buying ice cream sundae materials.  The boys played, jumped in the trampoline and played with our dogs.

Happy birthday, Carter!

The number of dog walks I've been on since getting Millie has increased substantially.  I finally got a double leash, that is pretty helpful when I walk the two dogs by myself.

On the kids' last week of school, Ashlynn had three days of finals, which meant that on Tuesday I picked her up at 12:30 and Carter at 2:20.  That almost never happens!  We spent some time together in the backyard with bowls of ice cream.

She even laid on my lap.  Sweet girl.

Ashlynn had her end of the year orchestra banquet.  I had her and Lydia pick up the two trophies her group won at one of their competitions.

More time at my school.  I decided to take a few more photos to document the progress.  The first photo is behind the building.  This space is one thing that I love about the new building.  Can't wait to get picnic tables out there and spread out the kids during group work.

Millie is fitting in pretty well.

Pippa is teaching her some of her bad habits, like barking at people or animals who pass our house.  We're working on that.

Going to my parents' house now means four dogs... which is a lot of dogs!

Ashlynn did another fantastic job of writing thoughtful thank you notes to each of her teachers.  Later, I added a note on the right side of each card before adding a Starbucks gift card to each.

I also wrapped up the book I made for Carter's teacher with pages from each student in the class.  I know, as a teacher, I love that stuff, so I hope she does too.

Last day of school pick-up.  Can't believe sixth grade, and the first year of middle school, is over.

No longer sixth graders! Don't they look summery?

We got to celebrate the last day of school with a swim party at the Kaufmanns' house, as we have for the past six years.  It's a great tradition that we look forward to every year!

Carter and Josiah

Almost all of the kids

We forgot to get a moms groups shot until there were only four of us.  

Despite the fact that I was technically the first person on vacation, my brain has been busy as I think about and plan for next year.  Here's one of my projects, which will go with our class jobs.

 More walks!  Also, I'm working on things like getting the dogs to go to and stay on the porch.

 Millie looks so goofy as a big dog with a toy in her mouth.

One creature that Millie and Pippa did NOT like walking down our street was a peacock.  Those dogs had a meltdown when they spotted him.  Peacocks are beautiful to look at but you sure don't want one squawking in you neighborhood in the middle of the night.  Carry on down the street fancy guy!

 We celebrated Carter's birthday again, that time with family.  The kid wanted sundaes again for his dessert.

There may have been a few days when the kids never got out of their jammies or didn't until the evening.  That's what you can do when it's summer!

 Today, Eric had his last day so we can finally say that WE are on summer break.  Yay!