That's a wrap

A lot of things are wrapping up for the year. Mia had her piano recital to wrap up her 2nd year of piano lessons. Thanks, Janelle, for another great year!

Joshua is showing his support for a job well done.  If you can't make it out, he wrote "Good Job" on his hand.

Dee finished up her 25th and final year at Lynden Christian (over 30 years overall). We had a luncheon at school for her and gave her a book which included all her class pictures from the last 25 years as well as some notes from past students and co-workers.

Holly wrapped up a successful year playing baseball. Her last game, she even belted out into the outfield!

Lucas, Tyler and Joey concluded their pre-school year with a Shoebox parade. Each of them was given a letter and they and their family :) had to decorate it to represent that letter. Glad that is done!

Field Day is always a fun day that everyone looks forward to at the end of the year. Mia and Holly were on the same team this year. Go White Team!

There's still time to play in between everything else. The activity of the month has been snail collecting. It truly has been a group effort and they've constructed quite the small city for these little creatures.

Grandma, this was Tyler talking to you last Sunday on the phone.  I'm not sure what he was talking about.

I think every day last week more and more "stuff" came home from school. Tuesday Holly took home her artwork folder FULL of great things they'd worked on all year.

And while we've been busy doing all this "stuff" it's been beautiful and sunny and HOT!!

So HOT that this is what our cupcakes looked like Thursday afternoon after sitting on the counter all day. They used to look like baseballs.

Saying good-bye to teachers was rather hard this year. We had some AWESOME ones and I don't think anyone was to eager to say good-bye.

We had Heritage Days (formerly known and Holland Days) yesterday. The weather was perfect, a little overcast, for a day full of parades and dancing. Thanks, Grandma, for the BEAUTIFUL new costumes this year!

So I'm sure you're wondering what we've been up to

Lots!  Since the weather has been awesome and school is winding down we've been busy playing.  

We spent a beautiful Sunday afternoon out at the bay.  There were lots of rocks for throwing and as the tide was slowly going out  it left plenty of great sand for digging in.

Last week Holly had her last field trip of the year.  It was to Tenant Lake and Hovander Park.  Another sunny day for pond dipping, bird watching and insect identifying. 

Right after school we took off to Seattle for a Mariners game.  It was the boys first one and as Tyler said "It wasn't what I was expecting!"  It was a little bigger than they thought it would be.  

As we were leaving the parking garage to go into the game, the parking attendant asked the kids if they liked baseball cards.  They all got a handful of great cards to check out.  As we were walking in Lucas handed me a card and said "I don't like this one."  It happened to be Alex Rodriguez...thought that was rather funny.  But another former Mariner, Randy Johnson was pitching for the Giants which was pretty cool.  We would have kept his card had we gotten one. 

We made it to the bottom of the 7th inning before we headed for home.  Thankfully we left when we did.  The game went into 12 innings and got done right around 11:00, we were almost home by then!

The next night we headed back to Birch Bay for a BBQ with friends.  It was another great night out there.

Sunday night we had our own little backyard BBQ complete with hot dogs and s'mores.

And Monday was a day to work around the house, dig for worms and hunt for snails and caterpillars.  Now to just finish out the school year!

A day at Pioneer Park

 

These are a random mix of photos from Mia's 4th grade class field trip yesterday.  Yes, Traci, Sam is holding a dead bee!  I'm messing around with the collage option in Picasa (pretty fun!)  If you want to see the photos a little better just click on the image to open a new window of it.  (And Betsy...2 posts in a row with a photo of me...just for you!)  :)

Mother's Day

Mother's Day this year was spent up at Silver Lake.  We did a combined  family birthday party for Mia/Mother's Day BBQ all in one.  It was a beautiful, sunny day and everyone got a chance to get out in the boat to do some fishing, too.  Just as the clouds started to roll in, we all packed up and headed home.  It was a great day to relax and hang out together.

Mia has found a new hobby this week.  Eric took home a bunch of scrap wood with the intention of using it for ramps and roads for the boys matchbox cars.  They never actually ended up using them for that purpose but they have been used to keep Mia busy.  She's been busy constructing houses for snails (after watching Hotel for Dogs) :) and also making American Girl doll furniture.  Which, she informed me, is MUCH cheaper than the real thing.  Good work, Mia!   You're making Dad proud. 

The cute thing is, Mia received this American Girl Doll Crafts project book as a gift and now she has a little desk for her dolls to work on their crafts at.

The girls turn

The girls had their turn to go fishing on Thursday night, Grandpa came along, too.  Eric's parents have been the lucky recipients of all these beauties (from the other night and tonight). Holly even parted with her prize catch, she caught the BIGGEST one and Mia caught the MOST. (I saw all the tally marks as proof) While they were out fishing, L, T, and J and I were deciding on what to do for dinner.  Lucas really wanted me grill the rest of the clams from Saturday, so I did.  

Grandma had stopped over for a little while and was roped into eating one.

I know I accidentally cut Grandma off some of these but Lucas' expressions are priceless watching her eat it.   Thanks, Grandma, for making his night!