Memorial Weekend

It was a pretty low-key three day weekend, yippee!

The week ended with Open House at school for the kids to present all of the fun things that they have worked on throughout the year.   Jake surprised us by reading a biography of Steven Spielberg that he wrote in class.

 

 The girls had community helper week at school, and their favorite teacher from last year who is now the district nurse came back to class on Friday.  How cute are these hats that the kids made?

 

On Sunday I took the kids over to Pescadero and found an amazing strawberry patch.  These organic berries are truly the sweetest, most amazing strawberries any of us have ever eaten.  Half of what we picked we ate in the field, and we still took home over 7 pounds of berries!

 

 Afterwards, since we were far enough south for the sun to be out, we headed across the highway to Ano Nuevo State park and beach.   I didn't bring anything but snacks, but the kids had so much fun with the rocks, sticks, mud and sand, there was no need.   We just love the beach!

Rodeo, Hometown Days and Runs!

It's been a busy, busy couple of days as the school year and sports teams wind down for summer break.   Friday was Jake's last class field trip- to the same rodeo that he visited last year.  Rowell Ranch is over in the East Bay, and one of his old teachers is an active volunteer with this rodeo.   It was fun again this year, although very, very uncomfortably hot.
Getting an autograph from Misss. Rowell Ranch

 

 Saturday began the annual Hometown Days festival in our city.   The kids were incredibly excited as usual.  We started the weekend by walking in the parade with out elementary school.  Jake's good buddy wore the Bruin mascot, so Jake got to hold his hand through the parade.    Afterwards it was jumpy houses, ice cream, games, etc for basically two days straight.  Jake had to leave for his last few soccer games as well as his last baseball game of the season.  Sunday was the run, and this year I signed Jake up to run the 5K with me.  A bunch of our second grade Moms and sons signed up with us.   Of course, Mr. competitive headed out of the gate at a sprintors pace.  He soon lost his buddies, and hung with me through the entire race.  He found a buddy from soccer running with his mom who could keep up with our pace, and so Jake literally ran his first 5K yesterday!   I was prepared with bandaids to nurse his regular falls during this race, but he didn't fall and barely complained.   Not only that, he sprinted through the finish and then headed to the playground.   The kid came in in the top 5 kids under 9 years old for the entire race too.  The poor guy did wake up sore for the first time in his life this morning, and thought his legs were broken.   We'll be stretching more afterwards for our next race :)

 The girls entered the coloring contest, and they were so proud to find their drawings hung up at the fair with red ribbons on them.

 They found their buddies too:

 Great weekend, but man, I'm exhausted!

Happy Mother's Day Weekend!

We wish our mothers and sisters a very HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!   You are all wonderful examples of smart, loving Moms!   

I've had a great Mother's Day Weekend!  Very relaxing and unplanned, which was perfect.   I was able to sneak out for bootcamp on Saturday morning (thanks Josh!), where I won the $50 raffle, wahoo!   Afterward I took the girls out for a long scooter ride, which turned into a impromptu play date with their best buddies for the afternoon.   We caught the second half of Jake's baseball game afterward, and saw his awesome double, and catch.   And to end the day I got to take my awesomely fun son on a mother/son date to the school dance!   What a day!    Today everyone slept in until nearly 9:00...unheard of in our house!   Brunch is my favorite meal, so Josh treated us to a yummy breakfast out.   The afternoon was spent just goofing off around the house with the kiddos, while Josh watched the Warriors game.   The kids were unusually kind to each other, which makes for a great day.  A quick visit from Nana and Granddad was wonderful too, and then Josh and the kids headed down for a quick Mother's Day visit to Grandma Lee while I went to a relaxing Barre3 class.  For dinner the kids and I walked down for a yummy Japanese dinner where the kids were bizarrely perfectly behaved, tried a bunch of new things and didn't whine or complain- a true Mother's Day miracle!   What a great weekend!   Many thanks to Josh, Colbie, Addy and Jake for all of the wonderful pictures, gifts and thoughts this weekend...and for not letting me cook or do laundry for two days, wahoo!

 Jake's school dance theme was "Under the Big Top" this year.  Very, very cute!

 We got to video call with Tia Erica and little Sabrina today- I got a smile out of sweet Sabrina with my goofy faces.  

Music for Minors

Parents were invited to watch the Music for Minors class in Jake's classroom yesterday.   This is a wonderful company that our Education Fund funds every year to introduce music to our children.  Jake lucked out with the same amazing teacher as last year- Ms. Leahy.   Throughout the year Jake has shared many songs that he has learned in class, but he didn't explain just how much he enjoyed the class.   Now having witnessed him in this class though, I can see that we certainly need to get some musical instrument lessons going soon.   Jake was the kid with his hand up the entire class, answering questions about notes and timing for the songs.  The easiest way to explain his love of the class is to show this video- Jake is in the back in the white t-shirt- and one of the only kids dancing around and having fun while he follows the beat instruction.   The kid has rhythm!

Marine Science Institute, Karate and Progress

Some updates:
Last week Jake's class went to the Marine Science Institute for their second field trip of the year.  I had never been, and it was a fun trip.  Two second grade classes and 10 parents jumped in the school bus for this trip.  The kids were split into four groups and Jake's group went to the leopard shark tanks first.   The kids had a great time looking at the small sharks and then touching them.   Our second station was learning about whales.  The third station was especially fun as the kids got to assist in pulling up a huge bucket of sludge from the bay, and then sifting through all of the animals and mud that they found.  Great field trip.

 

 It was teacher appreciation week last week, so we had to do some major baking of course for both the elementary school and the preschool teachers.  

 Saturday the girls and I went to our second Home Depot kids workshop.   With less of a crowd, the girls went right to work with their hammers and paint brushes and zoomed through their planter projects.   I think we'll be back for more next month!

 

After the event, the girls went to their first drop off playdate.  They were incredibly excited to go, but as we pulled up to their friend's house, they started to cry and begged to go back home.   I insisted that we stay, so I went inside, and it took 45 minutes of me playing with all of the kids for Addy to finally say "ok, you can go now Mom...and we want to stay for a long time"!!  The playdate lasted for FOUR hours...and they keep begging to go back.  Thank heavens the parents of these sweet children are incredibly understanding and patient, and they have seen the growth the girls have made recently too.   Yippee!

 Sunday started with a birthday party for the girls to attend.  It was at a karate studio- something that normally the girls would have great fear about (having all of the parents watch them, learning something new from a teacher they have never met before, etc).  Well, it took them about 5 minutes, but once they joined everyone on the mat, they were fully engaged with the class.  Some of the their best buddies were crying and not participating, but our girls did great.  I even got a text from a parent during the party stating "Lots of kids sitting on the sidelines today...but not those Goines girls!!"....It was incredible.   Jake had a birthday party at the bowling alley afterwards- we're officially into the crazy birthday season with all kids being invited to separate things!  

It was bike to school day on Wednesday, so Jake rode his scooter- he fell only twice :)