School's Out AND Daddy Had A Birthday!

One more school year has come and gone. First, Aurora (my baby!) graduated preschool. Then, a week later, Lorelai and Celeste celebrated their last day of school at their charter school, Great Expectations Academy.

This year, I wasn't able to volunteer in my kids' classes nearly as much as I wanted; I was able to manage one field trip with each girl, and that was about it. Lorelai's teacher said she didn't need any help in the classroom, and Celeste's teacher was either absent (which was a lot...she had a new baby in the fall, and it took up a lot of her time), or needed volunteers at a time when I couldn't make it. Oh well...the girls seemed to survive without me, at any rate! However, not being there most of the time made it more difficult to understand what my girls were going through on a daily basis. I'm hoping that next year, with all three girls in school, I'll be able to have a more consistent presence in their classes, or otherwise helping out at the school.

Look at these cuties!

There were some ups and downs this school year (some loneliness/"mean girl" issues for Lorelai, some difficult/disobedient children for Celeste), but overall I think both girls ended the year on a positive note. Celeste's grades stayed fairly consistent, and Lorelai got mostly strong but fluctuating grades. She would get all A's, and then one B or C in one subject. Finally, in the fourth quarter, Lorelai got straight A's! We were very proud of her for this achievement, and hope that will boost her confidence going into the fifth grade next year (yikes! That sounds very grown-up to me).

There weren't any assemblies on the last day of school; the students all celebrated in their classrooms. It was mostly low-key, but all the kids had fun. Best of all, it was a half-day of school, so I showed up early to help the kids clean out their desks and say their final goodbyes to their teachers. But their excitement at being free overwhelmed their nostalgia, so their goodbyes felt pretty perfunctory. They were also excited to go out to lunch, which has become our last-day-of-school tradition!

This year, we decided to go to Chili's for lunch, which was up in southern Tucson. The girls really love the food there, but they also loved being crazy and making lots of silly faces.

 

So many silly faces that I was compelled to join in as well...

 

 

After our lunch, we crashed pretty hard at home and savored our new-found freedom for the summer. But our weekend wasn't all laying about doing nothing; there was something else to celebrate...

Nathan's 38th birthday! It is both Nathan's blessing and curse that his birthday falls in late May. Blessing, in that he often gets to take four-day weekends for his birthday, since Memorial is so often right after his birthday. Curse, in that with school ending and a holiday imminent, Nathan's birthday celebrations often get a little rushed and overlooked. But I think things worked out pretty well this year.

Nathan started out the fun by going out to breakfast on the girls' last day of school. Aurora and I accompanied him (if you're keeping track, this means I went out to eat for both breakfast and lunch that day; I felt very overstuffed by the late afternoon!). The next day, we had a lazy morning but a fun afternoon. The girls stayed with Grandma for a couple of hours, helping her cook Nathan's favorite dinner (his mom's famous chicken enchiladas). In the meantime, Nathan and I went on our "date"...

...we golfed nine holes at the Country Club of Green Valley! Even though this was to celebrate Nathan's birthday, I have to point out the significance of this event. This day (Saturday, May 23rd, 2015) was the first time I've ever played any holes of golf. And I was pretty terrible, if I do say so myself!

Since I'm a lefty, we borrowed a friend's left-handed set of clubs. Even though we started at the closest tee-box for each hole, I still had to hit the ball like a dozen times on each hole, in order to get the ball to the green.

I am so glad we went late in the afternoon, so there weren't many people behind us! I was constantly afraid that some other golfers would catch up to us and sit there, impatiently tapping their feet, waiting for me to get my incompetent butt in gear. Thankfully, that never happened...but I was still going pretty slowly.

Nathan's golf game has improved significantly since he started playing regularly last fall. He has also learned all the terminology and phrasing, and he likes to go on about his swing and par and club types and other things that mean almost nothing to me. I am trying to learn about golf, but it's not a sport I'm really interested in, so I'd be lying if I said I always listened intently to everything golf-related that Nathan has said. I hope I was a good enough sport on this outing to not totally drive my beloved husband crazy! He says he's going to take me golfing again in the future, but I don't plan on encouraging him. At this point in my life, I still prefer to exercise by myself. Time will tell as to whether golf ever becomes one of my passions.

But it is always fun to ride around in the golf cart, especially with a studly man like Nathan as my chaperone! Plus, Nathan tells me I got a triple bogey on one of the holes, which is good for a first-timer...I guess? From here, I have nowhere to go but up.

After golfing, we sat down to an absolutely delicious dinner, courtesy of Grandma Barrett and her little helpers.

After dinner was done, we had dessert. Usually, Nathan likes me to make pies for his birthday. This year, however, he decided to break with tradition and requested angel-food cake and strawberries (his father's favorite dessert).

There was one more family activity to wrap up the day. The week before, our family took a short trip to a local BevMo to buy some botique/independently bottled sodas. We have been doing this activity every few months for a year or two now. It is great fun! Here are our selections from this trip...

This time, we got pretty lucky...most of the sodas were quite tasty! The exception was (as expected) the corn soda...ick! You definitely do not want to burp after drinking that one. My favorite ended up being the blueberry lemonade, with the huckleberry soda coming in as a close second. Our opinions were somewhat divergent, though...there were many different favorites among our family!

After a relatively quiet Sunday, we had a few friends over for a rib barbecue on Monday (Memorial Day). It was very enjoyable, but wouldn't you know it...I forgot to take pictures! Probably because the weekend wore me right out. At least I was worn out in a good cause...entertaining others and making new friends (one of our guests was a family that had recently moved into the ward). Everyone involved brought a lot of yummy food, the kids played well together, and everyone had a lot of fun visiting with one another.

I am so grateful for my family, and all the milestones they experienced at the end of May. I can't wait for a relaxing, fun summer with the girls, and I am so happy Nathan had a good birthday as well. I can't wait to spend more time with my loved ones this summer!

My Last Kid Graduates From Preschool (SOB)

Sometimes I feel like time is slipping by too fast. Even though it is summer break now for our family, it is almost surreal to realize that another school year (while stuffed) has passed me by, more quickly than I thought it would. And nothing brought this fact home harder than seeing my youngest child--my baby--graduate from preschool. In just under two months, my tiny princess will be entering kindergarten, aka The World Of The Big Kids. HOW can she be a "big kid"?? Where has the time gone?

For her part, Aurora has loved preschool this year. At the same time, though, she is clearly ready to take the next big step to kindergarten. She is by far the most sociable of my three girls, and sitting at home alone with Mom just wasn't cutting it for her this year. True, she managed to have lots of play dates with her friends, but even so, I could tell she yearned for more regular social interaction. Aurora loves groups of people, and she loves stimulating play. I couldn't always give her that when I was taking her to the grocery store, or (worse) sitting in front of our computer goofing off or paying bills. After Aurora turned five in January, she started asking me when she was going to start kindergarten, now that she was "old enough" to go. I told her she needed to finish the school year first, and to graduate from Ms. Nichole's preschool class.

When her graduation approached, Aurora turned from being excited into being a little melancholy. She finally realized that the end of preschool also meant the end of lessons, play-time, crafts, and fun with friends three times a week. Most of all, it meant the end of going over to Ms. Nichole's house! Just like Celeste before her, Aurora fell in love with Ms. Nichole. I love her too; she is such a sweet, friendly person who is always quick to smile, no matter what else was going on.

This was a tumultuous year for Nichole; she had her third baby (a cute little girl named Scout) in October; her husband was finishing medical school and looking for a job; and her mother became seriously ill in the winter, forcing Nichole to take an unscheduled, extended trip out of town. Through all the stress, she never failed to greet students and parents with a smile every day, and work very hard at giving her students the best experience possible. She was also good at getting substitute teachers, so that the class would proceed mostly uninterrupted. I was so impressed at her ability to keep everything held together so nicely.

 

But more important than my own feelings were Aurora's...and luckily, she adored Nichole and looked forward to every day of class. In fact, by the end of the school year, Aurora's career goals had changed. She no longer wanted to be a "policeman" (her choice at the beginning of the school year); now she wanted to become a teacher, just like Nichole, so she could help others to learn. It was very sweet and touching to see how much she looked up to her wonderful teacher.

Due to Nichole's schedule, there weren't a lot of field trips or extra parties this year for preschool. But that was fine with all of the parents, since the class itself was going so well. On the final day of class, the kids all lined up and sang several songs to their parents, to show off their newfound knowledge.

There was a "days of the week" song...

 The "months of the year" song...

And some sort of "cat sat on a hat" song! I'm afraid I didn't get the name of the last song, but it's still cute.

Then everyone sat down and waited to receive their diplomas.

We were all so excited to see the kids in their cute little caps and gowns! Everyone looked very official. I loved seeing Aurora sharing that moment with all her friends that she'd grown closer to throughout the year.

 

Our family has been so grateful for this preschool experience...and for Celeste's experience a couple of years ago, in the same preschool. We couldn't have asked for a better teacher in Ms. Nichole, and we loved the convenience of holding class at her house (she lived in the next neighborhood over, so more often than not, Aurora rode her bike to class!). We were very blessed to have so many things come together and make this arrangement work so well. I felt Celeste was almost "over-prepared" when she finally made it to kindergarten, and I suspect Aurora will be the same way. I'm so glad Nichole encouraged my girls to learn and grow.

When it was all over, Aurora and I headed home, and I couldn't stop staring at my little girl and thinking how much bigger she suddenly looked. We stared at each other, as if to ask, "Now what?" What, indeed? We have one more summer together, and then it's time to prepare her for the next big step in her life. It's a step that Aurora is much more ready for than I am! Our school does all-day kindergarten, and the thought of that much time every day by myself is still almost too much to contemplate. Some days I can't wait for all my kids to be in school, and some days I don't feel ready for that time to come. But it's coming very soon now, and I sure hope both Aurora and I are ready! In the meantime, we will do our best to enjoy the summertime together.

Some Musical End-Of-School Happenings

May was a very busy month for us, with stuff happening every day and every night, or so it seemed. Many of these activities (though not all of them) were school-related. With everything winding down for the year, the school days themselves may have been a bit dull (standardized testing was over, and now there was nothing for the kids to do!!), but there was a lot of extracurricular stuff that kept us hopping.

Several of these school's-end events involved music. Besides my own piano recital earlier in the month, there was a musical assembly at our charter school, performed by all the elementary-grad classes and directed by the school's music teacher. I have been a bit on the fence with my regard for the school's music teacher this year; sometimes, I have worried her musical qualifications were a bit lacking. Often, the kids would come home after music class and talk about "play-acting" or "dancing to Top 40 hits"...and nothing else. I worried that the kids weren't getting any education in music fundamentals, and as a music teacher that bothered me a bit. I had no personal issue with the teacher; however, there were times I wished the school would have just called her class a "dance/movement" class, not a music class!

My concerns were somewhat mollified, though, with the spring assembly. While the focus was still more on dancing, the overall theme of the assembly was more organized and ambitious than the school's other previous efforts, and each class acquitted themselves well in their performance! The theme was "musical styles from around the world," and each class performed a piece from a different musical genre. There was African choral music, big-band swing, country music, R&B, Latin pop, and more. It was fun to see how each performance differed from the others, and it all made for a nicely varied experience!

Celeste's class was assigned to perform "country music," and they really threw themselves into their square-dancing efforts!

Celeste is in the front on the left, in the salmon-colored shirt.

 

Lorelai's class had a slightly more exotic assignment: they performed an Indian-style dance (my apologies for forgetting the name of this style...possibly bhangra?). It was very similar to the Bollywood dance numbers that often occur at the end of so many Indian films. It involved a lot of large hand & arm gestures and some cool hip and foot movements. I didn't get a video of the actual dance, but I managed to snap some photos of some of the best bits:

 

 

I really love Indian music (although I'll freely confess that I don't know much about the genre), so this was a fun number for me to watch. The kids seemed to have a fun time performing it!

All in all, it was a good assembly, and parents and students alike went home satisfied. But that wasn't the last musical event the school had to offer this school year. The following week, our family convened in a nearby church to hear the Great Expectations Academy's two jazz bands perform.

Lorelai has been playing trombone in beginning band all year, and she has liked it most of the time. For a while in the middle of the year, half of her rehearsals were cancelled due to a variety of factors (many of which involved scheduling conflicts with the advanced band's travel plans). However, towards the end of the year, Lorelai started getting really excited about band again. She loved the songs that were picked, and she had a lot of fun performing.

 

For a few of the songs, advanced band was able to play with beginning band (probably to boost the sound somewhat; neither band is especially big!). I was very proud when Mr. Mark, the director, recognized each band member. Lorelai is always so shy when she's being introduced, but she doesn't let it keep her from performing well!

This was Lorelai's favorite song that beginning band performed this year (it's the main theme from "Peter Gunn," an older TV show):

 And here's our little virtuoso celebrating after the show!

 We will definitely do band for at least one more year, then we'll see how Lorelai is feeling about it. I would love for her to have the multi-instrument experience that I never fully had growing up; but if she wants to throw her lot in with one instrument over another, I will do my best to be supportive of that. Time will tell! In the meantime, let's see if I can get her to practice her trombone a bit over the summer...

A Colorful, Cool Day For A 5K

Hey, I've done two 5Ks in the last six months! I'll admit...my exercise regimen hasn't been very consistent or successful since I sprained my ankle in February, but hey...at least I can say I've done two 5Ks in the last six months! That's something, right?

Anyway, way back in late January, some friends of mine posted a link on Facebook for a "Color Obstacle Rush 5K" that would be happening on May 16th. I did one other color run last September, but it was a very different format; it was at night, it was a run-only event (no obstacles), and the "color" involved was glow-in-the-dark water, which was periodically sprayed on you as you ran. The upcoming Color Obstacle Rush was a daytime event; it contained several obstacles; and the color was applied to you in powder form (my friends tell me it's cornstarch).

I was excited to sign up for this run with a bunch of friends; because it was in May, though, I encouraged everyone to sign up for the earliest possible start time. I reasoned it would be very hot already, and we would get tired out quickly if we waited too long to get running. So we signed up for a 9:00 start time.

Then, as often happens, life got in the way, and a few of the ladies who originally planned on running weren't able to make it. Other commitments, health issues, you name it. In the end, my running group consisted of four ladies: myself and my friends Rita, Miranda, and Taryn. We were all very excited; not all of us had done this before! We did see several other familiar faces throughout the morning, but this was our "core group."

And as for that weather? It was cloudy, breezy, and delightfully cool...perfect running weather! As I've mentioned before, this spring has been the most pleasant of our almost twelve years here in Arizona. We've barely needed the air-conditioner; we've kept our windows open late into the month of May; it's been unseasonably rainy and chilly. I've had to wear pants in the middle of May! And luckily for us, the beautiful weather held up for us on the day of the run. We were almost shivering before the race started!

Anyway, I left my camera behind for the actual race, so sadly I have no pictures of the action. But the race was a lot of fun. I hadn't done an obstacle-course race since the "zombie run" two years ago. This race was obviously much more "whimsical" than running away from zombies; most of the obstacles were inflatable tunnels/climbing walls/giant balls. We also ran through a foam fountain; the foam clung to our skin for several minutes and made us look even more interesting than we already did!

A couple of the obstacles actually had a little rainwater from the previous night collected on them. Luckily, it didn't disrupt our run, although it did make us a little muddier than we might otherwise have been. The most exhausting obstacle by far was the long, long line of concrete barriers we had to leap over, one by one like hurdles. This felt like it went on for approximately twenty minutes. I had intended to be a "completist" with all the obstacles for this race, but I ultimately gave up and skipped the last two or three barriers. I'm such a wimp.

And of course, we kept getting sprayed with brightly colored powder by smiling race staff the whole way! Here's how we looked at race's end:

We even got another pack of powder after crossing the finish line, which we quickly proceeded to blast each other with. We were quite a sight, but we loved it.

It was fun to check each other out afterwards and see who was the most "colorful." However, we did have to change some of our clothes before crawling into Miranda's car afterwards; it wouldn't do to bathe her interior with neon-colored, vaguely radioactive-looking powder!

I am so glad for the chance to hang out for a while with these cool ladies. They are awesome athletes who make me want to be better, and they are also awesome ladies who inspire me in many other, non-fitness-related ways. We celebrated our big run with a little ice cream and some deserved R&R. Then it was back to reality (and our families) for the rest of the day. With the end of school approaching, and Nathan's birthday along with it, there would be plenty for me to do! I was glad for this short burst of "me-time" in the midst of all the craziness. I hope I can get in another couple of runs before the end of the year. We'll see!

Spring Piano Recital...This Time, With TWO Barrett Girls

Spring has come...and with it, another piano recital for my students. Generally, I do two recitals a year: one at Christmastime and one in the spring, towards the end of the school year. While I usually hold my Christmas recitals at the home of Dan Bezzant, my LDS bishop, I have started holding my spring recitals in the activity room of the nearby Green Valley library. I love the Bezzants, but it is a lot to ask to flood their house with piano students twice a year!

The library's activity room has plenty of space for everyone, and they even allow food and drink to be brought in from the outside. And the piano there is a beautiful old instrument. The only problem is that it's obviously not kept up all that well; at our spring recital last year, it was obvious the poor thing hadn't been tuned in several years! I mentioned this in passing to a library employee this year as I was scheduling the room. A few weeks later, that same employee called me up to let me know that they'd found a piano tuner to work on their piano for free! Now that's service! It ensured I'd be scheduling recitals with them for a long time to come.

As usual, I was very proud of all my students and their hard work. Sadly, one of my students had to bow out at the last minute (it was Paloma, who is also my longest-tenured student at this point!). So, like the Christmas recital before it, I wasn't able to have all my students perform.But the students who showed up gave it their all; I was very proud of all of them!

This recital featured two students who were "first-timers" (that is, they'd never performed for anyone outside of their families). Ava was the first...and Celeste was the second! That's right, my beautiful middle child, who just started learning piano this winter, participated in her very first recital this spring! And she did pretty well, if I do say so myself:

Celeste claimed to be very nervous, but I wouldn't have guessed it from watching her perform. She kept her focus on her music, played carefully, and made no big mistakes. She also made sure to wear a dress, so she could "curtsey" at the end of her songs.

This was not Lorelai's first recital, and she came ready. She had been practicing both her songs for a long time, and she was happy to finally be performing them.

Even though our girls are not big Star Wars fans, Lorelai insisted on learning the piano version of the Star Wars main theme for the recital. She started a little shaky at first, but recovered nicely! It was a lot of fun for her to learn.

In a neat coincidence, Aidan, one of my older students, also chose a Star Wars song to play. He ended up performing the Imperial March, which was a nice contrast with Lorelai's song. A week later, Aidan performed the March again for his school talent show; on that occasion, he was dressed in full Darth Vader costume! I almost wished he would have done that for our recital, but everyone else might have been a little weirded out.

In the end, I was very proud of everyone, and very thankful for the opportunity to teach them all. A few of the kids are taking the summer off, and it is weird to have so much "free time" upcoming. However, it just means I will have more time to spend with my kids, so that's not entirely a bad thing. This fall, I will be adding a few more kids, all of whom are siblings of current students. It has been interesting teaching both Lorelai and Celeste at the same time, and seeing their different learning and performing styles. I look forward to teaching all these new siblings, and seeing how all of them differ from one another as well.