Beyond Well Pleased

***Warning: This post is completely filled with BRAGGING. I am nothing if not an extremely proud Momma***

Yesterday was the last day of school for the kidlets. They decided that they would all wear shirts from the schools the will be going to next year since four out of the five kidlets are moving to different schools.

They all had an amazing year at school and I look forward to spending as much time as possible with them this summer.

I’m going to start my bragging with the youngest and work my way up.

~~~~~

Ham had an great year in pre-school. When the first letter came home about the scheduled Kindergarten Transition Meeting I wasn’t sure if I was ready for my baby to be in Kindergarten. The progress he made this year was mind-boggling and he is more than ready to be a Kindergartener.

~~~~~

On Wednesday the girlies had their award assemblies.

LaLa got perfect attendance this quarter. This child loves going to school. I took her out of school a few minutes early one day to go see a movie and I didn’t think she would be able to relax and enjoy the movie because she was so worried about missing school…for a few minutes.

~~~~~

It’s Roo’s last year at elementary school and she had a great year.

She had perfect attendance for this quarter also. (when did I turn into that Mom?)

She also got student of the month for April. The letter that her teacher wrote was so nice, I can only imagine how great it had to be for Roo to hear the principal read it during announcements for the whole school to hear.

And she isn’t just another pretty face, she has the brains to back up her beauty and she made the Principal’s Honor Roll.

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Einstein had a remarkable year. He is such an amazing young man.

His band teacher gave out two Outstanding Musician awards and he earned one of them.

He also made the Principal’s Honor Roll.

And since he made the Principal’s Honor Roll all 4 quarters he also received the President’s Award for Outstanding Academic Excellence. He maintained a 4.0 average all year long.

And to finish off his awards his ELP teacher gave out three ELP MVP awards and he earned one of them.

When his ELP teacher was talking about what an awesome kid he is and then the band teacher got up and said not only was he everything the other teacher said, but also a very talented musician I couldn’t help but cry. You know that your kids are amazing, but when you have other adults in their lives acknowledge it it just hits that Proud Momma spot.

~~~~~

And finally Big J…

He was given the Outstanding Musician Award at the last concert of the year.

He also earned Principal’s Honor Roll for the year, which for the Jr. High means he had to have over a 4.0 average. Pretty impressive with a schedule filled with honors classes.

They weren’t able to give out the certificates at the award assembly because the school had printed out the certificates with Principle’s List…DOH. Maybe they should have had one of the kids from the list spell-check them.

And then to top off all the other awards he got his Certificate of Promotion

and will be moving to High School next year.

~~~~~

I hope they are able to relax and have a little bit of fun this summer, they earned it.

For some reason I don’t think they will have a problem with that.

Alice Said It Best…

School is out for the summer!

And it wouldn’t be the last day of school without me running all over the place.

The day started with an award assembly at 8:30, but since Ham wasn’t awake yet we missed that one.

The second assembly started at 9:15. There Einstein was awarded Principle Honor Roll,

ELP MVP

and for being on the Principal Honor Roll for all 4 quarters he received a certificate Outstanding Academic Excellence from the President of the United States.

He also got perfect attendance this quarter…I am not real sure how that happened!

I love this shot of Einstein and Q. These 2 boys are always neck in neck for grades, but that doesn’t stop them from cheering for each other and are good friends.

This was Einstein’s last year at the elementary school and he is having a hard time saying goodbye. I think the fact that he had an awesome teacher doesn’t help when you have to move on. So next year he will be at the middle school.

I had my morning timed down to the minute and since that award assembly ran a few minutes long the kidlets missed their bus so I had to drive them to school and then hurry and turn around and head to the middle school for Big J’s assembly.

At his assembly the Math Team finally got their certificates.

They came in first place for the 6th grade Math Challenge…and would have gone to state, but because of budget cuts there wasn’t a district that could put on the state competition. Pathetic.

This is his last year at the middle school and next year will be moving to the Jr high school.

At the end of the assembly the 6th grade sang a song…which I thought was a nice touch.

But I had to leave early to head back to pick up the kidlets from their school.

Ham is going to miss his teacher. She has been wonderful with him.

This was LaLa’s last day of preschool and she will be starting kindergarten next year and will be going to school with Roo. I don’t have a picture with her teacher because Miss N has been gone this week with her son who is graduating from the Air Force Academy.

After picking up the kidlets we stopped home long enough to drop backpacks and get a quick drink and then back in the ol’subooboo to pick up Einstein and Roo.

Thank goodness Big J just walks home from school.

But for now they are all home

and ready for

summer fun!

JAWS

***Warning!!! This post includes children, scalpels and dead fish.***

Big J has already mastered the art of dissecting a squid.

This year the kids in the ELP class were given a shark to dissect.

Big J has been waiting for this day forever!

By the time we showed up they had done most of the work, including removing any babies from the shark. Big J and his partner found 5 babies in their shark.

They were still small, but fully formed. Some of the other groups found much larger babies.

The job while we were there was to remove the jaw bone.

Here is Big J trying to pry open the mouth, while avoiding the sharp teeth.

They finally got it opened.

Mr. D came over to offer a little assistance while Big Daddy looked on.

It took some cutting,

and cutting,

but finally success and the jaw bone was removed.

Big J and the shark teeth came a little too close while he was trying to get the jaw bone out.

While the kids were working on their sharks the other classes were able to come out and watch.

It was the perfect day for watching young kids mutilate dissect dead sea creatures. We had blue skies and a slight breeze to blow the formaldehyde stink away. The only problem was when the wind blew the wrong way. Blech!

At this very minute in my house there is a dead baby shark, a shark jaw, a tail fin and a patch of shark skin.

And for the love of all things disgusting I better get extra Nice Mom points for letting them be here.

Thursday Child – California Edition

Last weekend Big J, Big Daddy and I had the opportunity to go on a fieldtrip to California. This was for Big J’s ELP class. There were 16 kids, 8 parents, 1 teacher and a tour coordinator on a really big bus.

We left here Thursday night at about 11:30pm and drove to Ontario, California. We had a quick stop to eat a little breakfast and freshen up before a long day of sight-seeing.

We started our tour in Hollywood at Grauman’s Chinese Theater.

It was really neat to see all the hand and foot prints of so many stars. It was funny listening to all these young kids running around asking who is Marilyn Monroe or Paul Newman or Cary Grant, but they were so excited to see Hugh Jackman’s prints. J didn’t understand why I was excited to see Sean Connery’s prints. Hello? Bond, James Bond.

After leaving Hollywood and driving through the Hollywood Hills and on the LA freeways I am glad I don’t live in California and have to drive there. The traffic here in the valley is nothing compared to there.

We headed to the USC campus and the LA County Museum of Natural History. This is the class on the steps.

We only had a couple of hours to see everything and we could have stayed there all day. This museum has one of only 2 complete T-Rex skulls on display in the world. They also have an actual T-Rex skeleton, not one made of cast bones. I didn’t take my ‘good’ camera on this trip and my little camera has such a hard time taking pictures in low light. Anywho…this is Big Daddy and Big J in front of the skeletons of a T-Rex and a Triceratops.

After leaving the museum we had lunch at the LA Farmers Market – an interesting choice to take a bus full of kids.

After lunch we headed to the La Brea Tar Pits. It is really a cool place right in the middle of LA where there are these Tar Pits where they are still pulling up Ice Age bones and fossils. Not dinosaurs, but mammoths and mastodons and saber-tooth cats (we learned they are not tigers, just cats. Go figure).

This is some of the methane gas bubbling up through the tar. And yes, it smelled that good.

We met this nice street performer who had plenty of stories about the tar pits. He was a very unique man.

We learned all about how and why there are so many bones found in this small area. Really quite fascinating.

After leaving there we got to spend more time on the bus.

We spent A LOT of time on the bus. I am so thankful for my blessed iPod.

Our day still wasn’t over yet.

We went to what I think was Big J’s favorite part of the weekend. In fact I think most of the kids said this was their favorite part of the weekend:

A reptile show at Prehistoric Pets.

And let me tell you, this guy loves his job. He was enthusiastic and knowledgeable and entertaining.

He brought all these different reptiles out for the kids to hold. Big J was one happy kid.

Even Big Daddy got in the fun.

At the end of the show he brought out this little gal.

I don’t remember what kind of snake it was, but I do remember she was about 23 feet long and weighed over 130 pounds.

After the Reptile Show it was time for dinner. I am just glad we didn’t eat at this place.

After dinner we still had to get down to San Diego. We finally got to the hotel about 9pm that night. It had been a very long day and we were ready to crash. The hotel had a power outage at 11pm, that in hindsight I think we were grateful for. The kids had to go to sleep because there wasn’t anything else to do. This is the sign at the hotel welcoming us. We were with Project Exploration, not the Vietnam Rangers…just in case you were wondering.

The next morning we had breakfast on a pier on Shelter Island.

We enjoyed the gorgeous views and were visited by a couple of sea lions.

We were met by the owner of the tour company who shared a little history of the San Diego area.

After that we made my favorite stop: The San Diego Zoo.

Of course they had to make a stop at the reptile house. The ELP class had been studying the top 10 most venomous snakes in the world and the San Diego Zoo has 7 of 10 on display. Including a green mamba. I think he would make a really cool pair of shoes.

They also have one of these bad boys:

After leaving the reptiles we took the tram over the zoo.

At the other end of the tram was the polar bears.

The class was really excited to see this animal:

It is a Okapi. The class had learned about them earlier in the year. They are part giraffe, part zebra and part horse?!?

But for me the most amazing animal we saw was the Pandas.

We could have spent more time at the Zoo, but we had more to do.

After the Zoo we went to Sea Port Village for lunch. This was my least favorite part of the whole trip. We all got off the bus and the kids and parents just went off to find places to eat and I realized I didn’t know where J was. I totally panicked. I went to the tour coordinator and she just looked at me like I was an idiot. Big Daddy was going around to some of the different groups and asking if anyone had seen him. It was totally surreal, nobody was helping us look for him. About that time J and Bill the Bus Driver came walking up. Big J had been in the bathroom when we had unloaded and no one made sure everyone was off the bus before everyone went on their own way. Ugh!!! So after calming down and having a little lunch we were back on the bus for the drive home.

We pulled up at the school at 10pm on Saturday night. It was crazy to think about everywhere we had been and all we had seen in a short 47 hours.

And we are supposed to do this again next year!?!