Last Day of School

Ah, the last day of school.  It feels like just yesterday that we were posting about the first day of school!  Oh, er...hmm.  Well, time flew, that's for sure.  Here is the gang at the busstop (there are two boys and an older girl who also wait with us, but they weren't feeling the whole photo-documentation thing we had going on).

 We went to see Clara and Elena read their books to the class on "Kindergarten is the best because..."
Especially charming in Clara's book was that "we get to read with Mom" was in there (so she noticed that volunteer time!) and "I get to be with my sister" (confirming some of our decision to keep them in the same classroom together next year).

 

Elena's book featured Gus the Plus and Linus the Minus.  Very notable for her was her reading enthusiasm - some kids chose not to read, and Elena has sometimes been self conscious about her reading skills.  But she seems to not be concerned now, and was so proud to read her book! 

  

 Clara got her certificate of achievement for finishing kindergarten.

 Elena basking in Mrs. Malchi's love and her certificate of achievement:

And here the bus rumbles down the block at the end of the day, bringing them home for the very last day as kindergarteners.

We decided to have a celebration to mark the last day of school - can you guess what we thought might be a fun way to work off some of the excess energy of the last-day excitement?

Not a hard guess, huh?  Pinata time!

The role of hitting and the role of raising/lowering the pinata were equally coveted.  Joining us were Moana (the best friend of both girls, met just on the first day of school, who was in the same class with them all year and who happily lives just down the block) and her mom, Casey.

All the girls stuck with this for much longer than we would have thought - this pinata was pretty impenetrable!

But success was finally ours (after Casey swung the bat for a few well-aimed bashes):

Then there was reveling in the parent-approved snacks from the pinata (fruit snacks and oreo crackers) and Zimorino's pizza.  Yum!

And we topped off the party playing with these foam pellets - they are essentially vibrantly dyed packing peanuts.  You dab a side of them with a wet paper towel, and when you put another pellet against it they stick!  And when you're done you dump water on them and they dissolve. 

Clara's creation - a bird.  Can you see it?

And no "last of" post is complete without a little retrospective.  So first day is on the left, last day is on the right - that's a year of kindergarten right there.  It's not the physical growing that is really notable, but it is incredible how their minds have developed this year.  Kindergarten rocks!

Dunk tank

Christina was one of the faculty voted this year into the dunk tank as part of a fundraiser on campus.  Although she partly hoped she wouldn't end up being a finalist that got dunked she also had always wondered what being dunked would be liked.  And Clara and Elena LOVED the idea of Christina in a dunk tank.  So it came to pass.

And, my, was there a lot of dunking!!  That was an easily-triggered system, and the faculty in our department all gave the girls lots of money, so there was ample opportunity for Christina to experience the dunking part of the tank.  It was cold, but not nearly as bad as she thought it might be.

In the end, a fun life experience.  And Clara and Elena will always remember that they are the ones who got to dunk mom in front of all of her students.

School things

We did not take that many pictures of what went on in school for the girls this year. Christina was in the classroom every Monday to volunteer, and both Steve and Christina helped with a few other things, but we apparently did not document much of it. Here are two illustrators of what went down this year in kindergarten, though. These first shots are from a group work day to double the size of the community garden at the school. Each week the kids have a "special" period outside where they plant, or weed, or eat from this garden. On this day we helped lay down the weed fabric for the new section of the garden (a GREAT job for a group of kids, as it turns out) and to thin strawberries.

This is a bonus picture that has nothing to do with school, but somehow got lumped in the file and we're just leaving it here.  This was a performance for Irish dance that happened as part of the wildlife film festival in April.  We didn't bring the girls a coat, so here they are sharing Christina's.

And, here is a snapshot of each girl from their recent field trip, where they explored the University of Montana. For some of the kids this was a huge experience - for our girls, not so much.  They are there with us all the time.  But do they get to lift meteorites with us?  No, no they do not.

There was also an inflatable planetarium brought out for this visit - so funny!  We didn't know those existed, and they chose to inflate it and have the show in the classroom Christina has spent three hours every week in for one of her counseling classes.  It was certainly a different experience to have 20 giggly kids in an inflatable planetarium in that room instead of grad students talking about group counseling!

Spring Break

For the sake of efficiency we are compressing several spring-related events into this spring break post. There was a lot of joy to be had, in a lot of different ways.

There was Easter - it was a good one, but also a hard one.  Grammie Ellen had come out to celebrate with us, and almost as soon as she got here she broke her foot hiking up a mountain with Elena and Steve.  She was so brave, and so involved in everything even though she was in pain and couldn't move much.  But we were all sorry we missed the kind of together time we usually get.  Steve and Grammie Ellen held down the fort while Christina took the girls with her to Mass for Easter Sunday.

Elena continued her fascination with the pop star (Keira) from the movie The Princess and the Popstar.  She has spent the entire winter and spring figuring out how to earn money or influence us so that she can have different parts of the costume. (Since this isn't a particularly popular character right now we do a lot of this ourselves.  Christina sewed this Keira dress, and found these purple suede boots only after two months of searching!)

It's worth it, though - she gets right in a groove as Keira and is so, so happy.

Clara shows no interest at all in being the Princess (the other half to the popstar) and we love that she knows what she likes and what she doesn't.

That girl does like to dance, though!

"Here I am, doing what I want, giving what I've got, never a doubt now..." 

All of us in this house can sing the popstar songs by heart, but no one belts them out as well as Elena.

In one of Christina's counseling classes there was an exercise where the school counseling students demonstrated how to boost student self-esteem by making these flowers.  The petals are positive descriptors of the self.  When Clara and Elena saw Christina's she brought home they wanted to make their own.  Elena's says: "Dancer, silly, writer, sister, I am Keira" and a few other things that are your guess.

Clara says she is silly, happy, funny, a joker, and again - a few things that are your guess.

Inspired by the popstar (who wears a purple wig) the girls wanted to dye their hair.  We got colored hair spray and had at it.  They were thrilled, and Christina was thrilled at how easily it washed out, too.  This turned out to be a pretty painless way to bring about some joy!

And, wonder of wonders, a doughnut shop opened in Missoula!!  We spent a LOT of time here this spring - from waiting over an hour on opening day to buying up to three doughnuts each when we stop by - we are big fans.

Christina and her sweethearts - this was when Steve had gone with Grammie Ellen to help her get back to California, and Christina and Clara and Elena were pretending they were on vacation in Missoula.

And what is a vacation without a trip to the local brewery?

You know, the local brewery you go to with your priest?  You don't do that?  You should try it.  It was fun, and we are all pretty disappointed that Fr. Carver is moving to Washington - they are lucky to be getting him.

Finally, Christina's alma mater, Syracuse University was doing very well in the NCAA tournament this year.  The girls got a few more chances to learn the "Let's go Orange!" chant and to practice saying Otto's name (they confuse him with Waldo of Where's Waldo? fame).

And all spring long there has been silliness abounding.  These girls just keep expanding their sense of humor - sometimes it makes sense to us, sometimes it doesn't - but come on - this is hilarious, isn't it?

 It was a happy spring, but we are ALL ready for SUMMER!!!