End of the Year Celebrations

Yesterday was the last day of school!  We survived another year, and now it remains to be seen if I can survive another summer!  We have TWO KIDS moving schools now-- Kendra finished middle school and will be a high schooler in the fall, and Ryder finished elementary school and will be in middle school all by himself (his first time ever not having a sibling at his school with him) in September!  So there have been a lot of activities swirling around these momentous events.  

Last week, the elementary school had Field Day.  They go to the high school football field for this, and a fire truck comes and sprays them with water.  Obviously, they LOVE it.  The school had also been hard at work coordinating a massive tie dye effort, so each grade had a tie-dyed shirt in its colors (and 5th graders get to use all the colors).  I can't even imagine trying to pull off something like this!

Camille with her bff Mara.  1st grade got purple!

I really love this action shot!

And 3rd grade was green!

And that night was the 8th grade dance!  This felt like a bigger deal than usual because (thanks to Covid) Kendra hasn't really gotten to go to many dances so far.  I think this was her second dance ever?  (And a boy asked her to the dance, so that was also swimming into new and uncharted waters.  For all of us, actually...)  This was the same night I was at Montalto, so I missed out on this, but Craig got pictures for me of our beautiful girl:

They must have been running behind; usually Craig would have kicked that backpack out of the way and made sure this was a better staged picture!  But you get the idea.

Wednesday was an awards ceremony at Walton!  It was during the day and they'd said parents didn't need to come, so we weren't going to bother.  But then I got a call from the guidance counselor saying Kendra would be receiving an award and we should be there, so Craig and I rearranged our schedules and surprised Kendra by showing up.  And it was very fun to see her receive the award for Music for her whole class!  My little band geek! 😍

The principal also gave a very short speech with some incredibly great advice, so I really appreciated that.  Mr. Walton (yup, the principal of Walton Middle School is named Mr. Walton!) said 1) Be suspicious of anyone who tells you these are your best days; you might have really great days or really bad days in the next few years, but life is long and there is a lot of time for plenty of ups and downs; 2) Learn the value of compound interest, study what that is now if you don't already know (or ask your parents to explain it).  In very simple terms, when you place value on something and others value it, too, the value can grow exponentially.  Kindness can also grow exponentially, so 3) also practice being kind to others.  You will never regret the times that you were kind.

Seriously-- for a two minute speech, he packed some REALLY good advice into it!

Next they had a slide show for all the kids, which I had sent in a few pictures of Kendra for, and they'd added their own notes to the bottom about what makes each kid unique.  So here's Kendra's:

I love those pictures of Kendra!  In case you can't read it, hers says, "Involved (Band, WLHW, School Play, Rocket Club), Athletic (Swim Team), Philosophical, Creative."  I can't imagine trying to do that for all the students in the 8th grade!

That evening while we were eating dinner, we checked Kendra's grades and she had managed to get her language arts grade up to an A, meaning she had all As for the year.  Which means she could finally get a phone, a greatly anticipated event for her:

"Is this really what I think it is???"

The next day, in the evening, they'd invited everyone to come for an "informal walk-through."  I had no idea what this meant, but basically, we just walked through the hallway and the teachers were all lined up cheering for all the 8th graders.  They had a photo booth set up in the cafeteria, and then popsicles once you got outside.  It honestly would have been kind of stupid, but all of Kendra's friends had waited outside for her to arrive (and we hadn't realized they'd be waiting, so we were quite late) and all the girls walked through arm-in-arm together and it was really quite sweet.  And they got to hang out for quite some time (and sing a lot of Hamilton!) and they were all in such great spirits and it was such a beautiful evening it was impossible not to enjoy it all.  So well done, Walton admin team!

 

And then Friday was Ryder's 5th grade promotion ceremony!  (I sort of liked that they didn't call it a graduation.  Let's save that word for high schools and colleges, right?)  But finishing elementary school is a big step in growing up, and it always makes me get a little teary eyed seeing the evidence of my kids getting so big!  This year they were holding this outside, and I learned of this on a day that was sweltering and the thought of sitting outside for an hour made me want to die.  But the actual morning was perfect: 70 degrees and not humid, crystal clear air.  Not a cloud in sight.  So we all lucked out.  Tom and Donna came, too, so we all got to sit together and cheer on Ryder.

While parents got seated, they had the 5th graders waiting in the cafeteria and the kids had each made a slide for themselves and they watched the slide show.  That's a nice way to keep them happy, but it meant none of the parents got to see it!  Fortunately, I have friends who work for the schools, so they got pictures for me.

Ryder is our first kid to do all 6 grades at Mountain View!  (Even though when he started, it was called Cale...)

In the cafeteria with Owen, Oscar, and Josh)

I hate wearing hats, but I hate getting sunburned even more...

With Ms. Palmer (my neighbor, Ginna, and Sydney & Beth's mom!)

And Ms. Lewandowski

Showing us his monkeybar skills one last time

We took Ryder home with us, and Tom and Donna took him out for breakfast.  Colton and Camille (who had gotten to leave class to watch the promotion ceremony) stayed for their own class festivities, and got to also walk through a hallway of cheering teachers as they left for the buses at the end of their half-day of school.

(This was a live photo, and you can see Colton looking slightly bewildered at all the noise, and then spot the camera filming him and smile and give the thumbs up-- it's very cute)

And now, it's officially Summer Vacation!!!!