ArtsFest

Memorial Day weekend was our town's annual art festival. This is our favorite event they put on, and we always go. Unfortunately Dave had a sore mouth (he had just had a tooth pulled), so we left him home.

The downtown park was full of arts, crafts, music and dancing. There are a couple of stages for performances going on throughout the day and a huge kid section of free crafts. A lot of the booths are the same every year, but there were a few new things.

After a little while, the older kids went over to the art exhibits while the younger ones stayed and did more crafts. That's why I have way more pictures of them!

It was more crowded than usual (we went a little later in the day that we usually do), so when there wasn't room at a table, Chloe just colored on the ground.

They really liked the Native American music table. 

Most of the instruments were hands on, which was awesome. But apparently there was a "Do Not Touch" sign by some of them, which I didn't see until after I'd already taken a picture of them playing the forbidden instruments. Oops.

By this point the little kids were ready to go play in the giant sandbox, so we met up with the big kids and headed in that direction. They always have set-ups with dancers and actors, and the Cinderella one was fun.

They had crafts for older kids too - Spencer carved a template to print. 

We didn't have time to see all the art exhibits, so the big kids just showed us their favorites: big metal models (which is exactly the kind of thing they like to make with junk in our backyard),

And their favorite artist, Josh Talbott. He sets up toys in funny settings and paints them. So fun!

 We bought a ginormous bag of kettle corn. Love that stuff. 

We ended at the sand castle, made by the Sand Guys. I almost can't stand being there because of all the annoying kids climbing up and "helping," thus destroying the amazing structure, even though there is plenty of sand around for kids to work on. They seriously need a bouncer, and I'm always temped to do it!

End of the year stuff

The last month of school flew by. There were just so many things going on! Dallin and Brennan were in the Taco Bell track meet. Dallin was on the relay team.

We went to one of these years ago for Spencer and Tyler, and we've tried to avoid them ever since. But Dallin was chosen to be on the team, so we felt obligated. Dave was kayaking with Spencer and Tyler that day, so we didn't have anything else going on.

Since we were there anyway, we signed up Brennan too. He did the long jump and 50 meter. Afterwards we stopped at Taco Bell for our free tacos.

Dallin won the county writing contest! He wrote a persuasive essay about why the turkey should be our national bird. They asked him to read it at the awards ceremony in SLO, and of course he said yes. When we got there, we learned that he was one of only 6 students out of about 150 winners, grades 1-12, on the program to read! He had the whole audience cracking up. Such a proud moment - we stopped for ice cream on the way home.

Then we had open houses. We had kids at 4 different schools this year, so that was busy. They all loved having us visit their classrooms and showing us their work. 

Dallin's teacher, Mrs. Emrich, is retiring after 20 years at Virginia Peterson! She's amazing, and we were so happy Dallin had her before she left. She even drove down to SLO to watch Dallin read his essay! All of our children have had Mrs. Young, and we love her! She was so good for Brennan this year. She was able to help him with his ADD in ways no one has been able to. We are truly grateful.

I love that they always do a big dance performance during open house. First each grade performs, and then they all do their warm-up dance together. It's so fun!

Levi had a great year in transitional kindergarten. He LOVED his teacher, Ms. Starr. She is so sweet and happy, and he always talked about her beautiful smile. He got so excited about his homework. She handed out monthly homework calendars at the beginning of each month, and he usually finished them in 2 days. He has all-day kindergarten next year, and I think this year really prepared him for that. Chloe and I will miss hanging out with him in the afternoon!

The end of the year means lots of projects for the older kids (although we were very grateful the fifth graders didn't have to do an invention this year!). Tyler and his friend Erica made a video about The Outsiders for English. Jacob and Peter were here, and they helped. Brennan made a great Johnny.

Dallin went to the district B.O.B. (Battle of the Books) contest. He read all 30 books on the list this year!

The high school open house was last. Spencer made salsa for the Spanish class salsa competition. It was so good, I couldn't believe he didn't win ;)

Chloe was SO excited about the "brown horsie!" there. We saw it a couple of times.

Next came piano recitals. Spencer was so busy with tennis matches that Dallin started to take over his piano lessons. He loved it, and now they're both taking lessons. 

I've been needing to practice piano for church (I've subbed in primary and relief society recently), so we had a little competition. We all kept tract of our practicing, and the person who practiced the most in 2 weeks got a Toblerone, paid for by the loser. At first it was just me and Spencer, but then Tyler and Dallin joined us. There's been a lot more practicing around here!

About a week before the end of school, I went to see Brennan get a science award. When I got to the school, everyone was gathered around the flag pole, honoring our wonderful secretary, Dawn. She is seriously the BEST school secretary. She is always so happy and NICE! The whole school sang Happy Birthday to her (apparently her b-day is in the summer). Funny story - once Dawn had to call me about one of my kids. Nothing serious, just something about their lunch. She called me 2 minutes later to tell me how wonderful my kids are and that I need to keep them coming. I love her!

Dallin played Benjamin Franklin in his class play.

Levi's class had a little promotion. It was nice and low-key.

Here's the morning class - nice and small! They overlapped with the afternoon class for just 1 hour. He started out the year in the afternoon class, but I switched him because the schedule worked out better for us. I was glad we switched - this is a much calmer group.

I am happy he will be at Brennan's school next year! 

They had a promotion for Dallin's 5th grade class. It was was short and sweet, but then I got the time wrong and showed up 30 minutes late. It's just as well. It was plenty long enough for Levi and Chloe!

 Just 2 graduations this year.  Here's dallin with the principle, Mrs. Rondeau.  

We realized that in 3 years, Chloe will graduate from Kindergarten, Brennan will graduate from elementary school, Dallin will graduate from middle school, and Spencer will graduate from high school. That will be crazy!!!