Alice made it through the entire month of May with just stickers, and no numbers indicating poor behavior. I think she's getting better at pushing her teachers just to the brink, but not over. Nevertheless, I'm going to count that as progress. And it's nice that she's ending the year on a positive note!
Simon wanted to paint spirals on paper plates. The two blacks ones were his first attempts (maybe he didn't know what a spiral was?). But once I demonstrated one for him, he got the hang of it, hence the three spirals on the right.
Why are they on the bathroom floor, one might ask? At Simon's school, the drying rack for the artwork is in the bathroom. Simon has inferred that artwork must dry in bathrooms. He always brings his paintings here.
On Memorial day afternoon, Alice had her next-to-last playdate with Grayson before he and his family move to Virginia. We went hiking at Umstead. Alice and Grayson were super cute and ran ahead most of the time, which was nice because then we grownups could have a conversation.
Down at the river, Alice and Grayson collected a lot of clam shells!
By the time Zac got home from work and we finished packing everything up, we got a late start and we arrived at our campsite around 8pm. We just set up, had a tiny fire (much to Simon's enjoyment [fire] and disappointment [tiny]). Then we went to bed.
Alice woke up at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning, so I took her down the hill the play at the water's edge, so she wouldn't wake up the whole campground.
Then we went back up and had donuts and scrambled eggs for breakfast.
Then we went back down to the water to play.
It's always a good sign when you have a clothesline full of wet, muddy clothes by 10 am!
Once it warmed up a bit, we changed the kids into their suits and drove to the campground beach. The water was quite cold, but Alice was still swimming around in it the whole time. Simon and Zac and I kept closer to shore. The beach was not very crowded when we got there, so we were able to get a picnic table right at the water's edge. We even brought our campstove over and made macaroni and cheese with ham and peas for lunch. After all that swimming, it was only slightly surprising that Alice had five helpings.
After going back to the campsite that afternoon and taking naps, the kids played around with the water squirters.
The next morning the kids slept in a bit longer.
More powdered donuts and eggs for breakfast.
The kids are piling up sticks to build a "spider fort."
Then we went down and played at the shore while Zac packed up the tent.
Other Things to Remember from This Trip:
Simon picking up daddy-long-leg spiders, holding them up to his cheek or neck and squealing, "They're tickling me!" hysterically, while the spider legs tickled him. *Shudder*
Simon seeing a large slug on a log, then shouting, "A mollusk! A mollusk!" as he ran to pick it up.
Also to remember: The kids were pretty great and not too whiny. Alice even sat still at the campfire for a while in the evenings.
"I love Clever Cat because she is smart. She is cool! I want to be Clever Cat for the parade."
Alice's kindergarten had a parade where they dressed up as one of the LetterLand characters. Alice went as Clever Cat. They did this writing assignment beforehand. What I love is the picture of the adoring crowd as Alice walks by dressed as Clever Cat.
Based on recent pictures, it seemed like Alice forgot how to smile on command. So I put my phone in selfie mode, gave it to her, and told her to use it to practice smiling until she remembered how. She took the following pictures:
Not a single smile. But look at those pretty ponies!
Simon has been reciting bits and pieces (and variations on) the mother's day poem his class had to memorize. Although I didn't hear him say a word of this at the actual program, he evidently learned some of it and is operating on a delay. I got a bit of it on video at bedtime tonight.
As the end of the school year nears, I am really sad that Alice will not be at this school next year (because we moved and got assigned to the base school for our new address starting next year). She has made many friends, but most of all Brantley and Julia. They are in her class and also play together in the after-school care program.
Brantley, Alice, Julia. Kindergarten.
I know she'll make new friends at her new school next year of course, but these three are pretty sweet.
Nothing terribly exciting happens in this video, except that the kids were playing happily together for a long time this morning. It was quite nice. Maybe there is hope after all.
Because Simon is now in love with planes, we took the kids to the "Wings Over Wayne" airshow at Seymour Johnson Airforce Base in nearby (70 minute drive) Goldsboro, NC.
Alice was rather bored most of the time because she is a hands-on learner and wanted to go in the cockpits of all the display planes and push all the buttons. Simon constantly wondered when the display planes were going to take off, because he wanted to see what they looked like up in the sky, and really, it's just silly to have all these flying machines grounded.
The morning was really cool and cloudy, but the clouds soon lifted, leaving us woefully unprepared for the sun (and without sunscreen). We took shelter under the wing of a plane to watch the airshows for a while, and also wandered around some.
This video of the Raptors, right before we left. You can see how excited Simon still is, even although he's seen stunt planes and jets flying for a couple of hours.
On the bus heading back to our parking lot. Only slightly sunburnt.
