Good times

 May 12th Peter's class went on a field trip to Hagerman. The kids got to go to Ritter Island and had fun learning about the area, its history, and exploring around! (Peter's teacher is so awesome and took pictures for me because I couldn't go.)

Casey and Peter got to go on a father and son camp out with the ward on the 14th. They picked up some subway on the way. After dinner they went up to balanced rock and wandered around a bit. They had some smores and the boys played in the dark around camp and the hills. It wasn't their best nights sleep, but they had a good time together! 

Both Kendal and Peter had their AR parties this past week. Kendal got to go to Nat So Pa on Tuesday with the fifth graders. She came home a bit sun burnt, but so happy! Peter's AR party was a little carnival at the high school. He only came home raving about cotton candy and a big bounce house, but I know there were games and such he enjoyed. His teacher said he had a great time! 

I've been going into the library a few times a week the past two weeks to get in some training / knowledge from the assistant librarian (Kathy Lundy) who's leaving. Alice has been a trooper coming along and just dealing with things, (honestly I've pulled out my phone and had her on the preschool learning app quite a bit because she's getting more comfortable there and discovered the swivel chair is fun!) It's a lot of information, and I feel overwhelmed at some moments, but I know I'll get it down. I also received a new calling today. I'll be Secretary for the Primary. 

We had a couple of nice days this week. I took Jem and Alice to the Library story time the last couple of weeks as well as the local park to play. I also took Alice yesterday to just have some one on one time at the school playground that she's always pinning to go. Alice is working on basic sight words, writing, and counting higher with me for preschool as well. She's very proud of writing her name on her own!

Kendal gave her first talk in Sacrament meeting today. She talked about Gratitude. We looked through some quotes, and stories one day, and put them together with her thoughts yesterday. She was nervous, but we told her that she bears her testimony enough that if she can do that she could conquer this, and she did! She did so well and we're proud of her for doing it! This week has been very up and down with weather, so we took a small break in weather this evening and walked down into Shoshone falls. The falls are at full capacity right now and so cool to see. I honestly thought Alice would be harder to motivate on the walk, but she was so excited to see the waterfalls, and there were smaller ones coming down the side of the hills as we walked down. She kept saying how beautiful it was. 

School ends in a week and a half. Peter is excited for school to get out, Kendal is devastated, and they both are upset their friends are moving at the end of next week. Summer is on the horizon, with a busy June ahead of us. Track, basketball, camp, training's, Logan, birthdays, etc. 

(Kendal and Adi wrote a friendship song - these two are going to miss each other a lot!)

Lately

Alice continuously makes us laugh. She notices when we laugh at something funny and continues to ham up the situation. Alice really enjoys days with Jemma. She's got a playmate and someone who will play with her all day long. The girls have their moments, but they truly play very well together. Alice is almost at the end of her third preschool book. She's picked up on so many things and is doing well with letter sound and we're starting to do simple words. She's counting so many things and learning to put them together / adding. She's loves to sing. Alice can pick up on a song fairly quickly and I love hearing her singing church songs, and other songs, as well as made up songs as she's playing. 

 

Peter met his reading goal in school. He's improved leaps and bounds this year in school (aside from a hard spelling list week). He still has days homework takes to much time so play time is less. But as the days are warming up he's been more keen to finish faster and go out to see his buddies for a bit before dinner. Pete got to have an Activity Day's activity this past week. He put together a cardboard car and had a blast racing cars and running around with his church buddies. Peter's also one when he's not pestering he's truly got a funny sense of humor as well! 

Kendal finished up her month of Volleyball April 24th. She had her last tournament in Declo so Grandma and Grandpa Darrington got to come and watch her. She lost her first round, won the second, and lost the third round of games. She improved over the course of 6 weeks and can't wait till this fall where she can continue to play! Kendal earned her Honors award for reading! She's worked on this for most of the school year and put in a lot of time reading a lot of extra books (100 AR points extra) and doing above and beyond so she could achieve this. She's got her Daddy's brains - testing this past month she'd come home gushing how much she loved the tests and all that she's learned at school. (Casey said he's never herd a kid say they liked testing - she's truly one of a kind!) Kendal had her Ukulele school concert last Wednesday. She's put so much work into her program and did a great job. Kendal had a solo in the Lava song, and did an extra Hula dance with some girls from her class. She truly was a joy to watch and I'm proud of her learning this awesome skill this year. A couple of days later Kendal had her end of the year piano recital. She's had her piece down for over a month and played it so well! She's almost done with her lesson three books and will move into lesson four books this summer, as well as polishing up a song to play in church.  Kendal is enjoying young women's and has had some fun activities this last month (kick ball, movie night for girls camp theme, and painting). 

 

An opportunity came up that I couldn't let pass by so I applied to work at Stricker as a library assistant. After waiting a bit, and interviewing I was offered the job a bit over a week ago. I'm honestly very happy to have this job, I feel it's a good step forward from stay at home mom mode, it will help a bit provide for my family, and it's something i'm interested in and looking forward to. I'll start in August doing part time work for the school. It'll be hard to figure out Alice's situation between day care and preschool, but I'm sure we'll make it work. I helped out a few days last week at the book fair. Poor Alice was dragged along and we spent hours every day helping out. By Friday Alice was more than done, but overall she was a trooper and did well (even if it involved hiding under tables). 

Casey finished up his track season this past week. It's been one of his windiest season's he's had with so many cold and iffy weather days. His team did well and won a few meets. Casey has been put on a couple of committee's this year and they'll continue on so he'll have training in June and an away one in Oregon in August. He'll also step up and be the lead teacher for the seventh grade team this coming fall. His grade and school is going through a lot of changes. All of the other core subject teachers in seventh grade are moving on so he'll have a lot of new colleagues this falls as well as new administration since the principal, vice principal and secretary are changing. He's had a stressful year, but he's handled the many hurdles like a champ and I'm very proud of him. 

Kimberly had a community day this past Saturday. It was so windy so it got moved into the LA Thomas with the food trucks staying outside. The kids had their fill of free merch and going around to the booths while Alice avoided the crowd and stayed in the stands watching the busyness bellow. 

Mother's day was nice. The kids made me cards (Alice wished me a happy Valentimes day - her card was covered in hearts so she just assumed it ; ). We got to Skype with my parents and Katherine before church as see their awesome faces! We had a nice time at church; Alice and Peter sang with the other ward kids. We did a last minute get together and went out to Raft River for Mother's day dinner. Everyone (minus Cody and Mia) were able to come out so we had 15 grandkids running around. Thankfully it was sunny outside so to chaos could be pushed that way. Casey and I put together an Oreo taste off for everyone. We all tried seven different types of Oreo's and got to vote our top three. Mint ended up wining with Alice's last min vote with Lemon right behind. It was nice to have everyone together - except for our brief Christmas party we all haven't been together in almost a year. 

(Perfect photo's don't happen with my kids - so i'll pull a couple that some looked good in it.)