2nd Week of June--End of School!

Tuesday June 9th

 Field Day at the elementary.  Lydia and the other 6th graders were in charge of running the stations.  Lydia was at the Limbo station.  This is Bella and her friend, Brooklyn.

 I came to help out, but they had everything under control, so I just wandered around.  Bella liked the sidewalk chalk.

 Lydia was reading a book, because not many kids wanted to do the limbo I guess.  

 Brooklyn and Bella playing with the parachute.  

 Hiding under the parachute...too bad the picture is blurry.  

 hopscotch

 otterpops

 Limbo!!

Wednesday June 10th

 This is my mom and the flowers I sent her before her big heart surgery the next day.  I talked to her a bit on the phone and she sounded really good.  Of course she was nervous, but she was doing good.  Our family (and extended family) and I'm sure many others had a fast for her and for her surgeon.  Mom and dad were supposed to be to the hospital early, like 6 am to get her prepped for the first surgery of the day.  I think it was supposed to be at 8 and it was supposed to take about 4 hours.  Yikes!  I sure love her!!

Thursday June 11th

My parents had flown my oldest sister Tiffany out to help out with mom, since my dad was sick and weak with mono.  So, she was group texting all of us what was going on throughout the day.  They took my mom back to surgery but before they could start, there was an emergency with another patient so there was an hour delay while the surgeon helped the other patient.  When he was about done, they put my mom under anesthesia and got her all ready.  But, before they could start, the same patient that had the emergency was having more complications and the surgeon had to operate.  So, my poor mom was under anesthesia (and totally fine)  for awhile with no progress being made.  I don't think the surgery got started for a couple more hours.  

Meanwhile...back in Oregon...

 Lydia was having her 6th Grade completion ceremony.  

 All the buddies her age from church.  She's pretty much grown up with these kids.  Blake, Peng, Elise, Kali, Taylor and Lydia.  

 Her and her teacher Ms. Kolstad

 Back at the hospital...this is my dad waiting.  Poor guy, he was so tired and worn out.  I think my sister said that the nurse brought him out a pillow.  So, they finally started operating at noon and it took a little over four hours.  But everything was successful!  My dad went home soon after so that he could get some sleep.  

It was really hard not being there in Utah with all of this going on.  My sisters (Tiff and Charee) did a fabulous job keeping everyone up to date on what was happening and answering our questions.  I just wanted to be there with everyone.  It was especially hard later that evening when my mom was waking up.  She was intubated and they had her arms tied down so that she wouldn't wake up and pull the tube out of her throat.  My sister Tiffany had been there since 6 am and she still had to drive back to Wellsville, so she was ready to leave.  They stayed with her for a bit, but when they were ready to leave and were saying good-bye to my mom (who still had the tube in and couldn't talk) she had started crying.  I'm sure she was in pain and trying to deal with the fact that she just had major heart surgery and was probably scared.  It just sounded so sad.  I wished more than anything to be there with her--it just hit me really hard and I had to walk away from my dinner and have a good cry.  My sister Tiffany called me because she knew I was pretty emotional and we had a good talk.  It was so sweet of her to call, when I'm sure she was just as emotional.  

They finally took her breathing tube out around 1 am, I'm sure she was glad to be rid of that thing.    She had some hard days of course, but recovered really well, really quickly and is grateful she had the surgery.  

Friday June 12th

Last Day of School!!

Some fun summer goodies for the last day

Sign for the garage

Here comes the bus

Here come the kids

Looking at the goodies

One last picture of the school.

These are pictures that Lydia took on the last day.  She was pretty sad about leaving Free Orchards.  She started kindergarten the year the school opened.  

She was pretty emotional.

The teachers all stand out by the bus and wave goodbye to the kids.

Picture from the 1st day of 1st grade...

...and the last

1st day of 4th grade...

...and the last

1st day of 6th grade...

...and the last.  No more elementary school for this girl!!

1st day as a freshman...

...and her last

After Maggie got home, I took them out for ice cream at Sonic.  Not sure why Noah's grumpy.

Saturday June 13th

Paige had an activity girls service project with their dad's at someone's house.  After they did the service--yard work I think--they played this game.  I've seen this before in other places and it looked so fun!  You put shaving cream on a shower cap and then the other person throws cheese puffs and tries to get them to stick on your head.  I thought these pictures were so adorable!

Moving on to June...

Starting at the end of April, Lydia joined an after school art club.  It was once a week for a couple of hours.  She was really excited to join because she loves art.  Each week they would learn about a specific artist and sometimes work in different mediums.  One week she learned about Georgia O'Keefe, one week was Pablo Picasso, and another week was Chris Van Allsburg.  Here are a couple of her pieces that she completed:

 These 2 paintings were done when they studied Georgia O'Keefe.

 Her bat mask

 This cool one was done after learning about Picasso.  I thought it was very cool.

And while I'm talking about Lydia, she wrote this poem and has it hanging up in her room.  I was impressed with it. She's so cute!  She took the main part "We know it, we live it and we love it" from Sister Dibb's talk a couple of years ago.  It's pretty catchy and I guess it stuck with her. 
June 5
Noah's last day of Preschool for the year.

 For their last day, they had a family picnic at the school.  This is Ethan, Cooper and Noah.  Ethan and Cooper joined us for a few minutes until their parent's came.

 The boys with their teacher Miss Christi.

This is a picture of their preschool class (not taken that same day) with their teachers (both named Christi).  He had such a great preschool year and I'm grateful for his teachers and for Beth and Gabe introducing us to this preschool.  It's been so good for him!

June 6

Field Day

 The kids had field day at their school.  The 6th graders were gone at outdoor school, so they didn't have their usual helpers.  So, they had the 5th graders come and run the stations and then had parent volunteers wander around making sure things were going ok.  Lydia and her friend Elise (above) were in charge of the sidewalk chalk station.  I went in the morning to volunteer while the kindergartners were having their field day. 

 Bella doing sidewalk chalk

Noah came with me and did chalk also

 This is Bella and her friend Lauryn.  These girls look so much alike!  Their smiles are even similar!

Bella rockin' the hula hoop

Noah throwing hula hoops trying to get it over the stick.

At the end of their hour of playing, they got to have otter pops. 
After my "shift" I took Paige out of school because she didn't want to participate outside because of her allergies. 
June 7
Jim and Georgia came over in the evening to help us finish cleaning out the yard.  It was looking so much better!

June 8
Today was supposed to be Stake Conference, but we decided to play hookey.  Instead, we decided to go to the beach for the day.  It was quite fun.  We packed a picnic lunch and threw in our kites.  However, we forgot all of our sand toys.  The kids did all right without them though.

 Flying kites

 Noah throwing the ball to Maggie, football style.

 trying to get all the kites set up

 getting the kites into the air

 the dragon

the fairy

 My cute little 'Scooter'

 Enjoying lunch

It was a beautiful day at the beach. 
June 9
This week at school was Spirit week.  And the first day was pajama day.  I wanted to get a picture of Bella getting off the bus in her jammies.  She wasn't the first one off the bus, so while I was waiting for the first kid to get out of the way, she saw me with the camera and tried to hide.  What a goof ball!

 Isn't she funny?

June 10
Maggie's 8th grade Graduation

 Since their 8th grade class was so big and they didn't have a big enough space for all the kids, they divided them up into 2 groups and had the graduations on 2 different days.  Maggie's was the first day.  This is all the kids walking into the auditorium. 

 This is their principal, Mr. Petrick

the students standing were the ones who had a 4.0 all year

This is Maggie's friend Alex, who was one of the speakers.

 getting her diploma

 shaking hands with the principal.  The guy in the suit was Maggie's favorite teacher, Mr. Fishback. 

 This is Maggie's good friend, Hailey.

It's the fam! 
Maggie had a great 8th grade year and really enjoyed it. 
June 12th
Last Day of School!!
Bella's last day of school was actually the day before on the 11th.  The rest had a half day on the 12th. 

 two cuties before school

 Bella and Noah helping me get the big sign and the streamers ready

 The finished product

 The basket of summer goodies

 It consisted of beach towels, coloring books, squirt guns, sidewalk chalk, silly putty, butterfly nets, snacks and candy.

 And they're home!

 picking out their goodies

 Paige's awards on the last day
Funny story. 
When it was time for Maggie to come home from school, I texted her to ask her where she was on the drive home.  She texted me back and this was our conversation:
She told me where she was and I said thanks. 
Mag:  Why?
Me:  Just curious
Mag:  ok.  Please don't do anything drastic.
Me:  Like what?
Mag:  I don't know, a big banner, or screaming, or bubbles.
Me:  I just want to take your picture.
Mag:  Okay that's fine.
Me:  By the big banner
Mag:  Ugh! 
Ha Ha!  How fun to embarrass her!  I'm not that bad though.  I waited until all the other kids had gone into their houses before I took the picture.   :)

she's a good sport.

 That night we had ice cream sundaes

 That evening, it started raining, so the kids went out and danced in the rain.  They had a great time.

Next post:  Dance Festival