End-of-School Events

Our last day of school was Thursday, June 4. It was the latest we've ever gotten out of school before, due to the fact that the elementary school got a new roof last summer, so we started two weeks later than normal as a result. It was hard going to school in June; we were all ready to be done the end of May!! And it didn't help that the last week of school was especially chaotic, both during the day and in the evenings. All four kids were involved in multiple activities/events (not all of them were school related), and it was a juggling act trying to make it to all of them! Here's some of the school-end stuff that the boys did that last week (not including field trips):

AMMON:

Ammon was invited to attend the high school awards banquet, but we weren't sure exactly what his award would be for. Each department gave individual awards in different areas, and Ammon received his award from the music department. 

He earned his Academic Music Letter for being in audition group 2 years. Even though he's just a freshman, he was also in the high school's audition band last year as well. 

His band concert was the following evening. The jazz band played 3 pieces, and Ammon had a solo during one of the songs. It's also the same song and solo that he played at the Lagoon music competition. 

KANYON:

The same night as Ammon's high school awards ceremony (and a scout court of honor that the twins went to), Kanyon had his 2nd grade authors party. For two months, the second graders had all been working on creating a book. They all wrote their own stories, typed it up, drew pictures to illustrate the storyline, assembled it, and added nice covers to their masterpiece. At the author's party, all the books are on display, and everyone brings a potluck dish to share. Kanyon's book was called "The Fish". He decided to make a book about fish because that's something he knew he could draw pictures of! Two of his characters are named after people he knows in real life: Mr. Sloan is a missionary that has come to dinner at our house before, and Lisa is his aunt from Virginia that sends him postcards. He was very proud of his finished product, and was so happy to show it to us!

The inside of the front cover

There was a company that brought inflatables to town the last week of school, and we took Kanyon to it one night while the twins were at scouts. I went with Kanyon, and Josh went with the twins. Kanyon had so much fun jumping and playing with his friend Rudi and her brother Tane for almost two hours. When he jumped on the trampoline with harnesses, he did 8 back flips in a row. While he was waiting to go on that ride, a girl who was behind him in line said she had done 3 in a row, and no one else had been able to do that. He was determined to beat that, and did on his very first try too, which was so remarkable!

Kanyon was getting really good at climbing on the monkey bars at the school's playground, and he had me take several pictures of him playing on them while I was on recess duty. He liked playing with Merissa, and called himself her "bodyguard" during recess time.

I read to Kanyon's class once a week all year long, and the last book I read to them was a chapter book by Roald Dahl titled "Fantastic Mr. Fox". I finished it the week before school was out, so I said for the last week of school we could have a feast, just like the foxes did at the end of the book. I brought a feast to the class on the morning of the last day of school, and we watched a few short clips of the movie as well. All the food items were similar to something from the feast in the book: I brought chicken-in-a-biskit crackers (to represent the chickens), carrots (like they got for the rabbits in the story), donut holes (since one of the farmers liked to stuff goose livers in his donuts), ham and turkey slices (to represent those animals they ate), bacon bits (as a representative of the real bacon they had), apple cider (one of the farmers only drank strong cider), and blue marshmallow chicks (to represent the ducks from the story--close enough!). It was a fun ending to our weekly storytime!

At our school's Field Day, Kanyon was in the Medicine Ball Throw, the Hula Hoop Contest, and the 100m dash (that unfortunately I missed due to Kindergarten Graduation being the same morning). For the medicine ball throw, there was a mix-up in the line that he was in, and he was bumped up to the starting spot after someone a couple spots ahead of him backed out, and I wasn't prepared with my camera fast enough. This was right after he threw the ball, and it went far! I was really surprised because that ball is awkward and heavy! He got first place in 2nd grade boys.

Kanyon was a fantastic hula hooper! There were 6 second grade boys competing, and he got first place!! This again surprised me that he did so well because we don't even own a hula hoop! Although, I shouldn't really be surprised because he's always been good at keeping constant rhythm!

He kept turning around to see if there was anyone else still going

JONAH & MICAH:

The elementary school's field day was the day before the last day of school. The school had never done this type of large-scale event before, instead, the individual grades used to all have their own track meet. But we had a new principal and a new P.E. teacher this year, and other schools have done this, and they wanted to try it, too. They split the 1st-5th graders into 3 teams: Green, Blue, and Orange. There were kids of every grade on each team. Then the kids picked what events they wanted to participate in, and most had 1 or 2 representatives from each gender & grade on the team, then they all competed against each other. It turned out pretty fun, but there were some drawbacks. When they used to do track meets, the kids could participate in up to 4 events and most did, but in this case, they were more limited and most kids only did 2-3 events due to the limited capacity and the number of students involved. And because Jonah and Micah are in a predominantly male class (45 out of 60 are boys in their grade), they had even less choice of what they could do, which they didn't like. 

The stands were full of participants and spectators

There were always 2 events going on: one on the track, and one on the field

Jonah and Kanyon were both on team blue, and Micah was on team green. I didn't realize beforehand that they were supposed to wear their team's color to school that day--and apparently a lot of people didn't know that either, so some of the kids in Micah's class chose to have team spirit by writing their team name on their faces instead!

Jonah and Micah were each in a running event, but unfortunately I missed it due to Kindergarten Graduation being at the same time (thankfully Josh got to see them do that, but he didn't take any photos). Micah ran the 400m and got 2nd place, and Jonah ran the 100m and got 4th place. Micah was also in the water brigade, and Jonah was in the egg relay (which were both team events). They wanted to each do more events, but due to limitations they couldn't.

The day after school got out, Jonah and Micah had 11 year old scout camp. It was organized by the stake and was a 2-day event, and it was also their first scout overnighter. They met on Friday morning at the city park to pass off swimming requirements, then they headed to Cockrell Campground with the leaders, the other boys, and all their gear for the remainder of the activities.

Jonah and Micah are both in the back, near Kota who's wearing the green shirt

Josh went up in the evening and helped with dinner. It was the same night as high school graduation, so Ammon had to play in the band at that, and I had to conduct the band (for the first time ever) because Mr. A had to go to his grandpa's funeral. Because of his work schedule, Josh wasn't able to spend the night with them, but he was glad he got to go and spend time with them that evening. On Saturday morning, the boys went on a 5-mile hike. After lunch, they finally returned back home. They were tired, but they'd had a good time, and I'm glad the stake provided this activity for them because they got a lot of requirements passed off, and they had fun while doing it, too.

Micah's group returning from the hike

Jonah's group returning from the hike