School’s Out for Summer!

We’re nearly two weeks into summer already and here’s what the kids have been up to…  (as I typed this out I realized it’s just a play-by-play of the kids activities which I get is pretty boring and mundane and I don’t intend to record this stuff often, but it’s typed already so I’ll post it just for the sake of us remembering)

ABIGAIL:

Abigail picked up additional summer shifts working at Peak Spine & Sport, approx 20-25 hours a week.  She’s also taking as many babysitting jobs as she can.  She’s still has her eyes set on going to Africa next summer for a humanitarian trip so she’s saving, saving, saving.

The day school got out she went to a youth activity and then a got together with a group of friends for smores and hanging out until late.  There’s been a lot of late nights waiting for kids to get home it seems.  One after another after another.  She’s working hard and playing harder.

Last week she attended EFY in Tacoma for her third year – perhaps a post on that to come.   Spoiler alert – she LOVED it!

I got this picture of her and Nicole before I left them for the week.

CARLY:

Carly’s last day of school plans fell through so we reached out to a couple customers and booked some last minute container cleanings for that afternoon.  She had a full schedule for the following day and was able to get through all 12 cans much quicker than expected.  She wasn’t really looking forward to running her cleaning business again this year, but now that she’s got a week behind her and some cold hard cash I don’t think it’s looking quite so dreadful.  Carly still continues to have a inflow of cash from babysitting regularly as well.

Carly had a couple fun birthday parties during the first few days of summer break.  Casey’s party was a sleepover (which Carly stayed at until 11pm – no sleepovers for the Fletcher kids) then returned in the morning and spent the day at the Wild Waves amusement park.  The other party was for Alyssa, Abigail is BFF’s with Alyssa’s sister, Megan so both girls went to the party, which was nice because Abigail could do all the driving to Carnation and back.  Another super late night as Carly went to ANOTHER party afterward and Abigail was off babysitting until after midnight.  Working hard and playing hard for this girl too.

Carly likewise attended EFY in Tacoma last week – hopefully we’ll have some pictures and stories to come.  Here’s a couple I took when I dropped her off…

JASON:

Jason started summer off with a Bang! On the night before the last day of school, his buddy Matthew invited him and a few other friends to go out to dinner to celebrate.  Not just any dinner.  His parents took nine boys (3-4 friends for each of their two sons) to the Sugar Factory.  If you’re not familiar with it, google it now.  I did and I was SUPER jealous.  Each of the boys were able to order dinner AND dessert.  To say they enjoyed it would be a massive understatement.

On the last day of school Jason was invited to go biking with his buddy Hyrum and a few other boys.  Hyrum’s Mom packed up a bunch of goodies, including smores and they biked and played games at a park for a few hours.

The next day, Jason was invited to a birthday party for Logan.  They ate pizza at Logan’s house and then went to the movies to watch Solo: A Star Wars Story, complete with popcorn and candy. Jason thought he was pretty clever to hide Logan’s gift card in a box full of candy hidden in a bunch of grocery bags.

He’s looking forward to earning some money working along side Carly this summer.  Who knows maybe he’ll be running the business in a year or two.

KATIE: 

Katie had her first piano lesson on the last day of school.  She grumbled and grumbled about taking lessons until she actually took a lesson.  She has listened to her older siblings complain about piano for years so she wasn’t thrilled about starting.  Kori is such a great teacher for beginning students and Katie has really been enjoying it and has been happy to practice.  Fingers crossed that the complaining doesn’t start for many, many years.

Katie has been hired a few times to take care of a neighbors cat when they’ve gone out of town.  She was really excited about doing it.  She’s refills the food, changes out the water and cleans out the litter box.  Fun right?  When she got paid $20 for one weekend she REALLY got excited about it.  I gave the family a hard time about paying her too much so when they asked again this past weekend I told them that they’ve already pre-paid.  Can’t get that girl thinking money comes that easy when your eight, right?  She’s also assisting Carly in the EPIC business.

DREW:

Drew is outside with neighborhood kids each and every day.  As mentioned he’s quite attached to our neighbor Cooper.  Thankfully, the fondness is reciprocated and the boys get to play together often.  Drew has started crying on occasion lately.  I know that sounds strange, cause for many kids crying is perfectly normal, but most of my kids aren’t criers.  However, there have been some times lately where Jason and Katie go off riding bikes or something where Drew is too young to participate in and Drew gets sad and cries.  Typing that now sounds really sad, but I’m not a crier and don’t really have much tolerance for it so in the moment I’m not very compassionate towards him.  Sometimes it’s gotta be hard to be the baby of the family when all you want to do is run around with the big kids.

The Day I Missed 5th Grade Graduation

I knew there was an assembly on the last day of school and that the 5th graders would be recognized in some way for completing elementary school and moving up to middle school in the fall, but I swear I received something that said it was for students only.

So imagine my surprise and disappointment when I start receiving texts that morning, one from a friend and another from a neighbor with pictures and videos of Jason receiving a special award for Outstanding Leadership or what Jason later referred to as the “Kindness Award”.  Only two such awards were given out – one to a girl and one to a boy (my Jason!). 

Then that evening I received a text from another friend that read, “I heard Jason kicked off the flash mob today…”  She’d heard it from a neighbor so when I told her I hadn’t heard a thing about it and that it didn’t sound like something Jason would do she responded that maybe they got him mixed up with someone else.  Later that day I asked Jason about it and he very nonchalantly said it was true.  My 10 year old (almost 11 year old boy) stood in front of the entire school and got his groove on and all the fifth graders followed suit?!?  Oh how I wish I had a video of that!  I love the confidence this boy has and love even more that he is known for being kind as well.  Love this kid!

Speaking of kindness – as we were going through all the end of the year stuff that came home we came across this little gem.  A picture of Jason and his classmate with their little kindergarten buddy.  Jason volunteered every other Friday in the kindergarten classroom to help his buddy with whatever project or task they were working on.  This was the card and gift the kindergartener gave to Jason at the end of the school year.

Perhaps there’s hope for this boy of mine after all ;)

Carly’s 8th Grade Graduation {June 7}

Advancing from middle school into high school is kind of a big deal around here.  The girls tend to get new dresses and there’s a big party for the kids after the graduation ceremony.  They mail out 3 tickets per family and ask that if you don’t need all your tickets that you send that back to school for those families that want to bring a whole slew of people.  The gym fills up quickly so they open up the library and band rooms for overflow and stream the program online.  Seriously, a bit over the top in my opinion.

Anyhow, Carly and I got there early enough to secure seat in the gym.  Justin strode in just minutes before it started.  Carly picked out a dress online back in April when Abigail was looking for a MoPro dress.  Unlike our typically online ordering experiences we ordered just one dress and it worked perfectly.  She looked so beautiful and the color was perfectly suited for Carly who tends to like bold, bright clothes.

Before they passed out any of the graduation certificates they called up four boys and Carly for a special recognition.  Turns out Carly was the only girl in the school to earn a 4.0 all five semesters of middle school (grades hadn’t been completed yet for the sixth semester, but she nailed that one too).  It took me by surprise so this is the best picture I managed to snap.

And then everyone was called up to receive their certificate of completion.

After the ceremony I took Carly outside to get a picture of her with her 4.0 award and it wasn’t until after I got home that I realized she was holding the regular advancement certificate instead.  Oh, well.

We got some pictures with some of her Mormon friends

And thankfully one of the mom’s of one of her school friends sent me this picture of these great girls.

Carly stayed after for the party, which was her first experience at a middle school dance.  She’s been to church dances since she turned 14, but school dances are much different.  There was a photo booth at the event that Carly’s friends apparently had a grand time with.

Congrats Miss Carly Ann!  You are going to ROCK high school!

And even though this is a bit random for an graduation celebratory post I’m gonna stick in a couple cool projects of hers from this year so we can tie up 8th grade:

My favorite is a cast replica of her hand decorated to represent her.  I love the characteristics of herself that she chose to highlight and I think she did an amazing job integrating those into her piece. Love, love, love!

Carly painted this large portrait at the beginning of 6th grade and then they are all displayed in the middle school commons for the full three years they attend there.  Carly used to wear her hair in buns all. the. time.  This year she’s been wearing mostly braids.

Carly has great study skills, obviously – apparently she had quite the reputation for the amount of detail and organization she put into her science notebook.  We decided we needed to take a couple pictures of this before sending it to the recycle bin.

Another fun art project from ceramics.

And lastly a few stories written this year for LA – Carly puts in a lot of time on her projects and it seems like when it comes to writing she is never short on words.  I can recall a few times this year that Carly had to ask for help cutting down her stories to fit within the page limit.  She’s a girl for details!

Carly’s Lacrosse Season Wrap-Up

Carly’s lacrosse season concluded on Saturday, June 2nd with a four game jamboree.  It’s unfortunate that Justin and I missed it (we were in Sunriver) because according to her coach Carly played really well in all four games.  Her team officially finished the season undefeated 15-0.  I only made a few games this season, but I can attest that Carly’s confidence on the field has increased substantially this year.  She’s become a fantastic lacrosse player.  

Carly and Chloe after a game in March 

   

Near the end of season the team swapped out a few of their practices for a conditioning hike.  On May 3 they hiked Rattlesnake.

At the May 12 game Carly was chosen by the other team for the “Honor of the Game Award” – that was a particularly sunny day.  I like this after picture of Carly and Chloe.

During this game she was asked to participate in the face-off at least four times.  This is when two players scrap for the ball and flick it out to their teammates. 

One of the parents took some funky pictures at one of the games.  I kind of like this one and I pretty sure that’s Carly on the far left.

Going into this season Carly thought this would be her last year playing and that she wouldn’t pursue lacrosse in high school.  After such a strong season I think she’s rethinking that :)