Last day of K

This year as a kindergartner, Connor was in a K-1 combo class. There are two K-1 combos and so they are team taught. One of his teachers, Mrs. Fry, retired this year and we are sad to see her go. She lived in Julian, (a small town an hour or so away) and she used to load up her pickup truck with snow every time it snowed there and bring it to our kids to play in. She was really that fun!


Connor watching on as Mrs. Fry received her retirement gifts. The room mother handed out these hats for the kids to sign and Connor thought they were great. He told me, "Mom, they're like yearbook, but they're a hat!"


Connor and his friend Johnny.

Academic Awards

With the end of the school year comes programs, concerts, and all sorts of ceremonies. Just before school got out we attended the Academic Awards ceremony for Amanda. Here she is showing off her medal. She's hit the age where your mom taking pictures of you is E-M-B-A-R-A-S-S-I-N-G. We had to go to some dark corner of the school where no one was around for her to let me take this picture.

Graduation

It's official, I am now the mother of not one, but TWO Middle Schoolers! Sam graduated from 5th grade and is on to Middle School next year. They had a fun graduation ceremony this year. For the first time they held it indoors in the MPR in order to do a slide show of the kids. One of the things I love about living in California is that all events are held outside, so I kind of missed it, but it was worth it to see the cute presentation of all the kids. The theme for her graduation was "ALOHA" and so we decided to make candy leis for all of her good friends. They turned out really cute and the girls loved them!


Sam got selected to give a speech at her graduation entitled "What Garden Road Means to Me." I was very proud of her, she did a great job!


The fam at the graduation after party! Sam and her two good friends, Kinley and Shay.

Girl Scout Camp

The weekend before school ended Sam got to go on a Girl Scout camp out. It was just a couple of hours away and a lot of fun!


They got to go on a hike that was supposed to be about an hour and ended up being about three hours. They were the first group at this camp this year and so some of the trails were not cleared and their guide ended up getting them lost! They did find their way back to camp and it ended up being a great story to tell!

Field Day 2010

This Friday was our schools annual field day, a highlight of the year for the kids. At our school each class "adopts" a college to root for throughout the year. It is to encourage the kids to start thinking about going to college. Connor's class is the Virginia Tech Hokies. His teacher was able to get the school to send her kids all t-shirts to wear for field day. Here's Connor proudly sporting his Hokie Pride!


Before field day started they had their monthly Friday Flag, which is like an assembly, and Connor received two awards. Unfortunately I didn't know he was even getting them and I missed that part of the assembly, but he was pretty proud anyway. He got citizen of the month and then a running award for running 40 plus miles over the school year.


Since Connor has a summer birthday he also got to celebrate his birthday on Friday. Their class has a fun tradition that instead of bringing in treats for your class you bring in a cake mix and frosting and the birthday kid gets to make his own cupcakes with the help of two buddies. It was great except for the fact that he thought that since he was celebrating his birthday at school he should get presents for it at home. Nice try buddy!


The highlight of Field Day for Sam was the 5th graders against the teachers softball game. She took it very seriously taking her own bat and ball. I think the 5th graders ended up winning 27-7. Here she is waiting for a pitch.


Hitting it out of the park. Well, maybe not out of the park, but close!

Go West!

Sam's fifth grade class put on a play about the westward expansion this year called Go West. The kids went to after school practices for half the year and really worked hard on this. It turned out great!


Sam has had the opportunity this year to work with the Special Education kids at our school. One particular boy, Alexander, took a liking to Sam. He is autistic and has incredible musical abilities. After listening to the soundtrack for Go West he composed his own arrangement to the song and before the play started he played it while four girls from Sam's class sang it. It was really cool!


Sam is much more of a performer than any of the rest of this Young clan. Who would have guessed Sam liked being in the spotlight?!


Sam delivering her monologue.


I wanted to record just a few seconds of the play for Sam to remember it and caught this cute video of Sam helping to direct Alexander. She got buddied up with him for the play and was in charge of making sure he came on and off of the stage at the appropriate times. Alexander is an amazing, talented boy, but not always easy to control. He was poking, pinching and touching Sam all throughout the play, but Sam was very kind and patient with him. I've had no less than half a dozen teachers and parents tell me how kind and compassionate Sam is towards him. Now if I could just get her to act that way towards her own brother!

Kindergarten Program

COnnor had his end of the year kindergarten program this week and it was adorable! Usually this program is put together by the kindergarten teachers, but this year we were fortunate enough to have a music teacher mother in our classroom who volunteered her time to do music with the kids each week. She did a super job! Connor didn't always look like he was enjoying it, but I secretly know he did! Connor is not a performer. Notice he is the one in the front row with his hands in his pockets while everyone else was doing the actions. He really is the child of Shaun and Nicholle Young. We are not performers either! I wish I could have gotten a close up of his face when he had to hold hands with a girl! It was priceless!
Connor and his biggest fan.

Fits like a glove

Mads got her first softball glove and ball yesterday. Who knew they made gloves that were pink and purple and sparkly? She's already played catch with it and slept with it last night. I think she's a natural. Just ignore the fact that it's on the wrong hand. Maybe she's going to be as good of ball player as her mom!

Memorial Day

Our Memorial Day was pretty low key this year. We went to a movie as a family. First time ever that the whole family has gone to a movie together! It's fun to have Mads old enough to do more stuff as a whole family instead of sometimes doing just "little kid stuff" and sometimes just "big kid stuff". Then we drove down to Mission Valley to one of our favorite restaurants, Seaus. The food was delicious the kids were well behaved and then we got to walk through the mall afterwards which is always fun for me!

Pacific Beach

While Josh and Kristy were here we decided to brave going down to Pacific Beach on the Saturday before Memorial Day. The beach itself was not too crowded, but traffic and parking were crazy! Here are some of my favorite pictures taken that day, and yes, Amanda is texting while playing in the waves.

Hef

After spending time together up in Anaheim, my brothers and Kristy came down to Poway to spend a couple of days. A LOT of Mario Brothers was played. Thank you Josh for staying up until midnight on your last night to get my kids 99 lives so that they could see Mario with his hat off! And thank you Kristy for being so patient as Josh spent quite a bit of your vacation playing Mario and making my kids very happy!


As you may noticed in the last picture Josh was looking quite relaxed in his red silky PJ's with matching robe/smoking jacket. He "inherited" these from my grandfather recently. They were hand made for my grandpa, by my grandma. Josh said he likes to wear them when he relaxes. We just made fun of him. Although he does bear a striking resemblance to...


...a certain wealthy, mansion owner.


I guess Josh was the one that got the last laugh though. One night, while Josh, Kristy and Logan were visiting, we went to Vinces, an Italian Restaurant in Temecula, and Josh insisted on wearing his robe (over his normal clothes, not the matching PJ's!). When they brought us the check the waitress also brought a free dessert out for Josh and told him that the manager liked his style and thought he deserved free dessert for it! Who's laughing now?!