Graduation, Stone, and Strawberries

With only 7 days left of school, the boys have started having special themes at school for each day.  Kolby has had a hat day, a game day, a “what I want to be when I grow up” day (Kolby told me last week that he wanted to be a dentist when he grows up – I haven’t heard that one before – but then a few days ago he said he wants to be a Spanish teacher.  It’s kind of fun how interested in languages he is – one day earlier this year he came home from school and told us he was going to be an interpreter because he wants to learn to speak every language.), and a camping day.  And both Kolby and Lijah had their “field days” last week, where they spent the whole day outside doing things like relay races.  Lijah’s class tie-dyed shirts for their field day, and I think that his green shirt turned out pretty cute, as far as tie-dying goes.

We’ve had plenty of soccer this week, with a game on Monday, a practice on Friday, and another game on Saturday. This upcoming week we will have 3 games and 1 practice – they are trying to make up for the fact that the kids missed the entire first half of the season because the fields were closed due to all the rain. So it should be a busy next couple of weeks, but fun to go and watch. Then we’ll have a whole week off of sports before Camden starts his t-ball season. (I’m just barely starting to get an idea of how it’s going to be when we have 5 teenagers someday). :)

On Tuesday we got to go to the graduation dinner for the 3rd year residents in Michael’s program (only 1 more year and it’ll be our turn!) It was a nice night, with warm weather while everyone chatted outside by the canal, and a nice dinner, followed by the “roast” of all the residents – although they can never come up with too much to say about Michael at things like that, since they can’t dig up any dirt on him, and there aren’t any photos of him when he’s drunk, like there are of many of the others. But it was a fun night. And it was fun to get dressed up a little – I went to my new favorite thrift store out in Henrietta that morning, and after trying on like 20 different dresses (seriously), that were all either cute, but they didn’t fit, or just plain ugly, the very last one worked. It’s a plain black dress that’s kind of cute for $8, and I got ‘new’ shoes to match for $4, so that was fun.

This week we also had speech for Isaac, piano lessons for Kolby and Lijah, on Wednesday evening I had my last Activity Days class for the girls at church for the school year, so we’ve got a few months off before starting that again. And on Thursday night Michael had a cosmetic session where he got some more good experience. Plus, since I finished all the Harry Potter books, we picked up the movies at the library, so we’ve been watching those in the evenings after the boys are in bed (actually, I’ve been watching them – Michael has been watching the first part of each one, and then falling asleep on the couch until I wake him up when they’re done).
 
Yesterday morning we headed to the soccer game. It’s been pretty fun – both Kolby and Lijah have both become better at running fast, getting right in the middle of the action at the games, and kicking the ball. They’ve also done pretty well when it’s been their turns as goaly. They told me yesterday that they both want to do soccer every year from now on – that’d be ok with me: 1 hour games that I actually enjoy watching.

After the soccer game we stopped at Lowes to pick up something to fix a gate in the back yard, and we stopped by to compare the prices of their stone to Home Depot. We’ve been thinking about replacing the ugly plastic border around the planting area in the front yard with something nicer (the final touch on the front yard before the house is ready to sell). Lowes actually had nicer looking stone for quite a bit cheaper, so we ended up just getting it while we were there. We came home, had lunch, put the younger boys to bed, and started to work on putting the stone out. I left to srop Lijah off at a birthday party for his friend from school at the bowling alley. He was pretty cute – he said, “Wow, I’m so lucky! I get to go to two parties in the same year.” Then I came home and returned to help Michael and Kolby finish the job. I think it turned out great!

before:

after:

After picking up Lijah from his party, Michael and I went to a BYU alumni picnic, which was nice and relaxing with lots of good food. Then we went downtown for a couple hours for the surprise birthday party of Lou, one of the graduating residents who works with Michael. It was nice to talk to several of the residents there, and then we headed home. It was a full day, but was fun – and it’s always nice to get some good work done like that in the yard.

 

Today we had church, and the boys did quite well (all except for when Lijah’s teacher brought him, crying, to me when he pinched his finger in a chair). But it has been a nice day. After church we picked some lettuce and strawberries from the garden to go with our lunch.



It was also fun to find that we’ve got our first little green tomato that’s just starting to grow, and a few green beans starting too.  The younger boys just got up from naps, and Michael finished up doing a bit of genealogy work on the new.familysearch.org website, before he started reading the next Magic Treehouse book with the boys.  And it should be fun – we’re planning on making quesadillas with avocado for dinner tonight.  (One of the first things I’m going to do once we move to San Diego is plant a bunch of avocado trees in the back yard!)  It’s nice to have a relaxing day once in a while.

 

 

Oh, here are a couple of clematis flowers that just bloomed on the vines climbing up our mailbox.  I love these flowers.