Off to First Grade She Goes...

Last Monday, two days short of the last day of school was the Kindergarten graduation program for Keely and her classmates. This is our third year attending this program, and I am happy to say our last. Surprisingly I feel no love lost that our youngest is off to full day school come August. Keely was thrilled to reach this milestone. The night before as she was going to bed, she kept saying "I can't believe I am graduating Kindergarten tomorrow!" :)

The beginning of the program was quite funny as the teacher came out and said "Welcome to our Christmas Program" and kids sang a round of Jingle Bells. Why, you ask? Well we awoke to a nice fresh coat of snow that morning...yes on May 24th!!! We can now proudly say we were a part of history...the latest measurable snow at Salt Lake Airport ever. We had a few inches at our house and it was just freezing. Of course typical of this crazy Utah weather -- the next day it was sunny and 70 degrees with no sign of the snow that had been there the day before. I'm sure hoping that was the last snow I see until later this year.

The rest of the program was typical of years past, each class sang a few songs then they did a couple together. Then they called each child up for their certificate. It was short and sweet which we like. They have punch and cookies and time for pictures before everyone departs.

Keely with Mrs. W, the aide...

Keely with Mrs. M, her teacher who we have loved this year. I will miss her, having now had two children go through her class.
Keely with her best friend, Annika.
Keely with one of her first boyfriends, the one she was caught kissing earlier in the year. But apparently who she does not like anymore (she has her eye on a boy in the PM class, who she says likes her too -- what this all means at 6 I have no idea!).
So that's it, my baby is going to first grade in a few months. I'm excited for her to be in all day school and I know she's ready for it too :)

Dinoland

Last weekend, there was no soccer game and we took the opportunity to get out of Dodge for a night. We hadn't left home since January and it was a nice change of pace. We chose to head out to Eastern Utah to Vernal. Vernal is in the heart of dinosaur country about a 3 hour drive from SLC. It's not a big place and one night there was plenty of time to enjoy the two major attractions, the Field Museum of Natural History and Dinosaur National Monument. The museum is practically brand new and it's a nice layout and quite a lot to see for the price of admission. They also have a nice outdoor area with large dinosaurs and a fish pond.
After the museum, we checked into the hotel and immediately hit the indoor pool where the kids swam for almost 2 hours! That's entertainment enough sometimes. Good thing it was indoor because spring is still slow to come in Utah. On Sunday, we drove out to Dinosaur National Monument and took a shuttle out to the trail to see some real in-place fossils.
This is an actual fossil, a femur we were told by the Ranger. The kids also got to complete a Junior Paleontologist program and even got sworn in and received their own badge upon our return from the shuttle and hike to the fossils.
We had to wait at the top of the trail for the ranger to come tell us what to look for in the wall of rocks. The kids were entertained by a tiny lizard who captured and tortured a bug larger than itself...ah, cheap entertainment again!
The view from the top was quite glorious, with the Green River in the distance.
So that was our overnight trip to Vernal. It was a fun trip and a nice escape from our usual weekends!

The Wiggles

No, not the childrens' musical group from Australia...though I do still find myself singing those songs from time to time :) Last weekend I happened to notice the kids' tooth fairy pillows hanging on their doorknobs and remarked to Keely that it has been quite a long time since the Tooth Fairy had reason to visit our house. Keely has been faking a loose tooth for some time but each check has proved fruitless. Until last weekend after my comment I checked and indeed found a wiggly tooth! Keely was and still is thrilled to bits with this development. The dentist said at her last checkup in December that it would about 6 months...low and behold, he was right. I think we'll have a visit from the Tooth Fairy before too long because Keely is not one to sit and let this tooth come out on its own. She can now wiggle it with her tongue and has me wiggle it for good measure at least once per day. So take a good look at this cheesy grin, it's one of the last records of little Miss with all her baby teeth!

Pet Day

Part of the 2nd grade curriculum at Blessed Sacrament is to write a mammal report. Each child gets to select their top 3 and the teacher decides which one. Quinn chose a platypus and really enjoyed the research, preparation and completion of his report. In fact, writing that report greatly increased his handwriting - pretty much the only thing we've struggled with this school year. But I digress, as a followup to the Mammal Reports they have a Pet Day where parents can bring their kids' pets to school for a blessing and a "show and tell". This day was supposed to be in April but due to this lovely Spring weather it was postponed a couple of times. So it ended up happening on Wednesday. I had told Quinn I would bring Callie. This sounded like a good idea in principle. It was all going fine, despite her usual pulling on the leash and wanting to be pet by all in attendance. I had tried to get her harness on but she didn't seem to want that -- turns out she just didn't want to jump in the car for some reason and I should have just left the harness on her because I had to bribe her with ham cold cuts. So anyways, Msgr. does the blessing on all the pets and then each child gets to introduce their pet to the class and talk a bit about it. Quinn does an excellent job describing Callie -- how old she is, what kind of dog, how she likes to play fetch and football. So all is going well until all the kids have introduced their animals (there were dogs, cats, kittens, turtles, frogs!) and then the teacher says the kids can mingle with parents and animals. And this is where it all goes south for me and Callie. One of the girls grandfather had brought their 95 lb Boxer and decides to let the girl hold the dog's leash. The dog and Callie start to tousle and the Boxer becomes a bit aggressive. Callie struggles to get away and does...which is good until I realize that her collar and leash are now in the grandfather's hand. And Callie is running in the opposite direction. So now I've got a dog who's scared and running around with no collar and I have no way to catch her. And all these cars are in the parking lot and pulling in. And all the kids start chasing her to try to catch her but that only makes her more scared. Not good. I see no point in running around after her and try to tell the kids to stop running too. Time seems to stall, it was probably only a few minutes before we finally caught her. She saw some boys, friends of Quinn's who have been at our house, and she laid down so they could pet her. And then I was able to catch her and get the collar and leash back on. I promptly put her back in the car so we could both catch our breath and calm down. So Pet Day was not much of a success. I think I should have brought Quinn's frog instead! And once again, I was reminded that Callie needs obedience lessons -- not really for the uncollared incident because that was the Boxer's owners fault (and he didn't even apologize) but for the time before when she is so hard for me to control on a leash. This time, I intend to follow through with the thought!

Where the Deer and Antelope Play

or buffalo and antelope play, in this case. The weather did not cooperate while all of the family was visiting for Quinn's communion. However, it was not a total washout and we were able to sneak in some outside time, a trip to the park on Friday with Grandma & Grandpa and then a trip to Antelope Island on Saturday afternoon. Nana has been dying to take this trip since we've lived here and Grandma mentioned it would be nice to actually see the Great Salt Lake while they were here. My insistence to all that they had seen the GSL from the window on the plane was apparently not convincing enough so off we went.Last time we ventured across the causeway to Antelope Island, it was the weekend of the buffalo roundup and there were buffalo just hanging outside the visitor center so we saw them right away. This time, we had to have a little patience and drive a bit further. After visiting the visitor center, we drove down to the south side of the island to the Ranch House where once people lived and farmed. It was there that we saw the herd, err group, of buffalo (or bison, I can never remember which is more correct). I love this picture...who's watching who? We swore the buffalo had one eye on what they were munching on and one on us.
A closeup of one of these huge animals. I wouldn't want to outrun it if it charged!
Keely in the visitor center...we actually have this same picture from ~18 months ago. She's gotten so much bigger!
We also saw some antelope but they are so tiny compared to the buffalo and so quick that we were not able to get them in a picture...and they wouldn't pose with us, imagine that?!?! Apparently, there are also coyote on the island but they were hiding. And we only saw about 10-12 of the ~600 buffalo on the island so I have no idea where they all were. For such large animals, they know where to go so people won't bother them. So that was our jaunt across the GSL. It was a nice time and we were happy to fulfill the wish to see the wonder that we live so close to :)

Quinn's Communion

Last Sunday, Quinn took a big step in the Catholic church and celebrated his first Holy Communion. We were fortunate to have Nana & Papa, Grandma & Grandpa and Aunt Annie travel to Utah for the special event. I will cover the rest of the weekend in separate posts. Quinn had prepared a lot for this day. He had to complete two workshops, several homework papers and prepare a banner that was displayed in the church all weekend. He was very excited, not the least bit nervous and had me practice giving him pretend hosts in the days leading up to the event (we used Ritz crackers and pieces of bread to name a couple of examples).

We took a series of photos after the Mass on the altar. Aren't we a lovely family?!?!

Quinn processing into the Church. The girls all looked beautiful and the boys so handsome :)
A closeup of Quinn's banner. He picked all the symbols himself and even drew the chalice freehand. I am not sure why but right before we were about to leave our aisle to get Communion, I got choked up a bit. I just can't believe Quinn is old enough to participate fully in Mass. Kindergarten graduation didn't get me, but this did. It seemed like a big milestone in his short life, and I can't believe my baby is old enough to be celebrating it! I'm sure there are more and more moments like this to come, as time flies by and milestones are reached. It was a special day for Quinn, I am glad our family was able to travel so many miles to be with us, and I am proud of the young man he is becoming!

Zoo Time

Every year, the 1st through 4th grades take an end of the year field trip to the zoo. They always ask for parent chaperones, but I am usually working or figure that there lots of other moms who will sign up. This year, I decided to throw my name in the hat for this trip -- and I was chosen! Quinn was super excited on Thursday when I picked him up, letting me know right away that I was to be one of the parent chaperones for his class. The trip was today and it was a lot of fun. I was given 5 2nd graders to escort around the zoo for the day. At the beginning I was wondering how we would occupy ourselves for 5 hours in the zoo. After all I'd never spent more than 2 hours there with just my own kids. But never fear, we did just fine and ended up having a great time. We spent the morning exploring each and every animal exhibit, then played on the playground for a bit. Before we knew it, lunchtime was upon us. After eating, we waited for front row seats to the bird show. I've never seen the show before but it is worth the time and a bit of a wait. There was some fantaastic birds and they were very entertaining. I had such a good group of kids -- 3 boys and 2 girls -- and it was nice to have the opportunity to spend an entire day with Quinn and his friends. The weather was cold and rainy initially but God smiled upon us (I joked that he knew the Blessed Sacrament kids were going to be at the zoo) and we didn't get rained upon once except for a passing shower during the bird show. The sun shined and the temperatures were mild. All in all, a great day at the zoo!

Mother's Day 2010

I am so behind on blog posts. It keeps crossing my mind, I have 3-4 posts to catch up on but I never find the time. I have been working every night and time just flies. I cannot believe it is almost mid-May. 2010 seems to be flying by before my very eyes and I just have this feeling it will be Christmas before we know it. So instead of getting further behind on past events (i.e. Quinn's communion, our visit from family, Mother/Son bowling) I figured I would at least post about current events. I hate that the blog has become a chore, but that's a subject for another time.

Today was my 9th Mother's Day. I cannot believe that! The kids made me gifts from school and held them secret until today. Well, not Keely -- she gave me hers on Friday because she was bursting with excitement for me to open it. It was a homemade card, a piece of artwork and a handwritten poem. She said she made up the poem herself but I am not sure :) It said...

Mommy let me say
I love you every way
For all you do
For being you
Happy Mother's Day!

Quinn made me a pop-up card at school. It held the key to his heart (!) and a nicely written sentiment:

Dear Mom,
You are the best. Thank you for taking care of me.
Love, Quinn Donovan

I particularly like him writing out his full name, as if I have another son or wouldn't know who he was. He is just used to writing his full name in school :)

James made me the usual picture video, a gift that I look forward to all year long. The kids record a video that goes at the beginning and then is followed by a slide show of pictures we have taken throughout the past year with musical accompaniment. I always love to hear the songs James picks, they are usually something I have never heard and love. The first one on this year's video was very emotional and had me crying from the start. Some others this year were Beautiful by U2 and a song that we always listen to from Donovan. And a few others that I don't know but suited the pictures perfectly. These videos are such mementos and we love to watch them often throughout the year. Keely especially :)

The weather was picture perfect today, bright and sunny in the upper 60s. We enjoyed the day outside with one of our favorite hikes, Lower Bells Canyon Reservoir. Most everyone who has visited us here in Utah has done this hike :) We enjoyed the weather and the time together as a family. I am blessed to have two children who have made me a mother, and today was a day to celebrate that.