End-of-the-year festivities

The last couple weeks of school are busy, what with field trips and ceremonies and parties and such. Dallin's kindergarten class took a field trip to the beach - how cool is that?!

First they played at the pirate park (I got there late and missed that part - it takes me forever to get out of the house these days).


Then they went to the little ocean center there. It's a really small place, but they got to touch a sea anemone and a swell shark.

Then they put on gloves and helped pick up trash on the beach. Someone marked off a section with cones, and the kids were running around practically fighting over who got to pick up each piece of trash. It was pretty funny.

Then his brave teacher had everyone take off their socks and shoes and play in the wet sand without getting in the water. See - here she is backing everyone away from the water. I was amazed no one got too wet. It's almost impossible for my kids to go to the beach and not get in the water.

But they had fun throwing rocks and clumps of sand into the water and running away from waves.

Brennan had a lot of fun helping, and Levi was happy in the baby carrier the whole time, so it all worked out. And I couldn't believe how warm it was! I thought it was such a great idea for a field trip, and I think more classes should go there.

Brennan was sad we missed playing at the park, so we stayed to play and eat our packed lunch.

The next day was their little kindergarten promotion, where they sang a bunch of songs and handed out certificates. It was tough getting a picture of Dallin because he kept turning around and making everyone around him laugh. I kept hearing, "Oh, Dallin!" giggle giggle.

Afterwards we all headed over to their playground for cookies and juice.

Here's his awesome teacher, Mrs. Berry. Unfortunately she doesn't know if she'll be back next year because of all the horrible budget problems. None of the teachers know if they'll be transferred.

Tyler with Mrs. Baker. Their last field trip was walking to the dragon park. He's become good friends with her son Jeb, so hopefully we'll see them over the summer.

Spencer and his absolute favorite teacher of all time, Mrs. Bedell. They just finished learning about the gold rush, so they had a field trip panning for gold in the Salinas River. Then they used the gold nuggets they found (painted rocks that their teachers planted there ahead of time) to buy lunch. He LOVED it. I wasn't able to go because it was the same day as Ben's wedding, and we were busy getting ready. It's so hard to believe that summer is here already. Didn't the school year just start? And wasn't Levi just born? The year has just flown by.