End of School Year Things

So much happened the end of the school year. Let me try to share some of it. This is not necessarily in order.

 

Field trips! 

Jet went bowling. Lucky went roller skating. The whole school went to watch Paddington at a movie theater. 

When I asked Jet what he liked about bowling, he told me, "I liked knocking down a lot of pins."

 

Reading Hall of Fame! 

Jet and Lucky both did enough reading for the Hall of Fame this year that they got certificates, posters, bookmarks, and a new book each.

Lucky got a special framed certificate and another book for doing the Hall of Fame all the years of elementary school.

 

Student Council Party!

Lucky was the secretary of the Student Council this year and they had a party at the end of the year. When I went to drop him and a friend off for the party, they started heading toward the door then all of a sudden ran the other direction and into the parking lot. A few other kids did the same. I realized, it was because they were helping carry food and things in for the party. No hesitation, these kids immediately went to help. I appreciate seeing this from these students. They are a good example to others (no wonder they were accepted into student council this year). 

Lucky brought home a service award "for outstanding leadership, character, and service."

 

Two of the aides in Jet's class retired this year so we went to a little retirement party held for them at the school and Jet made them cards.

Jr. Jr. also got a bunch of certificates for surviving junior high. He and I went to a celebration. Then we practiced some juggling afterward.

You saw the train he made, right? See my blog post from May 14, 2026. Jr. Jr. brought home a candy dispenser he made, too. 

 

I got to go to an assembly at the elementary school where Lucky was presented with a Hope of America Award. It was awarded to Lucky "who has demonstrated during this school year capacity for leadership, ethical and moral character and outstanding academic accomplishment."

I was talking with a mom of one of Lucky's friends who also got the award about how it was fun to see how several of these students were good friends. It's nice to know that they are good influences on each other. Keep up the good work, kids.

 

I went to the elementary school dance festival to watch Lucky and Jet dance. They both did great. Jet's first and Lucky's last.

What a cool kid.

Woohoo! We survived another school year. 

Read-a-thon

I'm not the only one who loves reading challenges. The elementary school recently had their annual read-a-thon. This year, a Book Bandit escaped from the book and it took reading so many minutes to get him back in his book.

Jet got very excited about it when they had their opening assembly. He came home and told us about the Book Bandit. He even decided he had a certain color shirt that was his "case solver" shirt to solve clues about the Book Bandit so he alternated between two shirts during the whole read-a-thon. Oh my. He is so cute. 

But let me let him share about it:

 

yeftefytrreggdytdyrtderfyg;lgblkghjghjbnhjbioiuio jioojuojujojiiiiiiiiiiiiikuiiooiuoyiiigtjjirtjrithgiirgthghtiththitgthhfthtrhfrjtgjrgihhrugrftbrth hjrknfrg fjrmfrnfm

 

Translation (as fast as I could keep up):

Mystery solver. mystery solver solved the clues. Boom, solved the clues.

something about the book thief.

Find the clues, mystery solver. 

 

Told you he was cute.

Daddy read a bedtime story (or two or three) to him every night then told me how many minutes they read so I could record it the next morning.

Lucky, of course, did his own reading, and read he did.

On the last day of the read-a-thon, he came home with a medal for being one of the top readers (reading the most minutes). Not really a surprise. This kid also loves reading challenges.

Lucky told me that Jet's team got the most minutes overall, though, so that's also fun.

Wax and Awards

The day after Screen Free Week was busy. I got to see Lucky be Brigham Young at the elementary school's Wax Museum.

He did such a good job. Ever since the school play, he's loving being dramatic with things. I love his Brigham Young face. Such a fun kid.

Oh, he just corrected me when reading this. "That's not true. I've always loved being dramatic, doing voices and stuff."

That night was a Senior Awards Night at the high school so I got to see Jr. get recognition for some awards. Woohoo. Cool kid.

Then we went home in time to be online for my niece opening up her mission call to... Argentina. I had a brother who went to Argentina on a mission. Jeremy had a brother who went on a mission to Argentina. Fun stuff.

Screen Free Week

I'm so proud of myself. Screen Free Week was May 5-11 this year. I prepared early and had blog posts scheduled for while I wasn't on. Yay. 

Of course, there was a lot of screen time because everything with school is screens nowadays, assignments, emails (including me having to check emails), texts, etc. Sigh.

Back in my day (insert old person speak), we didn't send all our homework assignments over the internet. We didn't even have the internet when I was in elementary school and middle school. Why, I remember having to pull the encyclopedias off my dad's bookshelf to look up information for my report on cats. That's right. I did a report about cats- domestic cats. You know the reason cats always land on their feet? Well, I do. I had it in my report, my handwritten report that I turned into my teacher in class. These kids nowadays... they write a report and the teacher can instantly see it. All this newfangled technology. It's everywhere.

O.K. That's enough of that. This newfangled technology is actually very handy with family history. I was able to have blog posts scheduled and get caught up even when I wasn't on the computer myself. Nice.

 

So... about Screen Free Week.

 

Monday, May 5, was Cinco de Mayo. We had pork salad bowls (kind of like at Cafe Rio). Yummmmmm. I made tortilla bowls to put them in, had rice, beans, lettuce, pork, cilantro lime dressing, and whatever else. We didn't all have the same in our bowls. 

That day was also a rainy day (we've had several rainy days in the last couple weeks) so the snails were out. I actually found one crawling down the van door. That means it had to somehow get up for it to be crawling down. I moved it off before driving as I didn't know what would happen to it otherwise.

I went for a brief walk at the lake. Definitely stormy with all the choppy water. 

After dinner, we had Family Home Evening. Our activity since it was Screen Free Week was going to the Orem Library and picking out a book each (and some of the kids picked out a board game as well). 

Libby the Librantula was out so I said, "Hi," to her while we were there.

 

Apparently nothing of significance happened on Tuesday, May 6. The lake was still choppy. 

Wednesday, May 7, was a busy day. Both Lucky and Jr. had performances that day. 

Lucky joined a whole bunch of 5th graders to do "Hope of America." See him in this picture? Right there. Right there in the red shirt. 

Actually Jeremy could point out which one he was because they were there early enough he could see him before all the seats got filled and memorized which row and how far in he was. The students made an American flag.

And here they are all shining. 

 

Jr. had his last orchestra concert that same night. I went to watch him in that.

He also got a couple awards. One for being "Most Consistent Cellist" and a paper plate award for being "the beautiful newsboy" since he played in the pit orchestra for both Beauty and the Beast (twice) and Newsies.

 

Ha Ha Ha. Now that Screen Free Week is over, I haven't had as much time on the computer for blogging. This is all I'm able to blog about for now. I'll talk about the rest of Screen Free Week later.

 

Jet: Can I write for a little bit?

This is his typing (abbreviated by me).

9999999999999999999999999959999999999999....................000000000000000000///////////\\\\]]]]]]]]]]]]]]777777888888999999999222222222222220...........................................................+6666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666++

 

Dinosaur Day 2024

You've heard me mention it before. Dinosaurs are everywhere.

On the kitchen table. In my bed. Where I'm stepping on the floor. In Jet's hands... obviously. In my bag... all the time. They're everywhere.

Sometimes I embrace the dinosaurs. Sometimes I forget about them even when it's Dinosaur Day, May 15, and I remember them almost last minute.

I should have worn my Jurassic Park shirt that day but I didn't think about it. Silly me. I did have other things on my mind. Jr.'s last orchestra concert was that evening for example. Earlier in the day, he had his guitar recital. Jeremy and Nichole went to that since Jet and I had an appointment. Most of us went to Jr.'s orchestra concert. My sister, her husband, and her son went to that concert as well... because I finally told her when his concert was. For the past few years I keep forgetting to tell her when the kids' concerts are even though they live in the same city. Sigh.

After the concert, they had some food and gave out paper plate awards. Jr. got the "Silent Ninja" award. He's quiet but does a good job.

Jet and I made sure to grab a couple of chocolate chip cookies since May 15 was also National Chocolate Chip Day.

After the concert, Jr. came home and immediately started playing his guitar again. I love that our kids are so musical.

End of School Days

Some school things that happened in May:

Lucky did a report and project on the Arctic. He made a diorama showing animals and plants with the Northern Lights in the background.

I took Jr. Jr. and Lucky to say Goodbye to their principal who retired. Coincidence that they all matched the decorations?

 

Jr. and Nichole had their last concert at the school. Nichole composed two pieces that the combined orchestras performed and she conducted. She got a paper plate award for it.

The weather was gorgeous when we got out of the concert.

 

Jr. went to his last official day of classes. It's hard to know when school ends at the high school because it kind of fizzles out every year. But I got a picture of Jr. on his last day of classes.

Nichole had another orchestra festival that day. Busy busy.

 

Nichole had an awards night at the high school.

I went to see Jr. Jr. and Lucky at their dance festival. Good job boys.

 

Because, like I said, chaos, the last day of school came up for the elementary schoolers and I had completely forgotten to help them do anything for their teachers. So last minute, they wrote cards and took apples to their teachers. Sigh.

 The end of school was crazy but we all survived.