My Mom's Retirement

 Many years ago Not long ago, my mom was beginning her first day of school as a 1st grader in Billings, Montana.  This June she finished school after 25 years teaching- most of them in 1st grade.

We had a surprise party for her at our house to celebrate her fruitful career.  It was a great celebration of her friends and colleagues from her different schools throughout the years.

The "Mountain Women" from Angier read a poem and shared great memories and love for my mom.  It is a tradition to write a poem for retirement and so neat to hear my mom's!

My dad shared some of his thoughts.

The EBS crowd, where my mom spent the last 13 years teaching, and where Abby and Zack will go to school.

Candy, a friend of my mom's for many years!

The Grant crew (GEMS)

We missed a picture with Andy but we got one of the 3 of us after a successful party.

Looking good and ready to start a new chapter!

After the 1st party the neighborhood all came over and the kids watched a movie while the adults helped us finish off the rest of the food and beverages.  They actually sat like this for almost 2 hours...

It was so fun to be able to host this for my mom and celebrate with her.  She has been such a role model for me and I look forward to see all that she will continue to do in retirement.  Even though she is not officially teaching, I know she will continue to impact so many lives through her new endeavors.  Congrats Mom!

More June Pics

Since I am trying to move into July before July is over her are some other pics to finish off the month.

More birthday parties at Pump it Up

Abs painting her nails in the backyard.

The boys putting together an end table for me

Cake Pops with the ballet girls

Dr. Abby giving daddy a check up

A little rest in the bounce house

Snuggling on the couch:)

Doing a little yoga with the kiddos.  Abby came back sporadically but  Zack actually hung with me for an hour.  

Kindergarten, Here She Comes!

On June 18th, Abby had her official Pre-K graduation ceremony. We have been really happy with her teachers and her friends at Discovery Isle.  It is still hard to believe that she is going to kindergarten but on the other hand we are all ready for elementary school.  It feels like she has been in preschool forever!

Abby's class had been practicing for their ceremony for quite a while and she was very excited to perform the songs and count to 10 in many different languages.  I had no idea how many she knew including Tagalog, Dutch, Russian, Chinese and a few others.  It is a very multicultural class and Abby is very aware of her friends different cultures and traditions.  Her teachers suggested that some kids could wear their cultural outfits for celebrations so Abby felt compelled to wear and Aloha dress because she is "Hawaiian".

Each kid had an opportunity to share what they learned in preschool and afterwards Abby said, "That was so embarrassing!"

A very proud little bro.

Abby has learned so much this year.  It has been so fun to see her start to read and write and make some great friends that she will have great memories of for years to come!  She really loves art and the many crafts they have done through out the year.  We are so thankful for the well rounded preschool experience that she has had and that she loves school.

The celebration was right in the middle of the day on a Wednesday ( during Matt's last week of school!).   We both had to do some major juggling but made it work to see our big girl graduate.  I' sure this is the first of many events that we will need to do that for.

Father's Day 2014

My dad and I went to dinner for an early Father's day celebration.  I get to see him a lot but there is always a lot going on so it was nice to have some quality time to hang out.

Zack made Matt a shirt for Matt in preschool - he is "Hands Down Best Dad"

We celebrated with my parents, uncles, my brother and my aunt Laurie who was in town.

The kids made Matt a stepping stone and got him some new clothes:).

Aunt Laurie painted the kids' faces.  A major hit!

Happy Father's day to our amazing dad and grandpas!

Encinitas Gardens and Beach Day

Encinitas is great beach town and home of yoga and all things zen in the north county.  We packed up for the day and visited the meditation garden.  It was beautiful and serene, well at least it was serene until we showed up!  We had to coach the kids on quiet meditation... still working on that

 

After the visit to the gardens we drove over to moonlight beach and spent the day enjoying the beautiful weather and relaxing.

The kids really wanted to be buried up to their heads.  It looked fun but didn't last too long when they realized they had to stay still.